BULLITT COUNTY, Ky. — For weeks, Hillview Police Detective Chris Boone has poured over hundreds of pages of checks.
"There's one for $12,000, $10,000, $71,000. There's a $30,000 deposit," Boone said, flipping through the photo copied pages.
Boone says they were all signed by lawyer John Schmidt during his
time as Bullitt County's Master Commissioner. But instead of helping
people settle their estates, investigators say Schmidt was stealing from
them.
"There was people relying on these payments from their
estates and were told to trust the system the money will come to you as
it’s supposed to and their money was missing," Boone said.
In one
case, an estate set up for a man, and passed to his children when he
died was cleared out. Debbie Cain says Schmidt went to the bank and
emptied out her sons' $247,000 account.
"When I found out about this furious is an understatement. I mean, I was livid when I found out that money was gone," Cain said.
According to court documents filed just this week it appears those
thefts go back almost 20 years. In fact, it was a state audit done back
in 2004 that first noted there seemed to be a misappropriation of
funds.
"The thing that really bothers me about this is the amount of time it
went on and the amount of time it went on without being addressed when
it should have been addressed. A lot of these people wouldn’t be in
the position they’re in if this would have been addressed when it was
first an issue," Boone said.
That's victims like Cain's sons.
They were defrauded in 2019, the same year Schmidt was removed from his
position. Investigators say it was long after the damage was done.
They believe he got away with hundreds of thousands of dollars.
"I just, God, I hope they catch this man, I really, really hope they get him," Cain said.
The
warrant for Schmidt's arrest is for charges of theft and abuse of
public trust. Anyone who might have been a victim or knows the
whereabouts of Schmidt is asked to call police at (502) 955-6808.
After
years of investigation, Traci Samuels, a professional guardian in
Florida was arrested for stealing millions from her ward’s estates.
Traci Was well known for suing the wards family member and charging
hundreds of thousands in attorney and guardianship fees for
herself paid from Hudson’s wards estate granted by the judge.
Genyte
Dirse was kidnapped by real estate agent Diana Sims who was employed by
REMAX. Diana Sims initiated a guardianship against Genyte because Dirse
would not allow Sims sell her home in St. Petersburg. Afterward Traci
Hudson was awarded Guardianship over Genyte and spent hundreds of
thousands in attorney fees defending the abusive guardianship. Dirse
eventually died alone totally isolated because of her guardian refused
Genyte nephew any visitation’s
Lesa Martino’s father Roland was a
ward of Traci and during that time Lesa exposed Traci bad deeds to
authorities only to be retaliated against. Traci Hudson filed Libel suit
Against Lesa and the Judge awarded Lesa home to Hudson for damages for
exposing Hudson's exploitations
Lesa Martino filed bankruptcy
and another judge evicted Lesa out of her home at gunpoint while the
libel- eviction lawsuits are still under appeal
November 2019
Traci Samuels Hudson was arrest and charged with multiple counts of
Elderly abuse and theft. Judge Susan St. John is the judge assigned to
the trial. Since Traci arrest, the wards families have suffered hideous
abuse from judges. Prior to Traci Hudson Trial scheduling she had
disposed of all her assets, divorced her husband, sold her home, filed
bankruptcy and gave a lawsuit against Lesa Martino to an attorney named
John Hayter who illegally evicted Lesa from her home!
Judge
St John has been nothing but polite to Traci and allowed Traci attorney
to oversee the trial. Traci Hudson attorney asked the Judge for
permission to allow Traci Hudson to take her elderly father out of state
to Texas for a family event. Judge St John allowed the travel without
any restrictions at first until advocates watching the zoom meeting, the
court watchers opposed. Judge St. James later added that Traci would
wear an ankle bracelet and provide an itinerary. Later
Hudson attorney requested permission to drive instead of flying to El
Paso Texas for a nephew’s wedding because she could not afford to fly
and her elderly father was ill and was not able to fly.
What a insult and slap in the face toward the wards family when Judge St
John happily granted her request. With a smirk on her face Judge St.
John told Traci “I BETTER NOT CATCH YOU NEAR THAT BORDER” and the
hearing was adjourned
Family members claim abuse of loved ones by care facilities and courts under conservatorship
Mildred Rodriguez in her niece’s, Cathy Rodriguez, vehicle on September 2, 2018.(Courtesy of Cathy Rodriguez)
Sacramento, Calif. — By Robert J Hansen
An Alameda County Civil
Grand Jury investigation into conservatorship proceedings in Alameda
county found that conservatorship is in likely need of reform, according
to the Grand Jury’s 2021-2022 report.
