Another NY BigLaw Partner Caught Lying to His Firm
In the Matter of William P. DiSalvatore, 2006 NY Slip Op 06210 (NY App Div Aug. 10, 2006). The NY Lawyer story.
William P. DiSalvatore was a partner at WilmerHale, a major national firm. He was also a rising star as a patent litigator–the National Law Journal had picked hm as one of the top IP litigators under 40. Despite this bright promise, he’s no longer an attorney. Instead, he resigned from the bar (and his firm) for a variety of serious misconduct, including:
* taking on friends and family as putative pro bono clients to get them free legal work
* falsely billing time to other pro bono clients
* submitting $109,000 of expense reports for non-reimbursable personal expenses
* forging client signatures on conflict waivers
* telling a client that a brief was still in draft form when it had already been filed
DiSalvatore’s story follows the recent story of Patrick Carmody, another NY lawyer busted for deception (in that case, running up 6 figures of “free” personal telephone calls misallocated to clients). I just don’t understand these situations–what causes very successful and well-compensated professionals to make such poor choices?
EN, thanks for the comment. I think my Professional Responsibility students thought I was crazy for spending about 3 weeks on ethical billing practices, but after reading stories like this, I feel a little vindicated. Eric.
Interesting question, Eric. People act against their own manifest best interests when there are no boundaries to prevent them from doing so.
If someone had been monitoring (or even auditing) things like client waiver signatures, or acquisition of pro bono clients, that would be one way to catch (or deter) some bad actors.
But the main thing is, why was this guy allowed to get away with it for so long? What let him get this bad? How far back does his dishonesty go? Who let him get out of high school, or college, or law school, and into a law firm with this kind of cancer on his soul?
This sounds like a personal attack. It’s not. He did this stuff, it’s his fault, he committed fraud, and is disbarred (or resigned, same idea) and rightfully so. But where did this come from? Would morality training have helped? Confession to a priest? More hugs? Corporal punishment the first time his transgressions were discovered – because this wasn’t the first time, I bet.
Compulsive liars may tell themselves that they’re doing nothing wrong. But there’s something malignant deep inside, so that an otherwise successful and productive being turns into a monstrous parody of a lawyer.
You know those helplines that offer, not ethical advice on close calls, but help for lawyers with pathologies? This guy should have gotten help. “Liars Anonymous” maybe. Get into treatment, start confiding in people, then repent of your bad behavior.
As it is, he made it to partner in a BigLaw firm, before the roof fell in. Sad. Not as sad for him as for the clients he screwed and partners he defrauded, of course, but still sad.