Ex-BigLaw partner gets suspension for $3.4M in 'artificially inflated' client bills
A former partner at two international law firms was suspended last month for inflating client bills by $3.4 million over the course of more than 20 years.
The Illinois Supreme Court suspended lawyer William Michael Doyle Jr. for three years and “until further order of the court” in a Sept. 19 order. An Illinois lawyer since 1976, he had consented to discipline in a joint petition with the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission.
Documents in the ethics case do not name the firms where Doyle was a partner. But an online press release from 2022 said Doyle was the trusts and estates practice chair at Winston & Strawn before he joined Greenberg Traurig as a shareholder in August 2022.
Both firms acknowledged that Doyle worked for them in prior statements provided to the ABA Journal and said client harm was addressed after they investigated.
The misconduct happened between 2002 and 2024, when Doyle was a partner handling matters for wealthy people, their trusts and their estates, according to the July 15 petition to impose discipline on consent. The clients typically had a net worth “in excess of $100 million.”
The bills were “artificially inflated” because they included charges for work that should have been written off or included charges for work performed for other clients, the petition says.
After Doyle’s most recent firm provided refunds to 10 affected clients, seven did not accept refunds totaling more than $573,000, and six wrote to express their support for Doyle. And two of the three clients who accepted refunds totaling more than $400,000 also wrote letters of support.
Doyle’s prior firm offered refunds to 17 clients. Four of them declined refunds of more than $1.4 million and also voiced support for Doyle.
In mitigation, Doyle has no previous discipline and has accepted responsibility for his conduct.
Doyle’s lawyer, Stephanie L. Stewart, told a hearing panel in July that Doyle “deeply regrets his conduct,” and he has apologized to his firms and clients. His work for clients “has benefited them in the tens of millions, hundreds of millions and an even greater amount of savings, and this has been Mr. Doyle’s life work and his passion,” she said.
Doyle had “more clients than time” and needed other lawyers to help, Stewart said. When lawyers spent time on a matter that he thought was excessive, she said, he moved the time to larger and more complicated matters for which he had written off his time in the past.
Doyle addressed reasons why he would indirectly benefit from his billing practices in July testimony before a hearing panel.
Doyle said partners with a reputation for writing off attorney time because of inefficient work find it difficult to get people to work on their matters. In addition, firms won’t hire new lawyers he needs if write-offs lead to lower realization rates, which measure money collected for work by various lawyers.
“If I had excessive write-offs so that their realization rate didn’t get the numbers the firm was looking for, I couldn’t get the lawyers that I needed to take care of the clients’ work that had to be done,” he said.
Doyle told the panel that he was devoted to his work and his clients.
“Anybody that knows me well knows that, for the most part, I ignored my personal life and in every instance opted to devote my time and attention to the clients that I was doing work for,” he said. “It was something that I was happy to do. It provided enormous satisfaction.”
Doyle did not immediately respond to a Journal email and a voicemail seeking comment. Stewart, a partner with Robinson, Stewart, Montgomery & Doppke, did not immediately reply to a Journal email seeking comment.
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