Although
the investigation found no evidence of criminal acts by court staff, it
did find that involuntary conservatorships are often very expensive for
conservatees, especially those who are removed from their homes and
placed in care facilities.
These individuals, depending on the
degree of impairment, may be placed in a conservatorship, a legal
proceeding in which the court appoints a person or agency to take care
of the individual’s needs and make decisions on their behalf.
Under the current system, conservatees’ estates can be quickly drained, despite court oversight, the report said.
These
legal services are provided by the Alameda Public Defender and Legal
Assistance for Seniors (LAS) and are the primary safeguard against a
person being placed in a conservatorship that is unjustified or
unnecessarily restrictive.
Legal
Assistance for Seniors (LAS) clients are primarily elderly adults in
general conservatorships, whereas 80 percent of the Public Defender’s
clients are developmentally disabled adults in limited conservatorships.
In
2019, the Alameda County District Attorney investigated allegations
that, among other things, probate court staff committed financial abuse
and failed to protect conservatees’ assets.
Conservatees like Mildred Rodriguez.
Mildred Rodriguez on March 18, 2019.(Courtesy of Cathy Rodriguez)
In 2017, Mildred Rodriguez was living in a mobile home that she and her niece, Cathy Rodriguez owned.
Then
when a roommate died, Rose Rivera, Cathy’s third cousin, took Mildred
against her will to live with her, according to Rodriguez.
Rodriguez,
who for years worked for the Alameda County Probation Department, was
told by another cousin that Rose Rivera took Mildred and tore the floors
and bathroom out of the mobile home, making it inhabitable.
Video recordings show the mobile home was unlivable.
Rivera
took over Power of Attorney over Mildred and tried to defraud her of
all her property and assets according to Cathy Rodriguez.
“Rose destroyed the mobile home and the majority of my aunt's belongings were gone, a few things were left,” Rodriguez said.
Cathy
and Rose battled through the courts for guardianship of Mildred and
numerous attempted restraining orders, Court documents reveal.
Rivera
attempted so many unsuccessful restraining orders that she was ruled a
vexatious litigant by the Alameda Court, according to court records.
While
Mildred was living with Rivera, a medical evaluation was done and it
was determined that Mildred was not getting the care she needed and her
environment was not good for her, according to documents provided by
Rodriguez.
“I tried to get my aunt out of Rose's home through the
cops but to no avail,” Rodriguez said. So, I filed the petition in
probate Court in Berkeley California.
Rivera objected to
Rodriguez’s petition for guardianship of Mildred from the encouragement
of attorney Roger Spencer, according to Rodriguez.
Spencer,
the court-appointed attorney for Mildred, stated that a neutral party
is needed to act as conservator due to the family feud between Rodriguez
and another family member, Rose Rivera.
He also objected to Rodriguez having guardianship of Mildred.
"Each
time I have met with the conservatee, [Mildred] she has expressed
distrust for Cathy Rodriguez. She is unwilling to have Cathy in control
of her or her money or property in any way," Spencer said in July 2018.
Mildred
Rodriguez recognizes she requires Conservatorship and wishes the Court
to appoint the Alameda County Public Guardian as her Conservator of
Person and estate Spencer told the court.
“She does not trust, and will never trust Cathy Rodriguez,” Spencer said.
However, the handwritten documents by Mildred contradict Spencer’s statements.
One of several handwritten letters to the Alameda Court by Mildred Rodriguez asking to live with Cathy Rodriguez.(Courtesy of Cathy Rodriguez)
A November 2018 letter by Mildred tells the judge that she is not happy where she is and would rather live with Rodriguez.
“I hope there is something you can do and let me live with my niece Cathy Rodriguez,” Mildred wrote in March 2019.
The
court placed Mildred in conservatorship under Alameda County Public
Guardian in May 2018. While under conservatorship, she lived at a couple
of different facilities according to the court documents.
First,
she was at St. Regis Retirement Center before being moved to Jones
Convalescent Hospital in August 2018, according to court documents.
Cathy would come to visit her aunt and once took her to the mobile home, unaware she was restricted from doing so.
The
Public Guardian then filed a complaint claiming that Cathy’s behavior
was disruptive to hospital staff and residents and was eventually
prohibited from having any contact with her aunt.
“I was not informed that I was not allowed to take my auntie out,” Rodriguez said.
Jessica
Chia, Deputy County Counsel for the Public Guardian’s office, requested
that the court restrict Rodriguez from contacting or visiting her aunt.
