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| FL Judge Throws Boies Schiller Off a Case, and More |
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Tuesday, May 03 2005 @ 04:05 PM EDT
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Law.com has the news. Remember the Florida case, where Boies Schiller undertook to represent a woman who became the firm's Chief Financial Officer, Amy Habie? On the other side, for years, has been a pro se litigant, Scott Lewis, a gardener. Boies Schiller, according to the judge, has a conflict in representing Habie and her company, which is limiting its independent professional judgment. He has barred the firm from further representation of Ms. Habie and her gardening company, Nical. And that's not all: Gerber also found Nical in contempt of court for violating court orders, and that H. Stephen Rash, an attorney at Boies Schiller & Flexner in Miami, was the company's "agent" in violating the orders. He ordered Bilton [Patrick Bilton, Habie's partner in the company] to serve 30 days in jail for contempt and to pay a $500 fine.
Gerber found that Rash and Nical breached orders by issuing subpoenas for witnesses without the permission of the court and by failing to notify Lewis about the scheduling of depositions.
Boies, the article says, didn't charge fees. Instead he took a 25% interest in Habie's business, in trust for his children: In a deposition, Habie said that she had accepted $100,000 for the 25 percent stake.
In all, the Boies firm's representation of Habie and Nical has totaled over $5 million in gifted services, according to an accountant Lewis deposed as an expert witness.
Habie's professional relationship with Boies began in 1992, when her divorce lawyer, a law school acquaintance of Boies, asked Boies to help in a custody battle Habie was waging with her ex-husband, Guatamelan textile executive Jose Habie.
In 2000, Habie became the chief financial officer of Boies' law firm. According to court documents, her current salary from the law firm is $160,000 a year plus bonus and benefits.
According to court papers, Boies' law firm and a total of 75 lawyers from 10 other law firms have provided more than 15,000 pro bono hours in the case representing Nical and Habie. He's never publicly explained why he and his firm represented Habie and her company without charging fees. The judge in his decision cited a Florida Bar rule that says "a lawyer shall not represent a client if the lawyer's exercise of independent professional judgment in the representation of that client may be materially limited by ... the lawyer's own interest." The Palm Beach Daily News has more detail on the case here: In addition, Gerber — the ninth judge in the case — ordered high-profile attorney David Boies' law firm dismissed from the case for issuing subpoenas without court approval. The ruling says that attorney H. Stephen Rash of Boies, Schiller & Flexner "intentionally violated this court's predecessors' orders." Nine judges in nine years. And you thought SCO v. IBM was taking a long time. Can you imagine intentionally violating a court order? A spokesman for Boies Schiller is quoted as saying the subpoena business was an "oversight". This judge obviously didn't think so. The decision is being appealed. You might also like to read Forbes' article on Boies and the AIG case.
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, May 03 2005 @ 04:28 PM EDT |
What was not mentioned in the article was the *REAL* reason Boise and Schiller
where sent packing ...
Florida has man local ordanaces regarding the keeping of pet sharks :)
--
Im first![ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: inode_buddha on Tuesday, May 03 2005 @ 04:40 PM EDT |
| " Nine judges in nine years. And you thought SCO v. IBM was taking a long
time. " Well, PJ. During my recent travels, I took some photos of
cornfields in Kansas, in case we need some popcorn for the SCO cases.
:-D ---
-inode_buddha
Copyright info in bio
"When we speak of free software,
we are referring to freedom, not price"
-- Richard M. Stallman [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: overshoot on Tuesday, May 03 2005 @ 04:48 PM EDT |
Please post clickable links: <a
href="http://www.example.com/">Like this</a> in HTML mode.
Checking your work is always a good idea.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Tim Ransom on Tuesday, May 03 2005 @ 05:51 PM EDT |
>>"a lawyer shall not represent a client if the lawyer's exercise of
independent professional judgment in the representation of that client may be
materially limited by ... the lawyer's own interest."<<
Ha! So it's *illegal to practice law* in Florida!
Who knew?
---
Thanks again,
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: RealProgrammer on Tuesday, May 03 2005 @ 06:05 PM EDT |
"Boies' law firm and a total of 75 lawyers from 10 other law firms have
provided more than 15,000 pro bono hours..."
Something smells.
