January 30, 2023

Attorney Grievance Committee

Supreme Court of the State of New York
Appellate Division, First Judicial
Department
180 Maiden Lane
New York, New York 10038
(212) 401 0800
Email: AD1 AGC newcomplaints@nycourts.gov
re: Professional Responsibility Investigation of Bernstein Litowitz Berger &
Grossmann LLP, a law firm practicing law in the First Judicial Department

Dear Members of the Grievance Committee:

We are writing you on behalf of our client, who wishes to remain anonymous, to
provide the Grievance Committee evidence collected by an investigative firm ("Investigative
Firm”) concerning the law firm of Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann LLP (“BLB&G”),
for violations of Model Rule 7.6 of the American Bar Association, and Rules 5.1 and 7.2 of the
New York Rules of Professional Conduct.

Model Rule 7.6 of the American Bar Association states, “A lawyer or law firm shall not
accept a government legal engagement or an appointment by a judge if the lawyer or law firm
makes a political contribution or solicits political contributions for the purpose of obtaining or
being considered for that type of legal engagement or appointment.”

Rule 7.2 of the New York Rules of Professional Conduct states, “A lawyer shall not
compensate or give anything of value to a person or organization to recommend or obtain
employment by a client, or as a reward for having made a recommendation resulting in
employment by a client.” As this rule relates to contributions to government officials with
whom a lawyer is seeking new or continuing business, it is further clarified by Note 5:

Campaign contributions by lawyers to government officials or candidates for

public office who are, or may be, in a position to influence the award of a legal
engagement may threaten governmental integrity by subjecting the recipient to a
conflict of interest. Correspondingly, when a lawyer makes a significant contribution
to a public official or an election campaign for a candidate for public office and is
later engaged by the official to perform legal services for the official’s agency, it
may appear that the official has been improperly influenced in selecting the lawyer,
whether or not this is so. This appearance of influence reflects poorly on the
integrity of the legal profession and government as a whole. For these reasons, just
as the Code prohibits a lawyer from compensating or giving anything of value to
a person or organization to recommend or obtain employment by a client, the
Code prohibits a lawyer from making or soliciting a political contribution to any


candidate for government office, government official, political campaign

committee or political party, if a disinterested person would conclude that the
contribution is being made or solicited for the purpose of obtaining or being
considered eligible to obtain a government legal engagement. This would be true
even in the absence of an understanding between the lawyer and any
government official or candidate that special consideration will be given in
return for the political contribution or solicitation.
Rule 5.1 of the New York Rules of Professional Conduct states that: “A law firm shall
make reasonable efforts to ensure that all lawyers in the firm conform to these Rules.”

Investigative Firm, for approximately 8 months of last year, has conducted an

investigation of BLB&G’s activities and made findings based on multiple sources,
including: (i) open-source research; (ii) databases; and (iii) documented interviews with
the relevant key players. It should be noted that all the evidence were collected legally,
including the documented interviews, and that there should be no issue with the
provenance or legality of these documented interviews, which were made in one-party
consent states after obtaining legal advice from counsel in each jurisdiction.

As will be described below, the Investigative Firm has documented conducts by

BLB&G, through numerous of its senior partners, among them former managing partner
Douglas McKeige (1992-2007), current senior partner – Tony Gelderman and others, that
are in direct violation of the abovementioned ethical rules.

Thus, through interviews with the relevant key players, Investigative Firm has
confirmed that, BLB&G engaged in a multi-year scheme of “pay-to-play” campaign
donations - - including a series of donations that so distinctly departed from the normal
activism of a committed political activist that they can only be construed as part of a broader
scheme to curry favor with government decision-makers with the aim of securing or continuing
lucrative business relationships with the government - - questionable contributions, and other
benefits to elected officials to whose agencies BLB&G was soliciting for business, or seeking
continued representation, in representing pension funds in shareholder suits.

According to the evidence gathered in the past year, BLB&G made or influenced these
donations for securing and maintaining their continued engagement by the pension funds.