Chia also claimed that Rodriguez’s complaints against the Public Guardian’s office were inaccurate.
“You
raised several complaints against the Alameda County Public Guardian's
office and the Office of the County Counsel based on untruthful and
inaccurate allegations, and you continue to reiterate these allegations
at public meetings, in broadly distributed email communications, and in
court proceedings,” Chia said in a letter to Rodriguez.
Video
recordings and written documents from Mildred reveal how she felt
mistreated, neglected, and abused while under the protective
guardianship of Alameda County.
“The system is abusing my auntie and keeping her in prison with no contact from the outside world,” Rodriguez said.
In a March 2018 letter, Mildred wrote that she doesn’t want to go with Rose anywhere.
“They
(the nursing home) never tell me that she (Rose) is going to pick me
up. Rose shows up and says you are going with me. I don’t like that,”
Mildred wrote. “Rose yells at me and says I have to go with her. I cry
sometimes because I don’t want to go. Judge, please help me.”
In
March 2019, Rodriguez tried to petition the Alameda County Public
Guardian for conservatorship of her aunt but was again denied.
“I
want out of here. I want out of this place. I don’t like staying here
and being with these people,” Mildred said in a video recording.
Mildred Rodriguez
telling her niece, Cathy Rodriguez, that she doesn’t want to live at the
Jones Convalescent Hospital on December 22, 2018.(Courtesy of Cathy Rodriguez)
Mildred died under the care of Alameda County and Bay View Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in November 2020.
“I knew that she would never be free because she was only going to be free once she left in a body bag,” Rodriguez said.
Rivera could not be reached for comment.
The Alameda County Public Guardian’s Office also could not be reached for comment.
The
final account showed Mildred’s estate was valued at just over $14,000
yet owed the county over $83,000 according to final accounting records.
Leaving a total balance owed at more than $73,000.
Hundreds of new petitions for conservatorships are filed in Alameda County each year according to the Grand Jury report.
The
investigators from the Grand Jury’s report offered the following
recommendation to reduce or eliminate such costs for conservatees.
“In
situations where family members petitioned the court to be appointed
conservator and the Court finds conservatorship is not appropriate and
eventually dismisses such petitions, the proposed conservatee should not
be held accountable to pay for the costs of the legal process initiated
by another person,” investigators recommended.
The lack of a
contract between Alameda County and its conservatorship defense
providers that outlines the expected scope of representation means that
not all proposed conservatees receive the same level of service and
raises the risk of litigation against the county.
Involuntary
conservatorship proceedings can quickly drain proposed conservatees’
estates, which would not occur under a recorder’s fee-or grant-funded
model.
Rodriguez frequently attended Alameda County Board meetings
in person and spoke during public comment regarding her concerns with
her aunt's case.
After trying to fight for her aunt, Cathy
Rodriguez claims she is now the target of retaliation from attorneys and
the Alameda County Public Guardian’s Office.
There will be follow-up articles in the coming weeks on what Cathy Rodriguez has experienced after her aunt died.
This
report relied on the 2021-2022 Alameda County Grand Jury Report. It
also relied on hundreds of pages of court documents, numerous video
recordings and several letters provided by Cathy Rodriguez.
An Ohio lawyer has been placed on interim suspension after he was
accused of stealing millions of dollars from a number of estates and
trusts, including an estate that was intended to benefit the St. Jude
Children’s Research Hospital.
The Ohio Supreme Court suspended 36-year-old lawyer Brian Matthew Wiggins of Dayton, Ohio, in a May 4 order, report Law360 and the Dayton Daily News.
The disciplinary counsel’s request for a suspension and a memorandum in support of the request are here.
Wiggins was accused of spending stolen money on his wife’s breast
implants, child support, a house, a boat, a Mercedes, jewelry, ATM
withdrawals at casinos, and two women who accompanied him to Las Vegas.
At least one of the two women was an adult dancer.
A review indicates that Wiggins has a severe addiction to gambling,
alcohol, cocaine or another illegal drug, the disciplinary counsel’s
memorandum says.
Wiggins is facing six ethics investigations, including two connected
to criminal charges against him in a March superseding indictment,
according to the disciplinary counsel’s memorandum.
The indictment charged Wiggins with 55 counts that included identity
fraud, theft, aggravated theft, grand theft, money laundering, tampering
with records and cocaine possession, according to earlier coverage by
the Xenia Daily Gazette and the Dayton Daily News.
