News
Law Office Management
Jun. 2, 2008
No Apologies
In April, just weeks before Bill Lerach was to report to federal prison, reporter Gabe Friedman traveled to La Jolla to interview the now-suspended lawyer at his coastside mansion. Their conversation lasted about an hour, and through it all Lerach hardly seemed remorseful. Occasionally, his voice grew strained, and once, while insisting that his was merely an ethics violation that the government had turned into a federal crime, Lerach seemed on the verge of losing his temper. But then, sipping on a Diet Coke, he managed to maintain his composure.
Here is an edited transcript of what he had to say:
Q: It took eight years for prosecutors to get you to plead guilty. Just how strong a case do you think they ultimately had?
A: In my view, and certainly in the years that are relevant to the investigation, nobody had any perception that splitting part of the legal fee with a plaintiff was a crime. Nobody thought it was a crime. If people thought it was a crime, they probably wouldn't have done it. People knew that it was ethically dubious, at best. That's why the payments were secreted. They were against the ethical rules as the rules were written and interpreted, and had they become known, it would have empowered hostile judges to deny class certification or throw people out of cases. Now, it's interesting that other plaintiffs lawyers wouldn't have used it against anyone, because they were all engaged in the same type of behavior. So it wasn't a problem from that standpoint. Nobody had ever been prosecuted criminally in the history of the world for splitting a fee with a plaintiff. It had never, ever happened, and believe me, we researched it.
You know what [Soviet secret police chief] Beria used to say to Stalin: "You find me the man, I'll find you the crime." Once a decision is made that they're going to find a way to prosecute somebody criminally, then they have to find some way to pigeonhole the questionable conduct into something that fits into the federal system. Here, they found a way to use a perjury statute they had and say it applied to civil cases, and then argue that excerpts of depositions or other declarations filed by the plaintiffs were false, the lawyers knew they were false-therefore there's a conspiracy to commit perjury, and it becomes a federal crime. That's what they did. Then they put a name on the payment, called a "kickback," which is a highly pejorative term suggestive of illegality. But there's no anti-kickback statute that says it is a federal crime for a lawyer to kick back part of his fee to his client. Never has been. One man's kickback is another person's fee split. But, obviously, they're smart. They want to inflame a judge or inflame a jury, so they use terminology like kickback to describe the payment.
Q: Do you believe that Milberg Weiss was targeted by the Bush administration?
A: Look, there's no question that this was a politically motivated prosecution. [D]o I think that John Ashcroft and George Bush met one day in the Oval Office and said, "You know, we'd really like to get Lerach and [Melvin] Weiss, and we're going to dream up a prosecution."? No, I don't. Do I believe that at some point powerful figures in that administration saw this unfolding and saw an opportunity to do great damage to people they viewed to be their enemies, their adversaries, and a threat to them? Of course I do. There's no question that that's what happened. You know, you can be targeted and be guilty. They're not mutually inconsistent. But the question is: When should an ethical violation be escalated into a federal crime and the federal government spend $40 million and eight years prosecuting it?
Q: How difficult was it for you to come to the decision to plead guilty?
A: Once [partner David] Bershad was indicted, it was obvious to me that it was a very dangerous situation and probably just a question of time until Dave decided to cooperate with the prosecutors. And I knew that if Dave did that, he would narrate the events in a way that it would be very difficult for them to piece together and prove otherwise. Once Dave began to cooperate, I knew that it was pretty inevitable that I would have to do something.
Q: Before your sentencing, the judge asked you to address the court, and you expressed a great deal of contrition. If you had known then that the judge was going to give you the maximum sentence, would you have said something different?
A: Well, you're in a very difficult situation. The system absolutely requires you to be contrite. The system is not going to tolerate your blasting the system or justifying your conduct. [Y]ou know, the whole system is set up to force you to confess your guilt and express your sorrow and contrition for it. So, do I wish, in retrospect, that I had stood up there and made a fire-burning speech that you could have put on the front page that justified everything I did? Sure, I wish I had. But that was not a realistic alternative at the moment. [Defense attorney John] Keker would have strangled me.
Q: How do you view your legacy as a lawyer?
A: I didn't start out to have a legacy, and I didn't do the work to have a legacy. I don't want to say I don't care what my legacy is, because I don't think anyone can. But legacy's really not important to me. I didn't set out to change the world. I don't think I did change the world. If there's a legacy, there's a legacy.
