Legal Ethics

Ex-BigLaw Partner with Tax LLM Loses Law License for a Year for Failing to File State Returns

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A New York real estate transactional lawyer who didn’t file state tax returns from 2001 to 2007 had sought a public censure.

But a state appeals court suspended Roger Roisman’s law license for one year, saying that the reduced income and multiple serious health problems he experienced during that period weren’t a sufficient excuse to justify a lesser penalty, Reuters reports.

Roisman, who has a LLM degree in tax law, is a partner of Tannenbaum Helpern Syracuse & Hirschtritt. He formerly was a partner of Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe and Stroock & Stroock & Lavan.

He was earning $650,000 annually at Stroock in 1999 when he left to form a company at which he never made much more than $120,000, according to Reuters. He returned to law practice in 2001 and made around $500,000 in 2007.

After the New York State Department of Taxation contacted him in 2008, Roisman retained counsel and paid about $730,000 to state and federal tax authorities.

He pleaded guilty to a tax misdemeanor a couple of years ago and was fined $10,000, as an earlier ABAJournal.com post details.

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