A former partner at Latham Watkins was sentenced to 15 months in prison for defrauding his clients and his firm.

“Samuel A. Fishman, 51, of Fairlawn, N.J., a mergers and acquisitions specialist in the firm’s New York office from 1993 to 2005, pleaded guilty to a single count of mail fraud in march 2008. He faced a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.”

“Fishman admitted that he had billed fraudulent expenses to clients by mischaracterizing some nonreimbursable costs, such as local meals and parking, as other reimbursable costs, such as photocopying and express mail, and had inflated other, otherwise reimbursable expenses.”

The former partner was sentenced to 15 months in prison which will be followed by three years of supervised release. He was also ordered to pay a fine of $10,000  and $350,000 in restitution for defrauding both clients and his firm.

At his sentencing, Southern District of New York Judge Victor Marrera said that Fishman was “not just an ordinary citizen or offender but an officer of the court.” The judge added that the lawyer had “betrayed by extensive criminal conduct” the oath he took.

Fishman resigned after these issues came to light and he is also facing disbarment for his actions.

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After a teen was convicted of murder, Sister Janet Harris fought to get him released from jail. However, lawyer after lawyer turned her away until she found Latham & Watkins. It all began many years ago when police charged gang member Mario Rocha with two separate shootings outside Los Angeles. One victim died and the other was badly wounded.

Sister Janet met Rocha in Juvenile Hall when she was there, running her creative writing program. She said she knew he was innocent and pushed to have someone take over Rocha’s case. Initially, it seemed hopeless but after the firm had the teenager take a lie detector test to ensure that they were, in fact, fighting for an innocent kid, they hired a private investigator to find missing witnesses. Sure enough, several people revealed that on the night of the shootings, everyone was gathered at a party and Rocha was nowhere near the gun fire.

After gathering new evidence, a judge listened to the lawyers and ruled that Rocha had to be re-charged. He was held on $1 million bond. In 2006, after the firm raised money to get him released, Rocha walked out of prison. Latham then hired an expert criminal attorney, Michael Adelson, to prepare his trial. Talking about having Rocha plead guilty to a lesser charge in order to secure his release on a sentence of time served, Rocha said no way!

Last Tuesday, all the charges were dropped against him.

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