Judges, Lawyers Under Scrutiny

Lawyers for former Chapman University School of Law Dean John C. Eastman on Sept. 13 filed an opening brief in the State Bar’s Review Department contesting a hearing judge’s recommendation that their client, now on involuntary inactive status, be disbarred, asserting a violation of his First Amendment prerogatives and bias on the part of the adjudicator. The State Bar’s Office of Chief Trial Counsel also filed its opening brief on that date, blaming Eastman, in part, for the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Reply briefs are due Nov. 15.

The May 1 decision by State Bar Court Judge Yvette Roland was based on statements Eastman made in the course of representing then-President Donald Trump in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election, centered on his participation in an effort to block Joseph Biden from taking office as president of the United States through pronouncements at the “Save America Rally” in the District of Columbia. He made claims of election fraud that purportedly deprived the Republican Trump of reelection.

The opening brief, signed by Randall A. Miller, Zachary Mayer, and Jeanette Chu of the Los Angeles firm of Miller Law says:

“This disciplinary prosecution is an extraordinary, unprecedented, and abjectly misguided foray by the California Bar…into the 2020 presidential election, one of the most hotly debated, disputed, and controversial elections in our nation’s history—and in which lawyers on all sides played prominent roles before, during, and after—Dr. Eastman amongst them. Yet, out of that legal conflagration, the Bar selectively plucks Dr. Eastman from the election-litigation scrum to prosecute him for his research, legal advice, role as counsel of record in consequential court cases, and public statements—all on behalf of clients who sought his active and zealous advocacy and legal and constitutional acumen.”

The brief accuses Roland of having evinced bias, asserting that through her “aggressive questioning,” she “eviscerated Dr. Eastman’s ability to mount an adequate defense.” It charges that there was an “unjustified exclusion of nearly all of Dr. Eastman’s expert witnesses” and a “significant and insupportable curtailment of the testimony of the one expert who remained,” as well as “harassing” of Eastman’s percipient witnesses.

Lawyers for Eastman pointed out that Roland “continued to make political donations to Democrat candidates and causes—the political opponents of Dr. Eastman’s client, whose representation gave rise to the charges at issue here,” setting forth:

“She even made a donation in September 2022, while the investigation of this case had been underway for a year, to the Newsom for California Governor 2022 campaign committee. Those funds were then funneled to Newsom’s Super PAC, Campaign for Democracy, in March 2023 while this case was pending before her. The express purpose of that Super PAC is to ‘save the great American experiment in democracy’ from ‘extremist Republicans’ (prominently featuring a picture of former President Trump, Dr. Eastman’s client)….”

The Office of Chief Trial Counsel’s opening brief declares:

“Speaking in front of a crowd that had been summoned by Trump and his associates to take action to ‘stop the steal,’ Eastman, who was touted to the crowd as a respected constitutional scholar, repeated a series of false and debunked claims to provide a sham veneer of legality to the action being urged on the crowd—to do what was necessary to persuade Vice President Pence to stop the electoral count. Eastman’s false statements followed a call by Rudy Guiliani to ‘have trial by combat’ and preceded Trump’s encouragement to the crowd to march down Pennsylvania Avenue and ‘fight like hell’ to save the country. To what could have been no one’s surprise, the crowd heeded the call to action and marched to the Capitol. Denied entry, and fueled by the misguided belief, buttressed by Eastman’s false claims, that they were acting in furtherance of the law, they stormed the Capitol, gained entry, caused elected representatives to be evacuated, and disrupted the electoral vote count.”

“Given Eastman and Trump’s prior efforts to obstruct the electoral vote count; Eastman’s prior knowledge of the possibility of civil unrest during a disputed election; Eastman’s prominent speaking role at the rally; the tone, tenor, and false and inflammatory nature of the statements made by Eastman, Guiliani, and Trump to a crowd that had been gathered to ‘Stop the Steal’ and ‘Save America’; and the timing and proximity of the rally to the riot—Eastman’s false and deceptive statements at the rally clearly contributed directly to the crowd’s actions at the Capitol. As a result, they constituted conduct involving moral turpitude, dishonesty, and corruption as charged in count 11, and Eastman should be found culpable on that charge.”

Disbarred lawyer Thomas Vincent Girardi on Aug. 27 was convicted by a jury in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, after a 13-day trial, of four counts of wire fraud. Girardi, 85, faces a possible sentence of 80 years in prison.

In light of the prospect of a prison term that would, in reality, amount to a life sentence, prosecutors in the Northern District of Illinois, where Girardi has also been indicted, told the judge presiding over proceedings there that following the sentencing here on Dec. 6, they might drop charges against him.

Girardi is said to have embezzled more than $15 million from clients. He tried, unsuccessfully, to place all blame on Christopher Kamon, who was chief financial officer for the now-defunct firm of Girardi|Keese. On Oct. 8. Kamon entered into a plea bargain under which he pled guilty on Oct. 11 to two counts of wire fraud, with other counts dropped, and will forfeit $3.1 million.

Judge Josephine Staton on Jan. 2 found Girardi competent to stand trial, rejecting his contention that he lacks competency owing to affliction with Alzheimer’s disease.

Once a monied and highly influential lawyer, Girardi is now disgraced and impecunious. A former superstar among California’s personal injury attorneys, Girardi resided in a Pasadena mansion with his trophy wife, “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” star Erika Jayne, who, although she filed for a dissolution of marriage, has said she won’t follow through with the divorce because she could wind up having to pay Girardi spousal support.

The indictment in Illinois stems from the former lawyer purportedly stealing about $3 million that was due family members of persons who were in the Lion Air Flight 610 crash in Indonesia on Oct. 29, 2018, killing all 189 who were aboard. Boeing had manufactured the aircraft, and agreed to pay $500 million to the survivors.

Also indicted there were Los Angeles attorney David Lira, Girardi’s son-in-law, and Kamon. The three face eight counts of wire fraud and four counts of criminal contempt of court, if the trial there, scheduled for March 3, 2025, takes place.

Over the decades, complaints by clients to the State Bar of his perfidy, many complaints, went unheeded. Girardi had connections at the State Bar—which included a then-investigator there, Tom Layton, who acted as his boy-Friday.