Disbarred Attorney Who Stole Another Lawyer's ID to Land BigLaw Job Gets 15 Months in Club Fed
Disbarred by consent in 2007, a former Nevada attorney nonetheless found a way to get a job at a prestigious law firm within less than a year.
Douglas Allen, simply assumed the identity of a California lawyer with a similar name who is also licensed in Nevada, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports.
Allen was sentenced Tuesday to 15 months in federal prison in an apparently unrelated case, for concealing income from the Internal Revenue Service.
Relying on documents in the federal court case, the article says Allen previously stole the identity of James Gerard Allen and used the legitimate lawyer’s Nevada bar number, along with a phony Nevada driver’s license and social security card, to get a job at Lewis, Brisbois, Bigaard and Smith in Las Vegas less than a year after he was disbarred.
Allen worked there for about two months, from Dec. 12, 2007 through January 2008, before the law firm found out he was impersonating another attorney and he was fired and prosecuted, the Review-Journal reports.
The article doesn’t explain whether the current federal case has any relationship to Allen’s identity fraud on the law firm.
Related coverage:
ABAJournal.com: “Scammers Assume Identities of California Lawyers Using Online Information”
ABAJournal.com: “”State Bar of Texas Alert Says ‘Scam Artist’ Stole Nonpracticing Lawyer’s ID for Fake Website”
