BREAKING: The Leon Black Saga Just Got Even Madder, Spelling Potential Big Trouble for Lawyers
Last week, I wrote of the mad, sad world of the fallen legendary financier Leon Black and how he had accused his former colleague (the multi-billionaire Josh Harris) of funding a smear campaign against him using a former mistress (Guzel Ganieva) and her allegations of rape, a publicity firm (run by Steven Rubenstein), and a law firm (Wigdor LLP) as his tools in a federal RICO lawsuit.
(Harris, the PR firm, and Wigdor all refuted the claims. Wigdor filed for both a dismissal of the suit and for sanctions against Black’s lawyers—those at Quinn Emanuel as well as Susan Estrich—for bringing a baseless suit.)
I also wrote how John Quinn of Quinn Emanuel, the prestigious law firm, had suddenly stepped away from the suit, citing a conflict. (Quinn Emanuel still represents Black in his countersuit against Ganieva in New York State court.)
I also wrote that another lawyer at Quinn Emanuel—Alex Spiro—had been named in Black’s amended RICO lawsuit, filed at the same time as Quinn stepped down, as having been approached by an alleged consiglieri of Harris’s “war council” to represent Ganieva, but, according to Black, had turned this down. (Spiro had no comment and John Quinn said the conflict had no relation to this.)
But now, things have gotten even crazier, according to motions just filed today in the Southern District of New York.
Leon Black and Debra Black attend Prostate Cancer Foundation Presents the 2017 New York Dinner on November 6, 2017 in New York City. (Photo by Sylvain Gaboury/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images)
In a nutshell: According to the filing, a week ago last Sunday, right as the clock was running out on Black’s lawyers (who would have to file by the following day an opposition to fight the sanctions motion from Wigdor’s lawyer), a senior partner from Quinn Emanuel, Michael Carlinsky, phoned a lawyer for Wigdor, Max Gershenoff of Rivkin Radler LLP, and basically offered to remove Wigdor from Black’s RICO suit without prejudice—if Doug Wigdor, the head of the law firm, handed over information that implicated Josh Harris “in wrongdoing.”
Gershenoff, who has signed a legal declaration affirming this, said no to Carlinsky—and behold! The next day, Black amended his RICO complaint, eliminating Wigdor LLP as an alleged participant in what Black claims is Harris’s audacious ruination scheme. And, equally as suddenly, Quinn Emanuel withdrew from representing Black in the federal RICO case, citing a “potential conflict”—leaving the women’s-rights lawyer Susan Estrich as the sole lawyer representing Black in the RICO case.
To say that the optics of this are poor for Black’s lawyers is an understatement. One wonders what confusion could possibly be going on behind the scenes. If the conflict is not Spiro, what is it?
Meanwhile, Quinn Emanuel remains a party to the original sanctions motion.
Should Wigdor prevail in court for this, the consequences would be horrendous reputationally for Black and his lawyers.
“For a law firm, a Rule 11 sanction is an egregious professional repercussion,” says Jeanne Christensen, who is Ganieva’s lawyer at Wigdor.
“Why aren’t they saying what the potential conflict is? And why won’t they answer our questions about Alex Spiro?” asks Christensen, who is frustrated by the silence.
So, stand by. There is most certainly more to come here.