The situation presented exactly the type of situation that Rule 7.2. and ABA Model
Rule 7.6 aim to prevent.1

SUMMARY OF EVIDENCE PRESENTED HEREWITH

1. BLB&G unlawfully donates to public officials in exchange for

representation of public pension funds in shareholder suits

1 See Rule 7.6: Political Contributions To Obtain Government Legal Engagements Or Appointments By Judges.”
americanbar.org. American Bar Association, March 10, 2021.
https://www.americanbar.org/groups/professional_responsibility/publications/model_rules_of_professional_conduc
t/rule_7_6_political_contributions_to_obtain_legal_engagements_or_appointments_by_judges/

Jacques Catafago Jacques@Catafagofini.com 2



Investigation Firm uncovered, that the donations acted like a tool of BLB&G to show
their support for government officials, such as the former Attorney General of the States of
Mississippi, Mr. Hood and former Louisiana’s Treasurer, John Kennedy and the particular
political party that supported them at the time. And because they served that function, they
transformed from protected political speech envisioned and permitted by the rules, to a tool
to obtain and retain a government legal engagement which is a prohibited practice under the
abovementioned ethical rules and worth of discipline by the committee.

BLB&G was actively engaged by the different states, among others, the
pension funds in the States of Louisiana and Mississippi, representing them in class
action suits at the time of their donations and was seeking additional work from
the states. The size of the donations and their proximity in time to the selection of BLB&G
as their counsel, would lead any neutral and reasonable observer to conclude that there is likely
a connection between the donations and the selection, a practice prohibited under the
abovementioned ethical rules. Thus, for instance, as concluded in the U.S. Chamber
Institute for Legal Reform (ILR), BLB&G was the leading donor of Mr. Hood
between 2005-2011.2 The media also has long reported on this pattern by BLB&G.3

This complaint sets forth hard evidence that was not previously available, and
therefore could not be presented to or considered by courts’ prior ruling on the pay-to-
play misconduct allegations concerning BLB&G in the contexts of attorney fee
applications or attorney disqualification applications.

Mr. Robert Borden, the former Executive Director and Chief Investment
Officer of the Louisiana State Employee Retirement System (1995-2006) admitted to
Investigative Firm, that as a matter of ethics he should receive no benefit from a law
firm, or if he did, he would have been required to disclose this and then also to abstain
from any vote concerning the hiring of the law firm:

Borden “Now, if I was a public official on the legal committee and I received
any money from a law firm that was under consideration, proper
governance practices would state that I should recuse myself from any
vote regarding the hiring of them. And I should go on record in the
minutes to say, I received moneys and therefore I abstain from the
decision”.

Mr. Matthew Berman, an attorney formerly a member in the securities class

actions department of BLB&G (2003-2014), also stated that the issue of political
donations is “delicate” but admitted that the payment of donations for case referrals
was “no good.”:

2 https://instituteforlegalreform.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/FrequentFilers_FINAL.pdf.
3 See, for example,

https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704107204574473310387443816.

Jacques Catafago Jacques@Catafagofini.com 3



Speaker “…we saw from the website of BLB&G, that they made a lot of
contributions, right?
Berman Okay. Yes.
Speaker How is it in the States, does the contribution that you give—because in
every—in Europe some of the countries, it’s allowed, in some of the
countries is not allowed.
Berman Are you talking about charitable or political contributions?
Speaker No, charitable I understand that charitable may be charitable as well--
for example in Germany you can put charitable to different causes that
will help you, but I’m talking about both actually. Charitable that makes
them good look and it could be the-- please them in the eyes of the
decision-makers.

Berman Okay.

Speaker But I’m talking as well on the political contributions to the decision-
makers--.

[…]

Berman Political contributions. That’s-- it’s delicate. You know, you have the
freedom to give money to politicians who are advancing causes that you
believe in, there’s nothing wrong with that. However, if you are making
political donations for the purpose of having that politician direct
business to you, that’s no good”.

Yet, attorney Douglas McKeige, former managing partner at BLB&G, who was
directly involved in the representation of the pension funds and client development,
describes the procedure of receiving cases as a direct result of the political campaign
contributions:

Mckeige I did a lot of client development out with the public pension funds,
travelled the country, went to conferences, I did some speaking.
Speaker What do you mean, the public?
Mckeige Public US like CalPERS
Speaker Okay.
Mckeige New York State common retirement fund, police and fire pension plans,
teacher pension plans, they were all individual to a state, a U.S. state.

