Missouri

Man serving 20-year term in drug case gets concurrent time in lawyer’s death

Already serving a 20-year federal prison term for cocaine trafficking, Calah Johnson was sentenced Monday to another concurrent 20-year term in Missouri state court for accidentally shooting to death a Kansas lawyer. Attorney Deanna Lieber, 45, was driving home from a Kansas City show with her mother and teenage daughter…

Apr 19, 2016 10:40 AM CDT

Collection lawyer takes mail fraud plea, admits diverting $1.2M in payments from medical client

Disbarred collections attorney Alan Gallas on Wednesday pleaded guilty to mail fraud in federal court in Kansas City. The 64-year-old founding partner of Gallas & Schultz admitted that he had diverted more than $1.2 million in payments intended for then-client St. Luke’s Health System to the law firm’s operating account…

Apr 14, 2016 11:10 AM CDT

Lawyer is suspended for using email information obtained by client by guessing password

A Missouri lawyer has been suspended for using information obtained by his divorce client by guessing his wife’s email password. The Missouri Supreme Court indefinitely suspended lawyer Joel Eisenstein with leave to apply for reinstatement in six months, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports. A disciplinary hearing panel had sought indefinite…

Apr 6, 2016 8:28 AM CDT

Lawyer admits smuggling heroin into jail, but says he stopped practicing and sought treatment

A suburban St. Louis lawyer pleaded guilty Friday in a federal heroin-dealing case, after admitting Tuesday in a state supreme court document that he had smuggled the drug into a correctional facility while he himself was addicted. In the state-court filing, Jeffrey Bremer, 49, voluntarily gave up his law practice…

Apr 1, 2016 3:50 PM CDT

Man with concealed-carry permit accused of using gun butt to drive thumbtack at elementary school

Jeffrey Kyle Grubbs had a concealed-carry permit for his handgun. But the 45-year-old Missouri man is nonetheless facing two felony charges for allegedly using his firearm as a hammer Monday at a Benton elementary school while he drove a thumbtack into a wood plaque, reports the Southeast Missourian. Grubbs was…

Mar 24, 2016 2:00 PM CDT

State AG sues seeking to shut down troubled bankruptcy firm, alleging fraud

Contending that 136 clients have received “little or nothing in return” for their fees, the Missouri attorney general on Tuesday filed suit seeking a court order requiring a bankruptcy services firm to close and freezing its assets. Also named as defendants by AG Chris Koster in the St. Louis Circuit…

Mar 8, 2016 5:00 PM CST

St. Louis jury says J&J must pay $72M to family of dead woman in landmark talcum powder cancer case

The first case to go to trial among some 1,200 claims currently faced by Johnson & Johnson alleging a link between its talc-containing products and cancer obviously did not turn out the way the pharmaceutical giant would have wished. After three weeks of trial and five hours of deliberation, a…

Feb 23, 2016 2:15 PM CST

Former Bryan Cave lawyer takes plea, admits voicemail death threat to partner

Federally charged in 2013 with transmitting a threat via interstate commerce, a former Bryan Cave lawyer pleaded guilty on Wednesday and admitted to leaving a death threat on a partner’s voicemail. Ryan Walsh, now 32, worked in the firm’s New York office for about six months before he was laid…

Feb 11, 2016 1:40 PM CST

DOJ sues Ferguson one day after it sought changes in proposed policing pact

A yea-and-a-half after the fatal police shooting of Michael Brown ignited a civil rights movement in Ferguson, Missouri, the U.S. Department of Justice has sued the city. Announced by Attorney General Loretta Lynch, the federal lawsuit filed Wednesday by the DOJ in the Eastern District of Missouri follows a Tuesday…

Feb 10, 2016 5:05 PM CST

Attorney blasts billionaire Rams owner in St. Louis Super Bowl ad

Add another lawyer to the short list of those known for their Super Bowl advertising. Attorney Terry Crouppen appeared on local stations in the St. Louis area this weekend, offering viewers and Rams owner Stan Kroenke his thoughts about the team’s relocation to Los Angeles, during Denver’s defeat of North…

Feb 8, 2016 3:25 PM CST

Lawyer is accused of getting opposing counsel’s trial questions from emails hacked by client

The Missouri Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments this month in an ethics case against a lawyer accused of using information obtained by his divorce client by guessing his wife’s email password. The lawyer, 70-year-old Joel Eisenstein, is a part-time prosecutor, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports. The disciplinary counsel…

Feb 2, 2016 8:06 AM CST

Spencer Fane opens Oklahoma City office with 9 attorneys from Lester firm

Corrected: Spencer Fane announced Monday that the 170-attorney firm is opening an Oklahoma City office, its first in the state, with at least 9 lawyers from the former Lester Loving & Davies. Spencer Fane was able to extend the group’s existing lease, following the dissolution of the Lester firm, but…

Feb 1, 2016 4:00 PM CST

Law license suspended for former St. Louis prosecutor who covered up assault of handcuffed suspect

The law license of a former St. Louis prosecutor who admitted helping cover up an officer’s assault of a handcuffed suspect has been temporarily suspended. The suspension, disclosed in a court order Tuesday, is in place pending the outcome of lawyer disciplinary proceedings against former prosecutor Bliss Barber Worrell, the…

Jan 27, 2016 11:45 AM CST

Missouri professor who tried to have journalist ousted from student protest is charged

A University of Missouri professor who tried to block a student videographer from filming a student protest on campus last fall has been charged with misdemeanor assault. Melissa A. Click, an assistant professor in the university’s communications department, is accused of trying to grab the videographer’s camera and of asking…

Jan 25, 2016 4:30 PM CST

Law firm marketing chief hits a home run with World Series photo

Lisa Simon doesn’t consider herself an ace photographer, but the Lathrop & Gage client development chief took a few photos from her 22nd-floor office in Kansas City as a huge mass of fans celebrated after the Royals won the World Series. Posted on the law firm’s Twitter account, one of…

Nov 10, 2015 4:10 PM CST