Lawyers behaving badly

[RTH10260]

Rogue attorney sentenced to 37 months for defrauding clients with fake judgments
The lawyer told his clients he filed complaints and motions on their behalf while doing nothing of the kind.

EDVARD PETTERSSON /
October 3, 2022

LOS ANGELES (CN) — A disbarred attorney was sentenced to 37 months in federal prison after he pleaded guilty to defrauding his clients through faked judgments with forged signatures.

Matthew Elstein formerly with national law firm Tressler LLP, was also ordered to pay $254,000 in restitution at his sentencing Monday in Los Angeles.

U.S. District Judge Mark Scarsi wasn’t persuaded that a degenerative brain condition Elstein, 52, claims to suffer from was either at the root of his criminal conduct or a reason not to send him to prison. Instead, the judge sentenced him to the prison term prosecutors had asked for.

Elstein admitted last year that over a four-year period he had told his clients that he filed complaints, motions and other pleadings in court when, in fact, he hadn’t done anything. He billed them from legal services that he never rendered and for expenses he never incurred. He would also send his clients fraudulent court orders, settlement agreements, and other documents to convince them he had resolved the cases in their favor.

In June 2016, Elstein lied to a corporate client that they had won a $52 million default judgment and sent them a fake court order with a forged signature from the judge even though he never even filed a lawsuit for them. He then doubled up on his bluff by telling the client that the case was under seal because of a federal investigation and presented them with a fake settlement agreement between with the U.S. attorney’s office in Sacramento. The company only discovered the fraud when they reached out to the U.S. attorney’s office to authenticate the settlement.



https://www.courthousenews.com/rogue-at ... judgments/

[RTH10260]

City attorney’s husband bought a house that had $271,250 in fines. Now there’s a lawsuit

Joey Flechas
Wed, March 1, 2023 at 10:44 PM GMT+1

Miami City Attorney Victoria Méndez and her husband have been sued over allegations they orchestrated a scheme to enrich themselves by buying and flipping a Little Havana home from a man who said he was convinced to sell the house below market value.

Jose Alvarez, who inherited his family home in the 900 block of Northwest 30th Avenue after his mother died in 2017, is suing Méndez, her husband, Carlos Morales, and the city of Miami after what he claims was a coordinated effort to convince him that he needed to sell Morales his house for less than what it was worth because there were fines for code violations amounting to $271,250.

In the lawsuit, Alvarez, 70, claims that he sold the undervalued home to Morales after Méndez referred Alvarez to her husband, who owns a company called Express Homes Inc. Morales did not answer the Miami Herald’s questions about what his company does.

The three-count civil complaint, filed in Miami-Dade Circuit Court late Tuesday, states that after Morales purchased the property from Alvarez, he then renovated the house mostly without permits and used political connections at City Hall to have the violations wiped out by the city’s code enforcement board. Morales sold the home for $165,000 more than he paid for it.




https://www.yahoo.com/news/city-attorne ... 30229.html

(origial: Miami Herald)

[AndyinPA]

I didn't pay really close attention, but I saw an advertisement for the first time yesterday for an attorney who was advertising to help people who had been swindled out of their homes. It made me wonder if this is a new thing going on these days. It sounds like it might be.

[John Thomas8]

Of course it's Florida:

[RTH10260]

Lawyer apologizes for fake court citations from ChatGPT

By Ramishah Maruf, CNN
Published May 28, 2023, 9:01:00 AM

New York (CNN) — The meteoric rise of ChatGPT is shaking up multiple industries – including law, as one attorney recently found out.

Roberto Mata sued Avianca airlines for injuries he says he sustained from a serving cart while on the airline in 2019, claiming negligence by an employee. Steven Schwartz, an attorney with Levidow, Levidow & Oberman and licensed in New York for over three decades, handled Mata’s representation.

But at least six of the submitted cases by Schwartz as research for a brief “appear to be bogus judicial decisions with bogus quotes and bogus internal citations,” said Judge Kevin Castel of the Southern District of New York in an order.

The fake cases source? ChatGPT.

“The court is presented with an unprecedented circumstance,” Castel wrote in a May 4 order.

Among the purported cases: Varghese v. China South Airlines, Martinez v. Delta Airlines, Shaboon v. EgyptAir, Petersen v. Iran Air, Miller v. United Airlines, and Estate of Durden v. KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, all of which did not appear to exist to either the judge or defense, the filing said.

