Not DENIED as MOOT, the Mouthpiece lawyer speaks for the puppet.

Vanessa Kachadurian- Razzle Dazzle em, Lawyer Billy Flynn

Louis Bianchi, McHenry Co. State Attorney INDICTED FOR CORRUPTION

Louie, Louie, Louie what have you done? Maybe it is time to retire after all you are 67. Shame on you Louis Bianchi, you should have thought twice when you hurt a very dear friend of mine in Marengo,Illinois. What goes around comes around....warning to Attorneys that don't play by the rules.


Louis Bianchi as he appeared in his booking photo and in a 2007 interview. (Handout/FOX Chicago News file photo)
Regular Photo SizeLouis Bianchi, McHenry Co. State's Attorney Indicted for Corruption
Updated: Friday, 10 Sep 2010, 9:23 PM CDT
Published : Friday, 10 Sep 2010, 5:01 PM CDT

By JILLIAN DUCHNOWSKI, The Northwest Herald

Woodstock - McHenry County State’s Attorney Lou Bianchi and his executive assistant turned themselves in to authorities this afternoon on state corruption charges.

Bianchi, a second-term Republican, and his executive assistant Joyce Synek were released on their own recognizance. Bianchi, wearing his trademark carnation on his suit lapel, left the McHenry County Jail after being processed about 5 p.m.

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ADDITIONAL COVERAGE:

STORY: Complete Coverage in the Northwest Herald

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Retired Lake County judge Henry Tonigan announced the charges about 1:30 p.m. today almost a year after he was appointed special prosecutor and months after he convened the special grand jury in April. Tonigan declined to comment on whether the special grand jury still was meeting or whether additional indictments were pending.

Bianchi and Synek are accused of conspiring to use county personnel and equipment for Bianchi's personal political benefit, although Bianchi quickly issued a press statement restating his innocence.

A total of 19 counts of official misconduct were filed against Bianchi, along with one count of unlawful communication with a grand jury witness.

"I am stunned by this indictment because I have done nothing wrong,’ Bianchi said in the press statement. ’In private practice before and in public life now, I have always acted lawfully and with integrity. This episode represents the first time in my 42-year career that my integrity has been questioned."

Bianchi’s defense attorney, Terry Ekl, denounced the allegations as ’an example of why people distrust special prosecutors, who have a financial incentive to indict people.’

’I hope they are prepared for a war, because they are going to get it,’ Ekl said in a phone interview as his client was being processed.

Synek’s attorney, Ernie DiBenedetto, did not immediately return a call for comment this afternoon.

Synek was named as a conspirator with Bianchi and also charged with one count of obstructing justice and four counts of perjury.

The investigation was launched in September 2009 when McHenry County Judge Gordon Graham appointed Tonigan to investigate former Bianchi secretary Amy Dalby's claims that Bianchi ordered her to conduct his campaign business during her office hours.

Bianchi previously had a special prosecutor appointed to investigate Dalby, who said she took computer files from Bianchi's office to back up her claims. Dalby did not take the files to any authorities and eventually admitted to a misdemeanor charge in exchange for court supervision, but persisted in her claims that Bianchi ordered her to perform campaign work illegally.

The indictment against Bianchi alleges that from 2005 through 2010, Bianchi unlawfully used state's attorney equipment, personnel, and county funds for political purposes, specifically maintaining and updating political contribution lists, speeches, letters of thanks to supporters, political speeches and other campaign matters during public hours.

The indictment also alleges that Synek attempted to destroy evidence of such material on county computers.

Bianchi's official misconduct charges also revolve around a 2007 Festa Italiana political fundraiser where announcements, address labels, spreadsheets from contributors, and other items allegedly were maintained by employees on McHenry County computers.

The unlawful communication charge concerns Thomas Carroll, chief of Bianchi's civil division and one-time first assistant. The indictment alleges that Bianchi confronted Carroll and tried to persuade him against turning over political documents that had been subpoenaed by the grand jury.

Synek's perjury charges relate to repeated assertions to the grand jury that she did not perform political duties for Bianchi on her office computer.

