Tag Archives: lawyers

Deal Book Thinks Lawyers’ “Cardinal Rule” is to Advise CEOs how to Defraud with Impunity

By William K. Black
(Cross posted at Benzinga.com)

Overview and Background

The New York Times’ “Deal Book” continues its ethics-free treatment of the ethical collapse of the leaders of many of our most elite firms related to finance. Matthew Goldstein’s*  March 6, 2014 article is entitled “4 Accused in Law Firm Fraud Ignored a Maxim: Don’t Email.”

The article is about the indictment charging the leaders of one of finance’s leading law firms – Dewey & LeBoeuf – with securities fraud and larceny.

“The indictment paints a portrait of a law firm being run like a criminal enterprise. Mr. Vance said his office had already secured guilty pleas from seven other people who once worked for Dewey.”

Deal Book refuses to recognize control fraud even when the indictment describes a control fraud.  The indictment does not “paint a portrait of a law firm being run like a criminal enterprise.”  The indictment describes a criminal enterprise led by the partners controlling Dewey & LeBouef.  Deal Book still can’t bend its mind around the fact that seemingly legitimate firms make the best “weapons” for fraud.

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Why are Appraisers Furious at Fraud by their Peers while Corporate Lawyers are Complacent?

By William K. Black
(Cross posted at Benzinga.com)

 

I have done a series of articles about the efforts of honest appraisers (which began in 2000) and loan brokers to alert the lenders, the markets, and the government to the twin fraud epidemics (appraisals and “liar’s” loans) committed by lenders’ controlling officers that drove the financial crisis.

Honest appraisers could have profited greatly by becoming dishonest appraisers who would be given the lucrative assignments by fraudulent lenders’ controlling officers and their agents.  Instead, honest appraisers suffered serious losses of income because they refused to succumb to the extortion efforts of the fraudulent lenders and their agents.  A national survey of appraisers in early 2004 found that 75% of them reported that they were the subject of attempted coercion designed to inflate the appraisal during the past 12 months.  A follow-up study in 2007 found that percentage rose to 90% and that 67% of appraisers reported losing a client and 45% did not get paid their fee because they refused to inflate the appraisal during the past 12 months.  Many honest appraisers were driven out of the profession by the blacklists the fraudulent lenders’ controlling officers and their loan brokers used to deny business to honest appraisers.

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