Schwartz, in an affidavit, said that he had never used ChatGPT as a legal research source prior to this case and, therefore, “was unaware of the possibility that its content could be false.” He accepted responsibility for not confirming the chatbot’s sources.

Schwartz is now facing a sanctions hearing on June 8.

In an affidavit this week, he said he “greatly regrets having utilized generative artificial intelligence to supplement the legal research performed herein and will never do so in the future without absolute verification of its authenticity.”

In late April, Avianca’s lawyers from Condon & Forsyth penned a letter to Castel questioning the authenticity of the cases.

In an affidavit filed Thursday, fellow attorney Peter Loduca said he “had no reason to doubt the sincerity” of Schwartz’s research and that he had no role in the research.



https://www.cnnphilippines.com/business ... atgpt.html

[chancery]

Here's a gift link for a better and more complete article from the NY Times:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/27/nyre ... =url-share

Law twitter was all over this starting late Friday night, after Mike Dunford posted a link to the docket.

https://twitter.com/questauthority/stat ... 9259295746

Mike Dunford
@questauthority
Hey, lawtwitter -

Check out the last few entries on this docket. Trust me.

ChatGPT making up citations, notary fraud, this has it all. Oh and an incandescent federal judge.

Here are links to:

Defendant's 4/26 studiedly uncontentious letter about the bogus nature of the cases submitted by the plaintiff in response to a court order: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap ... 8.30.0.pdf

the first order to show cause, which begins: "The Court is presented with an unprecedented circumstance."(5/4)(don't miss the footnotes): https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap ... 31.0_1.pdf

the responses of the hapless lawyers (5/25, 2 affidavits):

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap ... 8.32.0.pdf

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap ... 32.1_1.pdf

and the second order to show cause (5/26) (again, read the footnote):

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap ... 33.0_1.pdf

[chancery]

In Mata v. Avianca, Inc., the case in which clueless lawyers submitted bogus court decisions dreamed up by ChatGPT, the lawyers have belatedly hired very good and very expensive lawyers to respond to the court's second order to show cause for sanctions (May 26, posted above).

Recall that there was an earlier order to show case for sanctions (May 4, posted above), in response to which Steven Schwartz, the lawyer who did the "research" but whose name is not on the papers, and Peter LoDuca, the lawyer who signed the papers but claims he didn't know anything about the research, submitted affidavits on May 25 (posted above).

The two affidavits are exceptionally lame; on their face they disclose bad conduct without presenting any considerations that might temper the judge's inclination to issue severe sanctions. And LoDuca has the additional problem that his affidavit has a misdated jurat above the signature of the notary, who happens to be Mr. Schwartz. Language directed to LaDuca in the second order to show cause ("use of a false and fraudulent notarization") indicates that the judge is not inclined to view this as a forgivable typo.

Sometime later, Schwartz and the law firm hired Frankfurt Kurnit (formerly Frankfurt Garbus), a firm best known for copyright and IP work, which also has a large practice representing lawyers in trouble. LoDuca has hired Morvillo Abramowitz, a premier white collar criminal defense firm. Their job will be to do what the May 25 affidavits did not: persuade the judge that their clients realize the enormity of their conduct and present arguments that might temper the judge's wrath. Cf. the words of the confession in Anglican liturgy:

We do earnestly repent, and are heartily sorry for these our misdoings; the remembrance of them is grievous unto us, the burden of them is intolerable.

Morvillo is now facing a situation. Frankfurt Kurnit requested and received an extension from June 2 to June 6 to submit a response to the May 26 order to show case. Morvillo immediately wrote to make sure that they would get the benefit of the same extension.

The response from the judge, an endorsement handwritten on the letter and transcribed in the docket, is the stuff of nightmares.

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap ... 8.42.0.pdf

ENDORSEMENT: Mr. LoDuca is differently situated from Mr. Schwartz and the Firm. He has availed* himself of a full and fair opportunity to respond to the Court's OSC regarding non-existent case law and three (3) possible grounds for sanctions. He is not entitled to a do-over. The only point of response to the supplemental OSC of May 26 is whether he, in fact, physically appeared before Mr. Schwartz, a notary public, on April 25, 2023 and took an oath to tell the truth. That should be a simple and straight forward matter. But if he needs until June 6, 2023 to respond on this point he may have the time. Application Granted. SO ORDERED

Morvillo is in a tough spot. My inclination would be to submit papers that amount to a do-over not withstanding the judge's order, coupled with a request that the judge reconsider the prohibition on additional argument with respect to sanctions. The worst that can happen is that the judge will say "no," but he'll see the new arguments, and Morvillo will have protected the record for appeal.