Prosecutors said Wiggins allegedly stole at least $2.1 million from
two estates, but the disciplinary counsel’s memorandum suggested that
the amount could be higher.
A review indicates that Wiggins stole more than $92,000 from the
estate of Emily Kossel and more than $2.5 million from the Ronald L.
Lentz revocable living trust, the memorandum said.
The Lentz trust had two main beneficiaries: The St. Jude Children’s
Research Hospital and Smile Train, a nonprofit charity that performs
surgery for children with cleft lips.
A review of Interest on Lawyers Trust Accounts records indicates that
Wiggins’ wrongdoing could be more extensive, the disciplinary counsel’s
memorandum said.
“Trying to determine the full extent of [Wiggins’] misconduct has
been like trying to put together a large, complicated jigsaw puzzle,”
the memorandum said. “Although [disciplinary counsel] has completed some
of the puzzle, there are many, many missing pieces representing
respondent’s continuing and not-yet-discovered misconduct.”
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel on
Friday relieved four public administrators of their responsibilities in
Oakland and Macomb counties, including two who have been linked to
guardianship problems in those counties.
The
decision to relieve four of the 104 public administrators of their
state-delegated duty to administer deceased estates where there is no
family was made after Nessel’s months-long elder abuse listening tour.
The
four lawyers relieved of their responsibilities were Robert Kirk in
Macomb County Probate Court and John Yun, Thomas Fraser and Jennifer
Carney in Oakland County Probate Court.
“Now that
we’ve concluded our elder abuse listening tour, our office is taking a
fresh look at how we provide critical services and resources to Michigan
residents based on the feedback we received,” Nessel said in a
statement Friday. “After reevaluating our needs, we decided to relieve
these public administrators of their appointments.”
Kirk and Fraser had been highlighted in a WXYZ investigation
revealing problems at the guardianship company Caring Hearts Michigan,
owned by Kirk’s wife, and a guardianship case for which Fraser billed
more than $17,000 in attorney fees.
When asked about the reasoning for relieving those specific lawyers, Nessel’s office gave few details.
“This
was an internal decision made, in part, based on the feedback our
office received from the communities we visited during our elder abuse
listening tour,” said Nessel’s spokesman Dan Olsen.
The
Attorney General’s office is tasked with appointing public
administrators to help manage deceased estates as needed in Michigan’s
83 counties when no family is available or no estate is opened.
When
contacted Friday, Kirk said he was informed of his removal by phone,
but said he usually only handled one or two cases a year. He served as
public administrator in Macomb County for 30 years.
In
a Friday statement, Carney said she was honored to serve Oakland County
residents for the four years she served in the position.
“I
am saddened by the attorney general’s decision to terminate my
appointment as a county public administrator, but my work as an advocate
for the protection of vulnerable adults will continue,” Carney said.
Yun and Fraser did not immediately return calls for comment.
Nessel
launched the Elder Abuse Task Force in March to address the legal,
social and judicial shortfalls that have contributed to the abuse of the
state’s 73,000 older adults. The task force has resulted in several
elder abuse charges across the state since then.
“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” Edmund Burke
Stop Probate Fraud (SPF) is a co-operative of volunteers who want to
help inform, educate and advocate for people who may be the targets of
financial predators. Our goal is to help spot, stop and recover from
fraud, damage and loss in probate, trusts and estates.
The SPF team has people with expertise ranging from medicine to law,
finance, forensics, banking, accounting, real-estate, securities,
government, media, and advocates for the elderly and disabled.
SPF pays nobody for their contributions to the site and does not solicit or take taxpayer money.
Nothing on this site is to be construed as legal, financial, medical, spiritual, mental health or any other professional advice.
(WXYZ) - 7 Investigator Heather Catallo first exposed a troubling
pattern of certain public officials and real estate brokers taking over
estates, often leaving rightful heirs with very little. Now, some top Oakland County leaders are taking bold steps to stop this practice.
The 7 Investigators also have a major update to our first probate court investigation that focused on Macomb County Public Administrator Cecil St Pierre.
After
Catallo’s first story aired, the Michigan Attorney General’s office
started their own investigation into St. Pierre, and confirm that
several people filed complaints against the lawyer.
Now the Attorney General has suspended Cecil St. Pierre indefinitely from his Public Administrator duties.
St.
Pierre says he “made a business decision not to do Probate Asset
Recovery files prior to the suspension. I have followed Best Practices
and everything I have done has been approved by the Probate Judge and
court. I have been informed about the suspension.”