Most of the charges are Class 3 felonies, which carry potential prison terms of up to five years. One conspiracy charge is a Class 4 felony, which carries a maximum prison term of three years.

The cases are set before McHenry County Judge Sharon Prather. But Ekl, Bianchi’s attorney, said he expects all local judges will recuse themselves because of their relationships with Bianchi and his office. Then, the Illinois Supreme Court would appoint a judge to the case, Ekl said

Latest BAT SIGNAL to Batman

Vanessa Kachadurian-Adoption Attorney gets 92 years

Kevie is BAAACCCCK!

Adoption fraud faces 92 years
LONG ISLAND
01 November 2010 08:26

Metro File Folder

Kevin Cohen.
A Roslyn attorney who swindled $300,000 from 13 would-be adoptive parents through lies about nonexistent babies and counterfeit documents was convicted yesterday in Nassau County Supreme Court. Kevin Cohen, 42, who headed the duplicitous Adoption Annex agency, faces up to 92 years when sentenced next month for a litany of grand larceny, fraud, and forgery charges.

“These were all good people who were hoping to adopt a child and Kevin Cohen preyed upon that,” said Brigid Vogt, a Seaford victim who watched the jury find Cohen guilty of all 37 counts.

Cohen, who represented himself during the three week jury trial, claimed to know a young, unmarried mother who wanted to put her newborn up for adoption. Offering his legal and intermediary services, he scammed the victims, some of whom traveled from other states to be closer to the alleged expectant mother and collected money from other relatives. Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice said Cohen inflicted “pain and torment ... on kind and generous couples looking to provide a child with a loving home.”

Lawyer knocked out by his client

Vanessa Kachadurian- Attorneys jobs outsourced to India

Hey BATMAN and ROBIN what are you going to do when your jobs are outsourced to India?
No more wealthy clients to fleece out of money? Batman and Robin, you are a running joke in the legal community and at the State Bar Association where "Batman" has some compliants filed. Robin and his law firm want to seperate themselves from you but money is tight and big law firms need the billable hours. Poor Robin, forced to take junk cases that no one else wants. Enjoy the trend and how your $400.00 an hour billable hours has just been outsourced.

August 4, 2010
Outsourcing to India Draws Western Lawyers
By HEATHER TIMMONS
NOIDA, India — As an assistant attorney general for New York State, Christopher Wheeler used to spend most of his time arguing in courtrooms in New York City.

Today, he works in a sprawling, unfinished planned suburb of New Delhi, where office buildings are sprouting from empty lots and dirt roads are fringed with fresh juice stalls and construction rubble. At Pangea3, a legal outsourcing firm, Mr. Wheeler manages a team of 110 Indian lawyers who do the grunt work traditionally assigned to young lawyers in the United States — at a fraction of the cost.

India’s legal outsourcing industry has grown in recent years from an experimental endeavor to a small but mainstream part of the global business of law. Cash-conscious Wall Street banks, mining giants, insurance firms and industrial conglomerates are hiring lawyers in India for document review, due diligence, contract management and more.

Now, to win new clients and take on more sophisticated work, legal outsourcing firms in India are actively recruiting experienced lawyers from the West. And American and British lawyers — who might once have turned up their noses at the idea of moving to India, or harbored an outright hostility to outsourcing legal work in principle — are re-evaluating the sector.

The number of legal outsourcing companies in India has mushroomed to more than 140 at the end of 2009, from 40 in 2005, according to Valuenotes, a consulting firm in Pune, India. Revenue at India’s legal outsourcing firms is expected to grow to $440 million this year, up 38 percent from 2008, and should surpass $1 billion by 2014, Valuenotes estimates.

“This is not a blip, this is a big historical movement,” said David B. Wilkins, director of Harvard Law School’s program on the legal profession. “There is an increasing pressure by clients to reduce costs and increase efficiency,” he added, and with companies already familiar with outsourcing tasks like information technology work to India, legal services is a natural next step.