[…]

Jacques Catafago Jacques@Catafagofini.com 4



Mckeige Well, that’s a little over the top here. And the problem that has been in the
United States, is that elected officials, you know, governors and state
treasurers, and state attorney generals have a lot to say about whether their
pension funds are gonna bring these cases.
Speaker Okay.
Mckeige So, you go to see them and say, ‘We’d love to represent your pension
funds.’ And they say, ‘Oh, we think you’re a great firm, and we think that’s
a really good idea.’ And then because of course and then, you get a phone
call from that politicians campaign team like a week later.
Speaker Right.
Mckeige And they say, ‘Wow.’

Speaker Donate.
Mckeige we would really like to see you, and we, such good friends, and I know you
love the governor, you know. You think the governor is great, and we’d
love to see you make some contributions to this campaign.’

Speaker And you’re doing that.

Mckeige And you do that. You can do that.
Speaker Okay
Mckeige You know. if there's a, like, ‘I’ll give you this case, if you give me a
contribution.’ If that, you know, if that.
Speaker It makes sense.
Mckeige It has yeah.

[…]

Mckeige We would do a conference in New York for the clients. And it was very
when I ran it. We-- I would do, you know, out on public speaking, and then
we would bring in some-- maybe some external people in order to provide
interesting and entertaining content. And we would take them to dinner,
and we would take them to a Broadway show. And that was okay. You’re
taking me back through history here.”

This statement was corroborated by Jason R. Redmond, the former Deputy

State Treasurer of Louisiana under then-state Treasurer John Kennedy, between 2000
and 2015, who admitted that he worked on fundraising for Kennedy with BLB& G’s
head of Louisiana office, Tony Gelderman. This occurred even though Kennedy was a
Republican and the law firm regularly contributed heavily not to Republican candidates
but to Democratic Party candidates:

Jacques Catafago Jacques@Catafagofini.com 5



Redmond I worked, so I worked for that state treasurer and then I, my claim to fame,
as I say, working for the current US senator, John Kennedy
Speaker Ah, right, there, right, tight.
Redmond In Louisiana. And he was state treasurer also, so,
Speaker Right.
Redmond I ran his first campaign for state treasurer, and that was his big break in,
you know, the rest was history. So, I was his deputy state treasurer there
for 15 of the 20 years that I was there with. So, yeah, Tony and me, Tony
Gelderman, the
Speaker Yeah.

Redmond the gentleman I mentioned. Yeah, so we go way back, and we actually

worked together while my treasurer was treasurer
Speaker Right.
Redmond on another.
Speaker Yeah, you said, fundraising you are doing the fundraising together.

Redmond Umm-hmm, yeah, yeah."

!"#$
Redmond “Like, our pension state pension funds would hire a firm like Bernstein
Litowitz to engage in class action lawsuits for shareholder fraud. Like, you
know, Enron kind of stuff, you know? To where to recover damages on
behalf of the retirees, who had the money invested in certain securities
Speaker Yeah
Redmond So, they were you know, that’s at least that my experience was that’s what
they specialised in. And of course, those kind of laws, on both the state and
the federal level, are very much again, very much developed along, mostly
along partisan lines. The-- so, as a result,$these kind of firms, and them
in particular, are heavy political contributors to Democratic campaigns,
Democratic, you know, party apparatuses, Political Action Committees.
You know, groups associated with national Democratic agendas, you
know? In terms of controlling the senate, controlling the House. So,
that’s always been my experience. Now, there are times when they
contribute to Republicans in particular states, like if there’s a particular
like in, again, State Treasurer who I, you know, who I used to deal with
in this state, who they were supporters of him even though he was a
Republican”

Further, according to Jason R. Redmond, contrary to public denials, the State

Treasurer Kennedy knew that BLB&G donated to his campaign solely due to his
influential position on the pension fund board:

Jacques Catafago Jacques@Catafagofini.com 6



Speaker I understood that BLB&G were collecting funds and doing some
donation to your former boss. In order hoping to gaining more cases of
class actions. And probably it helped them in some way. If not directly, so
in undirect way.
Redmond Yeah, I mean, so, to follow up on the point I just made about in terms of
my experience, my boss, my former boss, he was on the yes, he was the
elected State Treasurer. He actually beat an incumbent at the when we
ran that first time. We actually beat an incumbent. So, they actually
supported our opponent.
Speaker Yeah.

Redmond The first race.