I bet the American Red Cross doesn't get 15,000 pro bono hours. I doubt the
Special Olympics gets that much free lawyer time. Habitat for Humanity ... the
list goes on. Maybe the ACLU, ACLJ, or some of the big lobbies get that kind of
time donated.
Wow.
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(I'm not a lawyer, but I know right from wrong)[ Reply to This | # ]
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- Wow - Authored by: inode_buddha on Tuesday, May 03 2005 @ 06:16 PM EDT
- And... - Authored by: snorpus on Tuesday, May 03 2005 @ 06:50 PM EDT
- Wow - Authored by: tomhudson on Tuesday, May 03 2005 @ 09:16 PM EDT
- Wow - Authored by: Maserati on Tuesday, May 03 2005 @ 11:05 PM EDT
- Another computation - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, May 03 2005 @ 09:36 PM EDT
- Wow - Authored by: Zarkov on Wednesday, May 04 2005 @ 01:34 AM EDT
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| Authored by: Latesigner on Tuesday, May 03 2005 @ 07:43 PM EDT |
how a firm with Boise as a partner ended up with the SCO case.
---
The only way to have an "ownership" society is to make slaves of the rest of us.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, May 03 2005 @ 07:50 PM EDT |
November 2004 issue of Vanity Fair had an article by Boies himself about the
original Habie divorce case. I can't find the article on the net, though.
Quite an interesting story.
From my memory, I remember that Boies was originally working the same firm as
Marriot when he started on the Habie case. When he left that firm, he got the
case to go along with it.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: tiger99 on Tuesday, May 03 2005 @ 07:50 PM EDT |
| I may be quite wrong here, but I was under the impression that BSF were somehow
being paid in SCOX shares, if they win, which is unlikely. Now if this is so,
are they breaking the same law? And should IBM be trying to get the case moved
to Florida? And as IANAL and might in any case have the facts totally wrong,
is there any othe bit of conduct in the SCO cases that ought to result in BSF
being kicked out by the judge? [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, May 03 2005 @ 07:51 PM EDT |
Mr Habie is "Guatemalan", a natural of Guatemala.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, May 03 2005 @ 08:04 PM EDT |
"Can you imagine intentionally violating a court order?"
Violating, bending, ignoring, forgetting, distorting... all apparently the same
in BSF's playbook. Witness certain "renewed" motions to compel, that
ignore the fact that there was never an "original" order to do so, and
witness repeated expansion of the wording of certain judge's rulings regarding
said discovery. Not to mention all that "specificity" that Wells
ordered, and that IBM is still waiting for regarding what they are accused of.
Why change if it works. It took 9 years in that case for anything to get done,
so can we expect 7 more years of SCO before anything finally happens?[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: tangomike on Tuesday, May 03 2005 @ 08:37 PM EDT |
are apparently a BS&F routine. Forgetting to notify the court about
subpoenas seems awfully similar to some oversights in TSCOG. Are these
'professionals' really that sloppy, or is this pattern part of their tactics?
---
Nothing screams 'poor workmanship' like wrinkles in the
duct tape.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: NastyGuns on Tuesday, May 03 2005 @ 08:49 PM EDT |
For those that are interested, while I believe that the charges have now been
dropped, Boies was at one point the subject of a Florida
Bar
Complaint.
I posted this information before here. ---
NastyGuns,
"If I'm not here, I've gone out to find myself. If I return before I get back,
please keep me here." Unknown. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: CnocNaGortini on Thursday, May 05 2005 @ 04:12 AM EDT |
IANAD (I am not a detective) but one thing stands out to me as very plausibly
consistent with this extraordinary situation: could Boies be being blackmailed
over something?[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, May 05 2005 @ 10:35 AM EDT |
| This is a
year end
wrap up from 2000 about the Habie case. Has some juicy
details.
Elsewhere, Habie also gets a quick gossip mention for a wild Bahama
weekend
she had with Boies, implying their relationship was more than
professional.
The Nical business shows up in business licenses owning
werehouse and
greenhouses adjacent to the Miami airport. The implication is the
business
had something to do with importing plant materials.
A long
rambling
discourse on the scummy PI hired by Boies to
investigate Sara Habie,
matriarch of the Habie clan [ Reply to This | # ]
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