So far, the number of Western lawyers moving to outsourcing companies could be called more of a trickle than a flood. But that may change, as more business flows out of traditional law firms and into India. Compensation for top managers at legal outsourcing firms is competitive with salaries at midsize law firms outside of major metropolitan areas of the United States, executives in the industry say. Living costs are much lower in India, and often, there is the added allure of stock in the outsourcing company.

Right now, Pangea3 is “getting more résumés from United States lawyers than we know what to do with,” said Greg McPolin, managing director of the company’s litigation services group, who divides his time between India and New York.

Outsourcing remains a highly contentious issue in the West, particularly as law firms have been trimming their staffs and curtailing hiring plans. But Western lawyers who have joined outsourcing firms are unapologetic about the shift to India.

Leah Cooper left her job as managing lawyer for the giant mining company Rio Tinto in February to become director of legal outsourcing for CPA Global, a contract legal services company with offices in Europe, the United States and India. Before hiring Ms. Cooper, CPA Global added lawyers from Bank of America and Alliance & Leicester, a British bank. The company has a total of about 1,500 employees, and Ms. Cooper said she planned to hire hundreds in India in the next 12 months.

At Rio Tinto, Ms. Cooper said, she became a champion of the idea of moving work like document review to a legal outsourcing company “because it works really well.”

“It really is the future of legal services,” said Ms. Cooper, an American based in London who travels regularly to India and has spoken widely in promoting outsourcing. Still, she acknowledges hostility toward the practice. “When I was doing public speaking, people used to joke that I had better check under my car” for something planted by a junior associate angered by her views, she said.

Many legal outsourcing firms have offices around the world to interact with clients, but keep the majority of their employees in India; some also have a stable of lawyers in the Philippines. Thanks to India’s low wages and costs and a big pool of young, English-speaking lawyers, outsourcing firms charge from one-tenth to one-third what a Western law firm bills an hour.

Employees at legal outsourcing companies in India are not allowed by Indian law to give legal advice to clients in the West, no matter their qualifications. Instead, legal outsourcing companies perform a lot of the functions that a junior lawyer might do in a American law firm.

Even global law firms like Clifford Chance, which is based in London, are embracing the concept.

“I think the toothpaste is out of the tube,” said Mark Ford, director of the firm’s Knowledge Center, an office south of New Delhi with 30 Indian law school graduates who serve Clifford Chance’s global offices. Mr. Ford lived in India for six months to set up the center, and now manages it from London.

“We as an industry have shown that a lot of basic legal support work can successfully be done offshore very cost-effectively with no quality problems,” Mr. Ford said. “Why on earth would clients accept things going back?”

Many corporations agree that outsourcing legal work, in some form or another, is here to stay.

“We will continue to go to big firms for the lawyers they have who are experts in subject matter, world-class thought leaders and the best litigators and regulatory lawyers around the world — and we will pay a lot of money for those lawyers,” said Janine Dascenzo, associate general counsel at General Electric.

What G.E. does not need, though, is the “army of associates around them,” Ms. Dascenzo said. “You don’t need a $500-an-hour associate to do things like document review and basic due diligence,” she said.

Western lawyers making the leap to legal outsourcing companies come for a variety of reasons, but nearly universally, they say they stay for the opportunities to build a business and manage people.

“In many respects it is more rewarding than jobs I had in the United States,” said Mr. Wheeler, who moved to India when his Indian-born wife took a job here in 2006.

“If you’re talking about 15 employees in a windowless basement office, I’m not interested in making that my life’s calling,” he recalled thinking when he started talking to Pangea3. “But building a 500-person office, now that is a real challenge.”

Shelly Dalrymple left her job as a partner at a firm in Tulsa, Okla., in 2007 and is now based in India as the senior vice president of global litigation services at UnitedLex, a legal outsourcing company with offices in the United States, Britain, Israel and India.

When she first joined the industry, she said, growth was being driven by corporations that were pushing law firms to outsource to save money. Now, Western law firms themselves are starting to embrace the industry, she said. “We are seeing law firms who are putting a lot of thought into their future coming to us with interesting and creative ideas,” she said.