We did what we did. You want to hate us for it, be my guest. You want to say, "You know what, it took a lot of guts, these guys worked hard, they stood up to a lot of powerful people, called them to account, gave people a feeling that the justice system was more accessible to people," that would be fine with me too. I'm satisfied with myself. I'm not ashamed of myself in any way. And I know that will infuriate some people, but that's the way I feel. You want to punish me, punish me. Put me in jail. I'll accept my punishment, and then I'll get on with my life and do other things.
Here is an edited transcript of what he had to say:
Q: It took eight years for prosecutors to get you to plead guilty. Just how strong a case do you think they ultimately had?
A: In my view, and certainly in the years that are relevant to the investigation, nobody had any perception that splitting part of the legal fee with a plaintiff was a crime. Nobody thought it was a crime. If people thought it was a crime, they probably wouldn't have done it. People knew that it was ethically dubious, at best. That's why the payments were secreted. They were against the ethical rules as the rules were written and interpreted, and had they become known, it would have empowered hostile judges to deny class certification or throw people out of cases. Now, it's interesting that other plaintiffs lawyers wouldn't have used it against anyone, because they were all engaged in the same type of behavior. So it wasn't a problem from that standpoint. Nobody had ever been prosecuted criminally in the history of the world for splitting a fee with a plaintiff. It had never, ever happened, and believe me, we researched it.
You know what [Soviet secret police chief] Beria used to say to Stalin: "You find me the man, I'll find you the crime." Once a decision is made that they're going to find a way to prosecute somebody criminally, then they have to find some way to pigeonhole the questionable conduct into something that fits into the federal system. Here, they found a way to use a perjury statute they had and say it applied to civil cases, and then argue that excerpts of depositions or other declarations filed by the plaintiffs were false, the lawyers knew they were false-therefore there's a conspiracy to commit perjury, and it becomes a federal crime. That's what they did. Then they put a name on the payment, called a "kickback," which is a highly pejorative term suggestive of illegality. But there's no anti-kickback statute that says it is a federal crime for a lawyer to kick back part of his fee to his client. Never has been. One man's kickback is another person's fee split. But, obviously, they're smart. They want to inflame a judge or inflame a jury, so they use terminology like kickback to describe the payment.
Q: Do you believe that Milberg Weiss was targeted by the Bush administration?
A: Look, there's no question that this was a politically motivated prosecution. [D]o I think that John Ashcroft and George Bush met one day in the Oval Office and said, "You know, we'd really like to get Lerach and [Melvin] Weiss, and we're going to dream up a prosecution."? No, I don't. Do I believe that at some point powerful figures in that administration saw this unfolding and saw an opportunity to do great damage to people they viewed to be their enemies, their adversaries, and a threat to them? Of course I do. There's no question that that's what happened. You know, you can be targeted and be guilty. They're not mutually inconsistent. But the question is: When should an ethical violation be escalated into a federal crime and the federal government spend $40 million and eight years prosecuting it?
Q: How difficult was it for you to come to the decision to plead guilty?
A: Once [partner David] Bershad was indicted, it was obvious to me that it was a very dangerous situation and probably just a question of time until Dave decided to cooperate with the prosecutors. And I knew that if Dave did that, he would narrate the events in a way that it would be very difficult for them to piece together and prove otherwise. Once Dave began to cooperate, I knew that it was pretty inevitable that I would have to do something.
Q: Before your sentencing, the judge asked you to address the court, and you expressed a great deal of contrition. If you had known then that the judge was going to give you the maximum sentence, would you have said something different?
A: Well, you're in a very difficult situation. The system absolutely requires you to be contrite. The system is not going to tolerate your blasting the system or justifying your conduct. [Y]ou know, the whole system is set up to force you to confess your guilt and express your sorrow and contrition for it. So, do I wish, in retrospect, that I had stood up there and made a fire-burning speech that you could have put on the front page that justified everything I did? Sure, I wish I had. But that was not a realistic alternative at the moment. [Defense attorney John] Keker would have strangled me.
Q: How do you view your legacy as a lawyer?
A: I didn't start out to have a legacy, and I didn't do the work to have a legacy. I don't want to say I don't care what my legacy is, because I don't think anyone can. But legacy's really not important to me. I didn't set out to change the world. I don't think I did change the world. If there's a legacy, there's a legacy.
We did what we did. You want to hate us for it, be my guest. You want to say, "You know what, it took a lot of guts, these guys worked hard, they stood up to a lot of powerful people, called them to account, gave people a feeling that the justice system was more accessible to people," that would be fine with me too. I'm satisfied with myself. I'm not ashamed of myself in any way. And I know that will infuriate some people, but that's the way I feel. You want to punish me, punish me. Put me in jail. I'll accept my punishment, and then I'll get on with my life and do other things.
#257616
Alexandra Brown
Daily Journal Staff Writer
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