Speaker Yeah.
Redmond So, ‘Oh, wow, surprise, we beat the incumbent’, right?
Speaker Yeah.
Redmond Well, they nicely came and knocked on the door, and they offered to do
fundraisers for us, because my boss had a campaign debt that he needed
to pay off
Speaker Yeah.

Redmond So, they bundled, they raised money, they held fundraisers, and they that
established a relationship that could have been adversarial about it, so
you see my point there. Because they were supporters of our opponent
Speaker Yeah.
Redmond We could have just been, you know, ‘The hell with y’all, y’all weren’t with
me when I ran’.
Speaker Yeah.
Redmond It wasn’t about again, even a personality, really. A personality or an
ideological crusade, or what anything about that. It was, ‘He’s the State
Treasurer. We, you know, the State Treasurer’s on the board of this of
these retirement systems, we deal with the retirement systems, so whoever
the State Treasurer is, we wanna help’
Speaker Exactly.
Redmond And they help the incumbent, and they help in a re-election situation,
their bias was to help the incumbent, and they did. Well, we beat the
incumbent
Speaker Yeah

Redmond And that was a great, we were like, it’s like, ‘Yeah, we’re gonna have a
lot of new friends now’, I told him

Jacques Catafago Jacques@Catafagofini.com 7



Additionally, Redmond admitted that it was these political campaign donations,

to the State Treasurer, that enabled BLB&G to continue do business with the pension
fund and obtain legal representation work:
Yeah. And the outcome of it, ‘We will get more jobs’, which means
Speaker more class actions.
Redmond And see, that was, again, that example, I would say, observationally, is
that that was a situation where they, and it was them, it was BG and,
you know.

Speaker Yeah.
Redmond They effectively maintained the relationship that-- or created a
relationship and maintained it, that was not there prior. And could have
been adversarial.

Speaker Yeah.
Redmond See? So, if they had made gestures to help politically--.

Speaker And-.
Redmond -then we would have probably viewed them as the enemy, or as, ‘Oh,
we don’t like’.

Speaker Exactly. And what was the outcome of it at BLB&G? What was the
outcome of it, of BLB&G?
Redmond Yeah, they had done they continued to do business with the retirement
systems.

Thus, essentially in exchange for BLB&G’s donations, the State Treasurer used
his influential position on the pension fund board to favor BLB&G:

Speaker If we will take as an example BLB&G, what it allow them, the fundraising to
be in contact with that without the fundraising it wouldn’t happen?

Redmond What-- you’re asking what-- if they hadn’t been fundraising, would they have
had the same success? Is that your question?

Speaker No, I’m asking what kind of relationship the fundraising help them to build
with officials in Louisiana, that without the fundraising they couldn’t establish
those contacts?

Jacques Catafago Jacques@Catafagofini.com 8



Redmond I mean, I would say it was very effective. the fundraising was very effective
in creating or establishing or maintaining existing relationships. So yes, I
mean, the--.
Speaker With whom? The governor, the--?

[…]

Redmond In my case, my personal experience, it was when I worked for the State
Treasurer who was on the board of all the retirement systems.

Speaker I understand, I understand.

Redmond Right? So, you know, when they needed a meeting or an audience with folks,
you know, it-- because the relationship was there, again, because of the fact--
you know, yeah, because I’m sure--.
Speaker The fundraising.

Redmond -There because of the fact that they’ve helped them politically. So, yes, he
helped open doors for, you know, for a lot of folks. He-- now, he wasn’t the
decider in that case. You know, he wasn’t the-- like, say, in New Jersey it’s the
sole trustee kind of situation.

Speaker Yeah.

Redmond But he was one board member and like I said, when an influential board
member calls another board member, and says, ‘Hey, can you meet with my
folks and let them make their case?
Speaker Yeah.
Redmond They’re gonna take the meeting more.

[…]

Jacques Catafago Jacques@Catafagofini.com 9



Speaker But I assume, when you are donating money, so the governor or some other
official will meet you in any case that you would like to meet him, and then
when there is some sort of a case, you will be it will pop up as one of the best
options to deal with this case, if it’s a class action or any other.

Redmond Yeah, that it’s a fair thing to say.