St. Pierre
also told us in an e-mail that he “will investigate the issue with the
Attorney General’s office and hopefully resolve any issue or
complaints.”
“How can they lay their head down on their pillow at night, hurting people like that,” said Joanne Zaremba.
She’s
one of several rightful heirs who say they were blindsided when someone
else opened a probate estate in a deceased relatives name. That meant
Joanne could have lost her late mother’s home to a stranger. And she’s
not alone.
“We were summoned to court – someone opened a probate estate in his name,” Kristin Rekowski told Catallo in November 2016.
Here’s
what’s going on: Real Estate Broker Ralph Roberts has teamed up with
some Attorney General-appointed lawyers called Public Administrators.
In Oakland County, court records show he regularly works with Kemp Klein
attorney Barbara Andruccioli to open probate estates. (Click to Continue)
Editor’s note: Investigative
journalist Diane Dimond, whose weekly syndicated column on crime and
justice appears in the Journal, is preparing a book on the nation’s
elder guardianship system. It’s a system designed to protect the elderly
from the unscrupulous. But as Dimond discovered, it can be dominated by
a core group of court-appointed, for-profit professionals who are
accused of isolating family members and draining the elders’ estates.
New Mexico is no exception.
This is the second installment of a five-part Albuquerque Journal series - Who Guards the Guardians?
When a family dispute over what to do with an elderly parent winds up in a New Mexico court, the lives of all involved can change dramatically.
It
begins when a lawyer representing a family member, often a son or
daughter, who is seeking the court’s involvement files a petition asking
a district judge to appoint a guardian and a conservator to take over
the elder person’s affairs.
What many families don’t
initially realize is just how much power these court appointees have
over the elderly “wards of the court.”
During a 10-month investigation of elder guardianship cases in New Mexico, the Journal heard consistent complaints.
Family
members who did not initiate the proceeding said they were shut out of
the process and their loved one was almost immediately isolated by
court-appointed strangers. These adult children of wards were stunned to
learn their parent’s hard-earned estate was used to bankroll the entire
process, a cottage industry of for-profit elder care service providers.
Fee after fee
Among the
first bills paid for by the incapacitated elder is the hourly fee for
those newly appointed to run his or her life. It is routine for a New
Mexico attorney associated with this type of case to earn $300 an hour
or more, a guardian and conservator about $200 an hour each.
According
to lawyers familiar with the system, the elder – frequently
pre-diagnosed with some sort of diminished mental capacity – also must
pay for his or her own neuropsychological exam by what’s called a
qualified health care professional. That routinely costs close to
$1,000.
The costs for a court visitor, the court
appointee who helps investigate the family dynamic, can run about $2,000
a month. Payments to one court visitor reviewed by the Journal topped
more than $14,400. Initial costs for all these professionals add up
quickly, and the appointees become inexorably enmeshed in the elder’s
care.
Once those for-profit professionals are in place, they
communicate with the judge about their findings and ask permission to
take certain major actions, such as liquidating the senior’s stocks or
moving the ward to a different living arrangement.
In
some cases, the elder’s house is sold and the person is moved to a care
facility, chosen by the court appointees. If they are allowed to stay in
their home, they then must pay the cadre of support personnel the
guardian and conservator are allowed to hire: in-home caretakers,
personal shoppers, dog walkers, landscapers, pool maintenance companies
and messenger or delivery services.
In one case reviewed
by the Journal, a daughter of a now-deceased elderly man who became a
ward of the court says her father was charged for both a dog walker for
his tiny Yorkie and a separate service that picked up the dog’s waste.
She says he also paid for pool maintenance for a backyard pool no one
used and a messenger service to pick up his prescriptions at a nearby
pharmacy that offered free delivery.
Several family members say supervision of the extra personnel is lacking.
“My
mother was routinely fed a diet of McDonald’s and Taco Bell,” one woman
said about her now-deceased mother. “Where the hundreds of dollars in
groceries we paid for went is anyone’s guess.” She also complained that
of the dozens of caretakers in and out of her mother’s home, “some fell
asleep on the job, items disappeared from the home and some even wore
Mom’s clothes. There was no one to complain to because the guardian and
the conservator wouldn’t talk to me.”
The conservator
handling the estate of a 78-year-old woman who lived on a ranch in
Albuquerque’s bosque used her money to install satellite TV after
caretakers complained the elderly woman’s television didn’t get enough
channels. Conservator records reflect the monthly charge of nearly $90.
