Maia Spoto

1 week ago | news.bloombergtax.com | Maia Spoto |Stephanie Gleason |Patrick Gregory

California State Bar investigators are in touch with former clients of L.A. attorney Gloria Allred’s firm—famous for taking on high-profile, feminist cases—the first step of a winding, secretive attorney discipline process that has drawn legal and regulatory scrutiny in other instances. The allegations against Allred come against the backdrop of cases against former lawyers Tom Girardi and Michael Avenatti, who have each been convicted and disbarred.

1 week ago | news.bloombergtax.com | Maia Spoto |Stephanie Gleason

Former celebrity lawyer Michael Avenatti asked the Ninth Circuit to review his revised 11-year criminal sentence, after a federal judge turned down his request for a significantly more lenient sentence. Judge James V. Selna in the US District Court for the Central District of California declined to take the 14-year criminal sentence down to the three years as Avenatti had requested. He instead imposed a 135-month sentence with a credit of 40 months for time he’s already served.

1 week ago | news.bloombergtax.com | Maia Spoto

John Eastman, who advanced baseless legal theories as President Donald Trump’s attorney leading up to the raid on the US Capitol on Jan. 6, should lose his law license, a California State Bar review panel ruled. “There is a distinction with a difference between hard-fought cases premised on actual facts and cutting-edge legal theories and those cases pushed forward based on, at best, mere speculation and a disingenuous take on the law,” the opinion authored by Judge W. Kearse McGill said.

2 weeks ago | news.bloomberglaw.com | Maia Spoto

A former district attorney in Southern California will be suspended six months after agreeing in State Bar Court he deleted emails and texts related to his prosecution of a real estate developer. Former San Bernardino County District Attorney Michael Ramos, who held office from 2002 to 2018, admitted culpability for “an act of moral turpitude based on grossly negligent misconduct” in an agreement approved by the court dated March 20 and announced June 13. He was ordered to pay $1,250 in sanctions.

2 weeks ago | news.bloombergtax.com | Maia Spoto

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