Aaron Biber Update--He Owes $15 Million to Raped Teen Male

In addition to the 18 years in the penitentiary Aaron Biber got for repeatedly raping his 15-year old neighbor, the Minneapolis's Star Tribune is reporting that a Hennepin County judge has ordered Biber to pay $15 million ($5 million compensatory, $10 million punitive) to the young teen male. 

As followers of this blawg know, Biber is the Minneapolis Big Law/Super Lawyer who at the time of his arrest for raping his teenage neighbor was president-elect of the state bar association. 

Aaron Biber Update--18-Years for Raping Teen

Former Big Law attorney, president-elect of the Minnesota State Bar Association, and Super Lawyer Aaron Biber was sentenced to 18-years in prison for raping his 15-year old neighbor. 

Here's the story at the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

This is the link to all the past Bad Lawyer stories on Biber.

Aaron Biber, Guilty

Rochelle Olson at the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports that once prominent Super Lawyer, Aaron Biber, entered a guilty plea to first degree sex with a minor.  Excerpts from reporter Olson's story follow:

[Minneapolis] attorney Aaron Biber pleaded guilty Tuesday morning to one count of first-degree criminal sexual conduct for sex with a minor over whom he authority.

Jury selection was set to start Tuesday morning for Biber, 47. Until his arrest, Biber practiced civil law at the Gray Plant Mooty law firm in Minneapolis and was treasurer of the State Bar Association. He is no longer with the firm and divorced from his wife since his arrest.

Biber cried as he explained why he decided to enter a plea. 'I thought a lot about it. The fact is I committed this crime. I don't want to put the victim, his family, my family, my sons and my former wife and colleagues through this,' he said. The plea gives to Hennepin County District Court Judge Lloyd Zimmerman the decision on Biber's sentence. Assistant Hennepin County Attorney Judy Johnsont said she will be asking for more than the maximum of 14 years because of 'aggravating factors' in the crime. The defense will ask for probation for Biber, who has no criminal record.

Zimmerman ruled that photos taken by the 15-year-old alleged victim wouldn't be admitted in the case against Biber.

One of the photos showed the boy with a small Adolf Hitler-style moustache and his arm raised in a Nazi salute. Zimmerman also declined to admit 37 images from the boy's cell phone.  Prosecutors sought to bar the photos. Assistant Hennepin County Attorney Judy Johnston argued they were inflammatory and not allowed under rape shield laws. Those laws prohibit the sexual history of an alleged victim from being used at trial. Johnston said the boy told her that he 'didn't know why' he took the Hitler-esque photo and that it was 'just a dumb kid thing to do.'

Defense lawyers wanted the photo admitted on grounds that it showed bias against Biber, who is Jewish. The alleged victim is not."

Screwing Your Client's Wife Is Not a Breach of Fiduciary Duty in Ol' Miss!

This story was at the ABAJournal.com over the weekend and it's pretty obnoxious. 

Yeah, that's right in an opinion by the Mississippi Supreme Court, a "Super" lawyer, William N. Reed (pic, a very prominent and and connected law partner) who had an affair with his client's wife has been deemed not to have violated fiduciary duty to his client.

A fiduciary duty is a legal or ethical relationship of confidence or trust between a professional and a client.  Screwing your client's wife is not a deviation from that duty in Mississippi.  Are you kidding?   This is such an offensive decision, the lawyer involved really deserves a smack.  Decisions like this are very upsetting for me because it goes to the very heart of the trust relationship between a professional and his or her client.  That our law don't deal harshly at least on a licensure basis with these breaches is just wrong.  In the Mississippi case we are dealing with civil liability and this decision is wrong in my opinion, but the decision does turn on the interpretation of Mississippi's law.  Frankly, I'm guessing that the decision relates to a "legal" argument advanced by the lawyer's malpractice insurance carrier.

Bad Lawyer-Cad Lawyer

Jack Levy, a Portland attorney (and Oregon Super Lawyer) is accused by an opposing counsel of being a drunken asshole.

Levy a partner at the construction and development firm of Smith, Freed & Everhard is alleged to have come onto a female opposing counsel the day before a construction site meeting at a downtown Portland law firm cocktail party.  According to an ethics and criminal complaint filed by the attorney, Levy grabbed her buttocks and made several insistent sexual suggestions.  At the time, the female associate represented several home owners' associations in multi-million dollar litigation against developers represented by Levy. 

A report at the Oregonian relates her account given to the Portland police and the Multnomah County District Attorney which says that the next day at the construction-site Levy apologized blaming booze on his boorish behavior the night before.  I can not tell you how many times I've heard this story from the drunk lawyer/accountant/business person over the years, as part of an account of drinking gone bad, in other words, instant asshole, just add alcohol.  I can't tell you how many times I was the asshole. 

When I drank, my rules, my morals, my boundaries were meaningless. 

Super Lawyers

The Bad Lawyer resides in a house with a Super Lawyer who happens to be the mother of the surly teenagers who also live, here. 

Super Lawyers is an advertising and promotional publication by a Minnesota-based operation that publishes a "magazine" and does magazine inserts around the country.  These types of promotional resources have existed in the law profession as long as I've been an attorney, Martindale-Hubbell which is owned by Lexis-Nexis, Inc. (which also owns, Law.com)--was the publication you wanted to be listed in when I was a "mere youth."  The Bad Lawyer is "A-V" rated, cool, huh?   Frankly, it's more important to be listed in the phone book, even better to be on your prospective client's "speed dial."

Of all these sorts of promo publications, Super Lawyers is the biggest bunch of BULLSHIT I'm familiar with in my business.  If this is something you're into, you get a bunch of your friends to nominate you and voila, you are a "super lawyer." When I first saw this publication--I don't know, maybe ten years ago?--I was curious.  Within a couple of months, a young lawyer that I got a first job for and who I knew to be inexperienced, not a litigator, and just acquiring skills was on the cover of this publication.  My reaction, was complete cynicism.  Oh, there is one other element, how, ethically, can lawyers promote themselves as "super lawyers," when the disciplinary rules prohibit self-aggrandizing statements in advertisements?  Then again how do lawyers get away with the garbage that passes for theri Yellow Page listings and television commercials?  Let's face it I'm getting old and cranky.

Oh, the blonde super lawyer that I share the house with--is in actuality a super lawyer in real life (as well as a Super Lawyer), but not because of some BS-advertising scam.   She acquired skills, education, and experience, the old fashioned way:  (which is the same way you get to Carnegie Hall) practice, practice, practice.

For more on the controversy:  http://boston.bizjournals.com/boston/stories/2006/08/07/story2.html