Redmond has admitted that through political donations, BLB&G formed a

friendly relationship with the State Treasurer, and was engaged in more cases:

Speaker So, in general, with this positive view, you help them to receive more cases
of class action.
Redmond Yeah, well, they again, they have, they it didn’t hurt in terms of their ability
to have access to the board members, to the you know, the is an open
process, obviously, the public bidding, and all that. So, but it’s a matter of
being able to get an audience with the right high-level staffers, right?
Elected officials. It

Speaker Yeah.

Redmond You know, it, I mean, I’m just being yeah, politicians help their friends.

[…]

Redmond They always offered their support to, you know, to us. To my boss, John
Kennedy, who’s now a United States senator, John Kennedy.
Speaker No, but what was the outcome of it? Did they receive more class actions?

Redmond I mean, I believe, yes, I believe they, yes, they were under they did have, you
know, access in consideration for that kind of business

According to Alexander Coxe, former Director of Marketing and

Communications of BLB&G (1999-2020), donations to public officials while
exceeding the limit you are allowed to, is “a red flag” and “could get you in trouble” if
the someone finds out:

Coxe There are two ways to get in trouble, one is to if you’re giving money to an
elected official, and you exceed the limits you’re allowed to give, that’s gonna
be a red flag for the media

Jacques Catafago Jacques@Catafagofini.com 10



Speaker Okay.
Coxe and it could get you in trouble.
Speaker Okay.
Coxe And then if you’re giving money to government officials, that’s just a red flag.
So, without real cause, gifts, meals, all that kind of stuff, if people
Speaker That.
Coxe If people find out about it, you have a problem.
Speaker Right.
Coxe The media loves that.

At the same time, Coxe also acknowledged that donations to public officials are
a reason for BLB&G being assigned the cases to represent the state pension funds:

Speaker But maybe to the donation actually, that’s one of the reasons why they
actually got the cases.
Coxe I mean, I.
Speaker I’m assuming, if we’re gonna put it on the table, you know?

Coxe It’s, we, I think this is true.

For the sake of completeness, it is important to note that this is not the first time
that the law firm has been the subject of such serious accusations. Previously, it also
was reported that a grievance was filed before the Committee alleging pay-to-play
misconduct was filed against BLB&G’s former co-managing partner, John Coffey.4

There also was a whistleblower suit against the law firm claiming a kickback
scheme. See Bernstein v BB L & G, et al. 14-cv-06867 (SDNY) (hereafter: “Bernstein
Complaint”). According to the complaint, a former attorney, Bruce Bernstein, (formerly Of
Counsel with BLB&G) has made credible claims that there was a corrosive culture at the firm
that pressured staff to make political contributions to help the firm. The complaint that he
filed detailed a series of ethical improprieties at BLB&G, including the fact that the partner
had told him that a former partner had left the firm because of the political donation culture.

According to the Bernstein Complaint, on October 1, 2012, Bernstein contacted a

former BLB&G partner who, according to Bernstein, had raised ethical concerns while employed
at BLB&G. The former partner said that he had left BLB&G because the firm had pressured

4 https://www.americanaccountabilityfoundation.com/post/aaf-uncovers-navy-general-counsel-nominee-s-
past-pay-to-play-scheme-and-ethics-concerns-ahead-of-sen

Jacques Catafago Jacques@Catafagofini.com 11



him to make political contributions to elected officials who controlled the selection of counsel
in securities cases on behalf of pension funds.

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals in its opinion upholding the District Court’s
decision to unseal the complaint underscored that the behavior alleged in Mr. Bernstein’s
complaint, which included a legal make work scheme with a local attorney in Mississippi,
was of public interest and would have a disinterested party question the behavior of the
lawyer and the government.

As the district court noted, the complaint alleges that defendants, as counsel for a state
employees’ pension fund that was a lead plaintiff in a major securities class action, “regularly
engage in a kickback scheme with the Mississippi Attorney General’s Office, a public entity
whose constituents might otherwise be in the dark about the arrangement.” Whether true or
not, this allegation would naturally be of legitimate interest to the public (especially those
who contribute to and receive payments from the Public Employees’ Retirement System
of Mississippi; MPERS) and to federal courts in the future (e.g., those considering whether to
name BLB&G as lead class counsel or find MPERS to be an adequate class representative in future
class actions).

As the court clarified, these charges are damning if true. And if true, they can only be
interpreted as a clear violation of Rule 7.2. For those reasons it is incumbent on the committee
to use its investigatory powers to determine the identity of Mr. Bernstein’s colleague who
left the firm and determine the nature and scope of BLB&G’s pressure upon its staff to make
contributions to their client’s campaigns.

