Cravath Protests Tactics of Firm Partly Owned by Boies Family

NEW YORK -- A prominent law firm is protesting the fees and tactics of a document-management company partly owned by the family of famed attorney David Boies, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday.

Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP stated in a letter this week that it was forced to use the document firm, Amici LLC, in a legal battle with Adelphia Communications Corp. Cravath represents Deloitte & Touche in litigation with Adelphia.

Amici is at the center of a controversy surrounding Boies Schiller & Flexner and its well-known head, David Boies, who is a former Cravath partner. Adelphia asked Boies Schiller to resign as special counsel in August after the company learned that Boies's children owned part of Amici. Boies Schiller steered several of its corporate clients, including Adelphia, to Amici without disclosing the financial ties. Adelphia paid Amici about $7 million in fees.

In a written response to the bankruptcy judge, Philip C. Korologos, the lead Adelphia attorney at Boies Schiller, stated that Cravath is trying to gain an advantage in its case against Adelphia. It says that Cravath was free to use any database, and that Amici's pricing and performance is competitive.

Korologos also stated that the documents in the database were all gathered as part of an evidence sweep of Adelphia's offices in 2002, directed by another law firm. He said the catalogs, phone books and other items were seized from the desks of Adelphia executives. When Deloitte requested documents received by the government from Adelphia, those documents had to be included. He said Boies Schiller "didn't do the selection" of those documents.

-- NYSSCPA.org News Staff

Posted on 9/12/05