It's likely to annoy the judge, but there are times when you can't worry too much about that. This judge is already on beyond annoyed. The apt term used earlier by Mike Dunford/@questauthority is "incandescent."

And even though the endorsement indicates that Schwartz and the firm are not subject to the "no do-over" ruling, the lawyers from Frankfurt Kurnit have every reason to anticipate an equally difficult time for their clients at the hearing.

The response of lawtwitter to what LoDuca and Schwartz did has been interesting. There's been lots of , but also many lawyers posting that learning about what happened has made them physically ill.

I share both reactions.

_________
* The docket says "awarded," but that's a mistranscription. The handwritten order says "availed."

[chancery]

Their job will be to do what the May 25 affidavits did not: persuade the judge that their clients realize the enormity of their conduct and present arguments that might temper the judge's wrath.

I should have mentioned the most important part of their job, namely to provide realistic advice about what to expect in the inevitable proceedings before the Disciplinary Committee of the Appellate Division, Second Department, and to keep their clients from doing or saying anything that would make their situation worse.

[Foggy]

I am now going to present my rant about lawyers, numbers, and dates. This is apparently from a handwritten order by a judge.

... non-existent case law and three (3) possible grounds for sanctions.

Of course, this one is absolutely necessary. If you just write "three" or if you just use the number 3 all by itself without adding the word "three" to it, then lawyers and judges have no idea what you are talking about.

This has been proven on a hundred million (100,000,000) occasions.

The only point of response to the supplemental OSC of May 26 is whether he, in fact, physically appeared before Mr. Schwartz, a notary public, on April 25, 2023 and took an oath to tell the truth. That should be a simple and straight forward matter. But if he needs until June 6, 2023 to respond on this point ...

That's a mistake on the first one. When a judge writes a date in an order (or a lawyer writes a date in a brief), they must ALWAYS use the year, regardless how obvious it is that the order is about this year. So that first one should be "May 26, 2023".

Honestly, if the order said:

The only point of response to the supplemental OSC of May 26 is whether he, in fact, physically appeared before Mr. Schwartz, a notary public, on April 25 and took an oath to tell the truth. That should be a simple and straight forward matter. But if he needs until June 6 to respond on this point ...

... then the poor lawyers would have no idea in the world what year the judge was talking about. It might even be grounds for appeal, if you have Kari Lake's lawyers.

What, just because everything in the case since it was filed happened this year, the lawyers are supposed to be able to figure out what year the judge is talking about? That's not how it works. That's not how any of this works.

[chancery]

Although there's been lots of chatter about how angry Judge Castel seems to be, and how much trouble the lawyers are in, there hasn't been much knowledgable discussion concerning the likely range of sanctions -- both from this judge and from a disciplinary committee.

I'm not particularly knowledgeable myself, but it's my impression that it takes an act of grave dishonesty to incur more than payment of the other side's legal fees and a few thousand dollars paid to the court.

And while submitting bogus authority has aspects of dishonesty, it smacks more of monumental carelessness, incompetence, and stupidity rather than a conscious effort to defraud the court. And while there were plenty of red-alert warnings about the dangers of using AI in general, and the bogus nature of the particular AI product at issue, the judge will likely cut the respondents some slack due to the novelty of the technology.

A lawyer is certainly obliged to be careful, competent, and to use good professional judgement. But I think it would be unusual to administer career-ending sanctions for a single blunder, even a big one, especially since the problem was discovered immediately. Neither the court nor opposing counsel was fooled, and I suspect that the fees incurred by Avianca's lawyers were in the four figure range, possibly very low five figures.