It should be noted that the Bernstein case was settled, a day before it was scheduled
to be unsealed by the district court judge overseeing the case.5

The current complaint establishes hard evidence for BLB&G’s conduct and
proves that the attorneys who were, and currently are, part of BLB&G’s legal team, did
not act independently, but rather that they were all acting as part and at the instruction of
BLB&G, as part of the firm’s modus operandi for securing cases unlawfully.

2. In addition to direct donations, BLB&G uses third-party lobbyists, in

order to disguise its entire scope of political donations and create
“separation” between the firm and the public officials

Investigative Firm further uncovered, that the law firm disguised the donations
by hiring lobbyists, who donated to public officials, as was stated by Mr. McKeige:

Speaker Look, all the lobbying system in the US, what it is? It’s pretty much the same,
no?

5 https://www.scribd.com/document/307949667/Bernstein-vs-Bernstein-Litowitz-Complaint-

031816#

Jacques Catafago Jacques@Catafagofini.com 12



McKeige Yeah, and then you have lobbyists inside of the States, too. And you’re
gonna hire those guys, and you say, ‘We represent the pension fund.’ And
they go, ‘Okay, well, get to work on.’
Speaker Yeah.
McKeige And then they start, you know, when they’ve been contributing to the, you
know, the politicians, at their lobbying firm and taking them, buying them
drinks, and, so, then you have a little bit of separation, right?

3. BLB&G secures the representation of the pension funds, by hiring

unqualified local counsels who were closely affiliated with the
governmental decision-makers in exchange for cases

Investigative Firm further uncovered, that BLB&G allocates legal work to

unqualified local counsel, in order to obtain representation.

These lucrative assignments to local counsel in states such as Mississippi are

made even where the underlying litigation was in other states, such as Illinois.6

Consistent with the Bernstein whistleblower claims mentioned above, Matthew

Berman, admitted that there is no legal requirement to hire local counsel, and that
BLB&G have done it solely for “client relationship reasons”:

Speaker One of them, you mentioned last conversation that BLB&G, the company you
worked for, hired some remote local lawyers in different places for when they
deal with the class action, and you said it wasn’t that the reason was not very
clear. Was it necessary legally to do that, in order to do a class action? No?
No, okay.

Berman No, no legal reason.

Speaker Okay. So, why they have done that?
Berman Well, let me pause and put a caveat on that.
Speaker Yes.
Berman What you’re asking me about, my belief is that it was done for business
development and client relationship reasons, right, that was the primary
reason.

Berman further admitted that the local counsels had no legal contribution to the
cases and were hired due to their connections:

6 see for example: https://hlli.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/20-2055.23.Petri-Reply.pdf

Jacques Catafago Jacques@Catafagofini.com 13



Speaker So, they, to your opinion, they didn’t contribute very much to the legal
framework in?
Berman As far as I could observe, they were not contributing legal work products
any active case management or litigation matters, it just seems like

Speaker So, if I understand correctly, and I just want to understand that if we need it
for the budget planning, for our project, our business plan, they hired them
to actually get more cases in this surrounding, in this
Berman I would say they hired the person primarily as a relationship manager with
a large significant client.

[…]

Berman I know that they hired someone who worked in Louisiana. Why? There is
no Louisiana securities attorneys that I know of any repute.

Speaker So, why do you think they hired this guy in, this lawyer in Louisiana?

Berman I think he is probably a rich guy, whose kids went to the same schools as
the people on the board. He probably went to the same country club, he
probably went to the same church, he probably had lots of good things to
say about those Jewish lawyers in New York.
[…]

Speaker And they said legally, they didn’t have any major contribution to the case.

Berman Not that I could discern.

