William Lerach Was More ‘Nettlesome Pest’ than Shark, Reviewer Asserts
A new book about securities class-action lawyer William Lerach is inaptly named, a book review asserts.
The book is called Circle of Greed: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of the Lawyer Who Brought Corporate America to Its Knees. But a Washington Post book review takes issue with the subtitle, saying Lerach, the former Milberg Weiss partner who served time in prison, wasn’t quite so effective.
“Lerach forged massive legal settlements against the likes of Charles Keating and Enron, but he was less a company-chomping shark than a nettlesome pest who sucked the blood from the sick and wounded,” the review claims.
Lerach was sentenced in February 2008 to two years in prison for paying kickbacks to lead plaintiffs in his class actions. The book doesn’t get to Lerach’s “truly Shakespearean” fall until its halfway point, and that’s when it becomes far more entertaining, the review says.
Before that, the reviewer says, “We get hundreds of pages devoted to his lawsuits, but his private life by and large remains offstage; every hundred pages or so he seems to pick up a new wife and a new mansion, but that’s about it.”