Judge Castel was himself confronted with a comparable situation in Wedington v. Sentry Systems, Inc. , 18-cv-10055 (PKC) (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 17, 2020). https://casetext.com/case/weddington-v-sentry-indus-1

Sentry Industries, Inc. ("Sentry"), the sole defendant in this diversity action, moved to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction asserting that the plaintiff Savoyr Weddington was a citizen of Texas and that Sentry was also a citizen of Texas. In fact, Sentry was a corporation organized under the laws of New York with its principal place of business in New York, exactly as had been alleged by Weddington in the First Amended Complaint ("FAC"). Because there was no basis in fact for Sentry's lawyers to assert that their own client was a Texas corporation, the Court sua sponte issued an Order to Show Cause why Sentry's lawyers, Scott Lawrence Haworth, Daniel Craig Rosenberg, and the law firm of Haworth Barber & Gertsman, LLC ( the "Law Firm") (collectively, "Respondents") ought not be sanctioned under Rule 11, Fed. R. Civ. P., and the inherent power of the Court for making specified untrue assertions.

As in the Avianca litigation, there had been plenty of warning signals. Opposing counsel told the offending lawyers, repeatedly, that their client was a New York corporation, and their own client told them the same thing as well. Somehow the lawyers doubled down until it was too late. The judge found that their behavior rose to the level of bad faith.

The lawyer who wrote the papers had practiced for 10 years, and his supervisor for 25 years, and neither had had any disciplinary issues. The court noted that the junior lawyer had been fired.

The ruling: the two lawyers and the firm were jointly and severally liable for a monetary sanction of $3,000, and opposing counsel's fees.

So if I were to guess, that's the order of magnitude of sanctions that seems likely to me, plus some remedial continuing legal education. But it's always possible that Judge Castel wants to make an example of these lawyers that will strike terror in the hearts of the members of the bar.

We'll see.

[chancery]

I am now going to present my rant about lawyers, numbers, and dates.

You're not wrong, Foggy, and I sympathize, a little, but these are hard habits to break. While the context of the document may be obvious now, it might not be so obvious when looked at years later, and it's tiresome to have to assess the magnitude of the risk of confusion rather than following the routine practice.

[keith]

I am now going to present my rant about lawyers, numbers, and dates.

You're not wrong, Foggy, and I sympathize, a little, but these are hard habits to break. While the context of the document may be obvious now, it might not be so obvious when looked at years later, and it's tiresome to have to assess the magnitude of the risk of confusion rather than following the routine practice.

And when the case drags on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on...

[RTH10260]

Attorney accused of rapes in Boston in 2007 and 2008 faces charges
Matthew Nilo, 35, was arrested Tuesday in New Jersey and will be taken to Massachusetts. He will plead not guilty, his attorney said.

June 2, 2023, 5:19 AM CEST
By Phil Helsel
An attorney accused in a series of sexual assaults in Boston more than a decade ago waived extradition in New Jersey on Thursday and was set to return to Massachusetts, officials said.

Matthew Nilo, 35, is charged with rape, kidnapping and assault counts from incidents that occurred in 2007 and 2008, Boston police said.

Joseph Bonavolonta, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Boston field office, said Nilo was an "accused serial rapist and kidnapper."

The FBI and Boston police arrested Nilo, who is formerly from the city’s North End, Tuesday outside his residence in Weehawken, Bonavolonta said.

Four victims have been waiting years to learn the identity of their attacker, he said.

"We certainly realize that identifying this individual does not ease their pain — nothing can," Bonavolonta said at a news conference Tuesday. "But hopefully it answers some questions."

Investigators used investigative genetic genealogy, which uses DNA analysis but also traditional genealogy to develop leads, to help identify Nilo, he said. Boston police requested help in October, and Nilo's identity was confirmed last month, he said.

Nilo will plead not guilty, his attorney, Jeff Garrigan, told reporters Thursday.

“He’s looking forward to fighting these charges and showing that he’s innocent,” Garrigan said.




https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/at ... -rcna87373

[Greatgrey]

Ok, he’s a lawyer.

The Tennessee anti-drag law got shot down by Fed Judge Parker. Specifically…

IMG_9243.jpeg (53.59 KiB) Viewed 3194 times

The bill’s sponsor, TN Rep Chris Todd (a lawyer), thinks the ruling applies to only to Shelby County (Memphis).



Whadda ya think?

[northland10]

...Cf. the words of the confession in Anglican liturgy:

We do earnestly repent, and are heartily sorry for these our misdoings; the remembrance of them is grievous unto us, the burden of them is intolerable.

I have been mainly in Rite II liturgies (or the second choice of confessions in Rite I) so it has been some time since I acknowledged and bewailed my manifold sins and wickedness, which I from time to time most grievously have committed.

[chancery]

...Cf. the words of the confession in Anglican liturgy:

We do earnestly repent, and are heartily sorry for these our misdoings; the remembrance of them is grievous unto us, the burden of them is intolerable.