Similarly, Lorrie Tingle, an individual with great authority, as former Chief

Investment Officer of the Mississippi Public Employee Retirement Fund, who filed
depositions and was directly involved in class actions headed by BLB&G confirmed
the allegations stated in Bernstein’s case, adding that the law firm hired the local
counsel “who did nothing”, as part of its agreement with Mississippi’s AG:

Speaker I also saw that sometimes it happened, there was also an article of one of
the former attorneys who was saying that sometimes they would delegate
some of the work to other law firms.
Tingle So, there was it just gets better and better. So, they would they were required
to have a Mississippi law firm do some of the work, and I don’t know what
‘some of the work’ meant. It could be literally putting things in a file cabinet,
for all I know. But those firms also donated to the attorney general, the local
firms, so it was a way of, you know, sort of keeping it local. And the firms

Jacques Catafago Jacques@Catafagofini.com 14



that they selected, locally, really did nothing. I mean, they truly did nothing.
They might come over and pick up a packet of documents from us and then
ship them off to New York, but they were not involved in any of the actual legal
work for the cases.

[…]

Speaker This local representative in Mississippi were also just a part of agreement
between the BLB&G and this agent, the state agent, just as it was
described by the lawsuit in the article?
Tingle Yes. Yes, exactly. Yeah, and some of them were very small, like one-person
shops and literally, they did nothing.
Speaker That is so frustrating. How?
Tingle I mean, we never saw, we never met with them, we you know, we’d know
who they were when they called and said, ‘I need to pick up some
documents that have been requested.’ That kind of thing, so
Speaker But how common was that, I mean?
Tingle Well, every case had to have a local attorney affiliated with it, every case
that we were involved in.

Ms. Tingle further admitted that BLB&G knew that they are not going to use
the local firms expertise, and that those specific unqualified local counsels were hired
by BLB&G solely due to their connections to Mississippi’s AG, and were not involved
in the legal work:

Tingle It was more just a way to funnel funds back into Mississippi in some degree.
So, the local firms got paid part of the, a small part, relatively speaking, of
the, I guess, the compensation that Bernstein Litowitz would receive for the
cases. They in turn and the attorney general doles out business to local
attorneys all the time for a lot of things, not just for this but for a lot of things,
to keep local attorneys contributing to their campaign. So
Speaker So, they were obviously selected due to their connection to the attorney
general?
Tingle Yes, yes. Not their, definitely not their skill or knowledge or anything else
with … related to security litigation, at all.

[…]

Tingle Just one firm. Yeah, just one local firm but that was it. I mean, they only had
to have one local firm involved in it. There weren’t multiple firms. There was
no requirement, my understanding is, from the attorney general’s office, if
there were-- and I’m sure the attorney general probably selected the local firm
and said, ‘This is who you’ll be working with on this case.’ And because it
was such a you know, relative to hourly-rate in New York ..firms like BLB&G.”

Jacques Catafago Jacques@Catafagofini.com 15



Speaker That’s huge.

Tingle The local rates were so insignificant that they didn’t really care. They knew
they weren’t gonna use the expertise. They weren’t gonna rely
On the expertise of the local firm, so that wasn’t really required.

Lastly, according to Tingle, although BLB&G did not need or use the local
counsel's expertise, local counsel “distastefully” billed hundreds of hours:

Tingle They were, you know, to my knowledge, they really didn’t do anything. So.
Speaker That’s terrible because, you know, they are billing hundreds of hours
eventually and somebody’s.
Tingle Yeah.
Speaker You know.
Tingle Yeah, so it’s very distasteful.

CONCLUSION

Investigative Firm has uncovered compelling evidence that BLB&G:

unlawfully donates to public officials in exchange for representation of public pension;
and in addition to direct donations, BLB&G uses third-party lobbyists, in order to
disguise its entire scope of political donations and create “separation” between the firm
and the public officials’ funds in shareholder suits; also, BLB&G secures the
representation of the pension funds, by hiring unqualified local counsels who were
closely affiliated with the governmental decision-makers in exchange for cases, while
the hiring of the local firms designed, among other, to support the political campaign
contributions of the governmental decision-makers.

Such conduct by BLB&G is directly contrary to Model Rule 7.6 of the American
Bar Association, and Rules 5.1 and 7.2 of the New York Rules of Professional Conduct.

The public has a rightful expectation that the administration of justice and the
awarding of public contracts to attorneys only be made on the merits of the attorney not on
the depths of their pockets.

This complaint is intended to provide a brief overview of Investigative Firm’s

findings, and we would welcome the opportunity to meet with you and explore those
findings in greater detail.

Jacques Catafago Jacques@Catafagofini.com 16



Respectfully,

Jacques Catafago

Jacques Catafago Jacques@Catafagofini.com 17