Legal Ethics
Lawyer Suspended After Second Paralegal Steals From Client Account
Posted Mar 18, 2008, 08:14 am CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss
Maryland lawyer Charles Jay Zuckerman thought the new paralegal he hired would clean up the mess caused by a predecessor who stole from his client trust account.
But the new paralegal was also a thief, taking more money than the first, the Daily Record reports. In all, the two paralegals stole more than $300,000, and Zuckerman is being held accountable. The Maryland Court of Appeals has suspended Zuckerman, prompting the former assistant attorney general to declare that he will never return to private practice.
Zuckerman told the newspaper he was so busy with his personal injury practice that he had to delegate responsibility. “I had hundreds and hundreds of cases,” he told the Daily Record. “I was in court a lot. You’ve got to delegate things. You can’t be there to sign every check.”
“You’ve got to have some trust in your employees,” he said.
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Comments
Posted by msg - 8 months, 2 weeks, 4 days, 8 hours, 59 minutes ago
What is wrong with this guy? You have to be responsible for your own practice! You can’t delegate certain things! Who was signing the checks here?!
Posted by Jessica - 8 months, 2 weeks, 4 days, 7 hours, 29 minutes ago
Wouldn’t you think to be a little more cautious after it happened to you once already?! Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.
Posted by Thomas P. Valenti - 8 months, 2 weeks, 1 day, 11 hours, 40 minutes ago
No excuse! Dual signatures????
Posted by Tamarah Evanko - 8 months, 2 weeks, 1 day, 4 hours, 27 minutes ago
I think that if he had this problem he would set up a system to check on the new person ...this is sad all around.
Posted by Katie - 8 months, 2 weeks, 23 hours, 22 minutes ago
You know, as much as I agree that he’s responsible, he has a very valid point. You have to be able to trust employees, and not only that, you should be able to. I can’t believe he wasn’t more cautious after having it happen once, but honestly, I think the saddest thing is that there were people who would steal the money in the first place. He has a professional responsibility, but he’s not the real bad guy.
Posted by Iolanthe - 8 months, 1 week, 5 days, 12 hours, 35 minutes ago
Speaking as a paralegal who worked for 3 years in a small (two attorney) PI practice: I was absolutely amazed at the latitude we were allowed and the lack of supervision we received. Because of the contingency fee business model, PI is a numbers game business: you have to juggle a lot of cases to ensure cash flow until one of the cases “pops” in a big way for the attorney. Most of the cases are very routine, involving pre-litigation procedural work. The paralegals do all that work, as well as a large amount of the litigation work: discovery, filings, motions, legal research, and drafting of briefs. At my firm, when the attorney showed up in court, it was with work product produced largely by paralegals, I’d say about 75%. When a pre-litigation case settled, it was with work done almost 100% by paralegals.
Therefore,the “too busy” excuse is ridiculous. Our attorneys were mostly busy rainmaking. That was important work, too, but it certainly didn’t leave them ‘t too busy to review our work—they just didn’t want to, because it was boring. There were many, many opportunities to do shoddy work, and, yes, to cook the books. In the end, it was our own integrity that kept things clean. The attorney should be able to trust their paralegals, of course, but lack of review of paralegal work is inexcusable, and all too common in the business.