I have been mainly in Rite II liturgies (or the second choice of confessions in Rite I) so it has been some time since I acknowledged and bewailed my manifold sins and wickedness, which I from time to time most grievously have committed.

[chancery]

A thought while waiting for the submissions from Frankfurt Kurnit & Morvillo Abramowitz in Mata v. Avianca.

There's no play here. There's no angle. There's no champagne room. I'm not a miracle worker, I'm a janitor. The math on this is simple. The smaller the mess the easier it is for me to clean up.

George Clooney, from the film Michael Clayton.

[Maybenaut]

A thought while waiting for the submissions from Frankfurt Kurnit & Morvillo Abramowitz in Mata v. Avianca.

There's no play here. There's no angle. There's no champagne room. I'm not a miracle worker, I'm a janitor. The math on this is simple. The smaller the mess the easier it is for me to clean up.

George Clooney, from the film Michael Clayton.

fierceredpanda’s signature

[chancery]

Ha! I'd completely forgotten that FRP's sig was how I learned about that quote.

I wish he'd come by here once & awhile.

[Phoenix520]

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

Hi, frp! We miss you!

[chancery]

Listened to Mike (@questauthority)'s stream last night as the papers were trickling in, but haven't dived into them. Printed out the brief but just glanced at it.

Tremendously smart Courtney Milan @courtneymilanharp posted some sharp analysis last night. This morning she posted some more, zeroing in on whether Schwartz was candid and complete about his interactions with ChatGPT (she doubts it). And Zuzu Petals@zuzu_bug ("I used to do Warsaw/Montreal cases and I'm currently a law librarian who spent an afternoon trying to recreate Schwartz's ChatGPT search") replied to Milan with a thread that suggests that Schwartz deliberately cut and pasted ChatGPT snippets to construct the cases, which, if true, would be very bad news for him.




We have unexpected company for lunch, so no links, but the discussions are easy to find in Milan's and Zuz's feeds.

I'm not able to muster much schadenfreude, and am actually feeling a little sick about this.
·

[jemcanada2]

Hi, frp! We miss you!

[chancery]

Matthew Russell Lee covered the sanctions hearing in the Avianca/ChatGPT case

https://twitter.com/innercitypress/stat ... 6762139650

Inner City Press
@innercitypress
OK - now the Chat GPT case, Mata v. Avianca, sanctions against the lawyer(s) who filed a brief with non-existent or hallucinated cases. Inner City Press is covering the case https://innercitypress.com/sdny126acast ... 60623.html and will live tweet, thread below

No fireworks, just the judge's simple questions demonstrating that LoDuca & Schwartz inexcusabley violated a long list of ethical & professional norms.

https://twitter.com/questauthority/stat ... 2400066560

Mike Dunford
@questauthority

That...

On the whole, I did not expect this hearing to go well for the idiot lawyers. It did not go as badly as I expected.

It was much worse.
Quote Tweet

Inner City Press
@innercitypress
·
1h
Judge Castel: There was a reply brief. The record will reflect whether that put Mr. Schwartz and Mr. LoDuca on actual notice that their cases were non existent. Mr. LoDuca was asked for the cases - we know what he did, and Mr. Schwartz did

·

[chancery]

https://twitter.com/innercitypress/stat ... 0389505043

Inner City Press
@innercitypress
Judge Castel: Avianca put your cases in quotations... You know what F.3d means, right?
Schwartz: Federal district, third department?
Judge Castel: Have you heard of the Federal Reporter?
Schwartz: Yes.
Judge Castel: That's a book, right?
Schwartz: Correct.

I'm dead.

LoDuca and Schwartz's testimony confirmed what was obvious, viz., that their firm is a state court personal injury shop. Lots of reasonably competent PI litigators rarely need to do any legal research at all, and never have occasion to look at a federal case from one year to the next, or even one decade to the next. But when you have a case that's been removed to federal court and is the subject of a motion to dismiss under federal law, you brush up on federal practice.

It takes a special kind of oblivion for a lawyer to forget that F.3d refers to Federal Reporter, Third Series, printed books that record the published decisions of the federal courts of appeals. Especially when you're in a case that involves controlling federal appellate cases cited to F.3d by your adversary, and bogus federal appellate cases, also "cited" to F.3d, supplied by your malevolent computer sidekick.