Nancy
Oriola is the CEO of Decades LLC, an elder care agency that accepts
court appointments to act as elder guardians and/or conservators and
handled that case. She told the Journal that Decades hires various
outside caretaker agencies and admitted that “from time to time, we may
encounter a problem with an employee from an agency. But when those
problems occur, we try diligently to rectify the issues.”
It
is not unusual for in-home care to drain an estate of more than
$120,000 a year. One attorney claimed the cost of care for his client’s
wealthy parent who had been declared incapacitated topped $600,000 in
one calendar year.
“The home care costs were absolutely unconscionable, insane,” according
to this Albuquerque lawyer, who is familiar with the process. “The
annual cost was in the hundreds of thousands of dollars for this woman
to stay in her own home,” he said. An example he offered were the
supermarket bills – “$400 worth of groceries a week … for a 98-pound
lady,” he said. “That’s $1,600 a month!” (Click to Continue)
(Bloomberg) -- Trusts and estates lawyers, once second-class citizens at some large corporate firms, have become
revenue producers.
And at firms including Loeb & Loeb LLP, McDermott Will &
Emery LLP and Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP, the departments, which
often include lawyers who specialize in tax as well as trusts
and estates, are anything but back-office.
“We are generators of work as well as service providers,”
Carol Harrington, the head of the private client practice group
at McDermott Will, said in an interview last week.
That work includes estate planning, creating “structures”
for charitable giving, and litigation and international work,
said Joshua Rubenstein, the head of the T&E practice at Katten
Muchin.
In addition, Harrington said, many private businesses are
controlled in trust, so these lawyers are often called upon in
transactions. To fully advise on deals involving some closely
held companies, “You need trust counsel to help with the trust
aspects of the business.”
“We’re like Marcus Welby,” Rubenstein said, referring to
the iconic family doctor of 1970s television. “We’re
generalists: We have to know about areas other than T&E, like
tax and real estate. And we have to be able to diagnose people’s
problems.”
As wealth escalates among clients, the firms with these
practices are also seeing that generalists can be a growth area.
The scope of work, whether in forming of trusts, establishing
philanthropy or helping in business succession planning in the
U.S. or abroad, is expanding.
“To be really good in estate planning you need to be full
service to every need a high-net-worth individual might have,”
Leah Bishop of Loeb & Loeb explained in an interview last week.
She co-heads the firm’s trusts and estates department and
charitable giving and tax-exempt organizations practice.
If the T&E lawyers don’t have the expertise, they need to
know who to tap within the firm.
With a somewhat limited pool of experienced talent, new
lateral hires, with their Rolodexes, are a big deal for these
firms. Last week, for example, Loeb & Loeb announced it had
hired two attorneys from Caplin & Drysdale Chartered -- Marcus
Owens, a former director of the Exempt Organizations Division of
the Internal Revenue Service, and Diara Holmes.
Both have joined the firm’s charitable giving and tax-exempt organizations practice, which is part of the trusts and
estates practice, as partners in Washington. Loeb & Loeb’s group
has approximately 50 lawyers -- out of close to 300 total
attorneys.
McDermott Will, for its part, last week said it hired
Leigh-Alexandra Basha from Holland & Knight LLP to establish a
private client practice in Washington. Basha focuses on domestic
and foreign estate and tax planning. Henry Christensen, head of
McDermott’s international private client group, said that with
the firm’s international and tax practice, Basha’s addition “is
a natural fit.”
Lawyers at these firms say the revenue generated by their
practices exceeds their headcount.
At Katten Muchin, for example, the approximately 50 people
in his group account for more than 7 percent of the firm’s 700
lawyers. The group brings in 12 percent to 15 percent of the
firm’s revenue, which doesn’t include cross-referrals within the
firm, Rubenstein said.
At McDermott, the trusts and estates lawyers “generate
more than 10 percent of the firm’s revenue, but by headcount we
are less than 10 percent,” Harrington said. “It’s because we
export work to other areas in addition to working hard
ourselves.”
Those numbers might tempt other firms, many of which
jettisoned their practices years ago, to jump back into the
area.
“For the economics to work, you need high-net worth
individuals as clients and you need to be a gatekeeper for the
rest of their work” to help with whatever needs arise, said
Loeb & Loeb’s Bishop. And firms need to understand that these
clients don’t want the same “breadth of staffing” that
corporate clients will withstand on major litigation or
transactions, she said.
In addition, it takes a certain type of lawyer to handle
this work.
“We take our clients from birth to death,” Bishop said.
“One client told me I was more useful than her therapist. And I
do give out my home phone number.”
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