Partners in the West are asking legal outsourcing companies in India to create dedicated teams of lawyers for their firms, for example. Those teams could expand and contract depending on how much business the Western firm has. “That means a law firm with 500 members in Chicago can compete with a 2,000-member firm in New York,” Ms. Dalrymple said.

Moving to a legal outsourcing firm, especially in India, is not for everyone. About 5 percent of Western transplants cannot handle it and move back home, managers estimate.

Some find it hard to adapt to India. Other times, the job itself does not suit them — after spending years working nearly independently as a litigator, for example, it can be hard to transition to managing and inspiring a team of young foreign lawyers.

Even lawyers who stay are sometimes wistful about their previous careers. “Of course I miss litigation,” Mr. Wheeler said. But, he added, “watching people learn some of the same skills I did is gratifying.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: October 1, 2010

An article on Aug. 5 about the growth of India’s legal outsourcing industry misstated the number of lawyers working at CPA Global, an outsourcing company with offices in Europe, the United States and India. The company currently has a total of about 1,500 employees — not 1,500 lawyers. (The company has plans to increase its staff in India to 1,500 over the next few years, a majority of whom will be lawyers.) A reader pointed out the error in an e-mail message on Aug. 7; this correction was delayed because the reporter did not follow through on the complaint.

Vanessa Kachadurian-Attorneys in a corrupt system?

I recently started reading a new book called Our Corrupt Legal System: Why Everyone Is a Victim (Except Rich Criminals). PS, this book is almost as good as "Taking on the Kennedys."

Regular readers will understand immediately why I would be interested in a book with a title like that. But I'm happy to report that the book, by Australian journalist Evan Whitton, has much more going for it than a captivating title. It is an insightful and scathing critique of the common-law adversarial justice system, which began in Great Britain and spread to its colonies, including the United States and Canada.

To top it off, Whitton includes the best lawyer joke we've ever heard.

What is the crux of Whitton's argument? He says the British adversarial system has failed us and should be replaced with an inquisitorial model that prevails in much of Europe. Whitton provides a simple chart that shows how the two systems stack up:

Investigative Adversary

Seeks truth Yes No

Conceals evidence No Yes

In charge of evidence Judges Lawyers

Length of hearings About a day Months

Conviction rates 95 % 50 %

Innocent in prison Rare 1-5 %

The Age newspaper of Australia recently presented a profile of Whitton and examined his latest work:

Whitton has spent 30 years covering crime, corruption and courts, using a keen eye, an inquisitive mind and rare research talents to produce unique essays that shine lights into dark places. His opinions are backed by facts, and the former journalist of the year has concluded our court system is irreparably broken.

Even more startlingly, he has discovered there is something morally lower than a working hack from the press: criminal lawyers. It would appear he believes such creatures think that Integrity is a small island in the South Pacific and Scruples a board game played following after-dinner mints.

Whitton holds lawyers in even lower esteem than I do. No wonder I like this guy. And he has a prescription for what ails our sickly justice system:

He argues in his new book Our Corrupt Legal System, Where Everyone is a Victim (Except Rich Criminals) that the British adversarial system has failed and we should move to the European inquisitorial model.

He says the European system is cleaner and less open to abuse than our present process, which is unnecessarily complicated and designed not to discover but to hide the truth. He believes lawyers, judges and politicians (many of them former lawyers) are wedded to a process that is too expensive and fails too often.

He writes that the European model empowers judges to find evidence and discourages lawyers from concealing it. Trials are quicker and more just.

Whitton has a sense of humor about the whole corrupt enterprise:

''The adversary system is biased against people in business, industry, medicine and the media and in favour of criminals,'' Whitton writes. ''The bias makes business for trial lawyers and the rule of law a joke in the worst possible taste.''

Lawyers work for their clients and routinely ignore facts that do not suit their arguments, he says. ''Controlling evidence enables them to omit the damaging bits; spin out the pre-trial and trial process; procure enough pelf to retire comfortably, if they choose, to the social status of untrained, uninformed and passive judge.

''Judges, of course, do the decent thing: they try to stay awake.''

Oh, and about that lawyer joke . . .

How do you save a lawyer from drowning?

Shoot him before he hits the water.