Eliot Spitzer makes no bones about using his position as New York attorney general to promote his campaign for governor, but he certainly isn’t the only lawyer cashing in on the trend of criminalizing business to further one’s career.
This Wall Street Journal ($) article from over the weekend reports that David Anders, the assistant U.S. Attorney who was the lead prosecutor in the recent cases against former WorldCom Chief Executive Bernard Ebbers and investment banker Frank Quattrone, plans to leave the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s office at the end of this year for a cushy job with the venerable New York law firm, Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz.
Now, Anders appears to be a competent lawyer who worked for a couple of big New York firms before going to the U.S. Attorney’s office, so maybe he would have ended up at a big New York firm after working as an assistant U.S. Attorney, anyway. Moreover, he is certainly not the first lawyer to take advantage of the opportunity to move from government work to a more lucrative position in private practice. However, the willingness of Wachtell, Lipton — one of the most profitable law firms in the U.S. — to pay a high price to purchase the services of a lawyer whose claim to fame is obtaining a highly questionable conviction of Quattrone and an over-the-top life sentence for Ebbers is a rather sad reflection of the value that the market places on the ability to appeal to the public’s envy and resentment while pursuing questionable prosecutions of the unpopular businessmen of the moment. So it goes in the wacky world of criminalizing corporate agency costs.
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Tom,
I have to laugh out loud when attorneys start bashing others for “cashing in on the criminalizing of business.” Are we to understand that cashing in is the exclusive privilege of only a select few members of the bar? Face it, ‘cashing in’ is what attorneys do. Some better than others. As for your comment on the ‘envy and resentment of the public’ against certain individuals who choose to violate their fiduciary obligations, the public is not simply ‘envious or resentful” you are not reading the public correctly. The public is ‘pissed off and fed up.’ I understand that as a defense attorney part of your job is to convince your next potential jury pool that no corporate officer should ever be held accountable for any action they may undertake, regardless of how corupt and offensive it may be. Well, not all of us buy that. Some of us are fed up with a S.E.C. that is incapable of discharging its stated obligations. We are fed up with corporate officers who know that the odds of being caught, let along punished, are so small as to be non-existent. We are fed up with judges who refuse to ensure that offenders who are caught are punished meaningfully. We are fed up with politicians who understand that corporate officers mean mountains of campaign cash and corporate officials in jail for illegal acts can’t provide any cash. Finally, we are fed up with those in the legal community who fail to accept that the rights of society must be balanced against the rights of corrupt corporate officers. This isn’t envy or resentment. Its anger and a loss of patience with a legal system that is broken.
Coming at it from the other angle, I don’t think the criticism of Anders for septupling his salary is fair, especially in the context of criticizing envy and resentment-minded prosecutions. Every leading white-collar criminal defense attorney started as an AUSA. Criticize his prosecutorial decisions (though a lot of the ones you find most egregious were surely made by people above Anders), but he’ll make his money from clients who want to purchase his services, unlike a Spitzer who’ll make his mark through a thinly-disguised protection racket.
Charles, I didn’t bash Mr. Anders for cashing in, just that it’s a sad reflection of societal affairs when prosecutorial actions of questionable merit are rewarded so generously.
As for your other comments, I suggest you take a look at my following post on the governmental cure-all for common business myths. I have found that if one concludes that some act is wrong before objectively evaluating it, then usually that person will continue to conclude that the act is wrong.
Ted, it was not my purpose to criticize Anders for cashing in — indeed, it’s likely he would have done so even had he not been the lead prosecutor in the Quattrone and Ebbers cases. However, I do think it’s fair to point out that he did make a name for himself appealing to the jury’s resentment particularly in the case of Quattrone, whose conviction is not meaningfully different from that which the Supreme Court overturned unanimously in the similarly spite-filled Andersen case.
By the way, many fine white collar criminal defense lawyers have never been AUSA’s, including some of the best ones in Houston.
“Every leading white-collar criminal defense attorney started as an AUSA.”
Really? Maybe someone is reading too many press releases of the AUSA alumni association.
White collar criminal defense lawyer worth his or her salt are rarely former AUSAs. One could start with EBWilliams and Morris Shenker and end with Donald V. Watkins. Fred H. Bartlit, Jr. and Mike Tigar should be throw in between, for good measure.
The exceptions, but they really were state prosecutors, are Bugliosi and Spence