Family sues BigLaw firm, says ex-partner funneled $60M from its trusts
Members of a wealthy Georgia family have filed a malpractice suit against Sutherland Asbill & Brennan. It contends that partner Bennett Kight funneled some $60 million in trust assets through “multiple instances of pervasive fraud, theft, mismanagement, and malpractice” over a 20-year period.
Meanwhile, as family members thought they were being represented by Sutherland Asbill, the firm abandoned its clients without informing them, contends the suit. It was filed earlier this month in state court in Fulton County by the wife and heirs of Walter Bunzl, a philanthropist and of industrialist who died in 1988, says the Daily Report (sub. req.).
The Sutherland firm says it has done nothing wrong and Kight, who is now 74, retired more than 15 years ago.
“Our firm had no involvement in any of the alleged wrongdoing in this complaint,” said managing partner Mark Wasserman in an email. “Our former partner, Bennett Kight, whose alleged conduct as trustee of the Bunzl family trusts is at the heart of the complaint, retired in 1999 and provided no services, legal or otherwise, for or on behalf of the firm to these trusts after his retirement. We are therefore surprised and disappointed that claims for malpractice have been brought against our firm and one of its attorneys, purportedly arising from Mr. Kight’s alleged activities as trustee.”
Attorneys for other parties either did not respond to a request for comment by the Daily Report or could not be reached.
