Lawyer Accused of Running Adoption Ponzi Scheme

Times are tough for everyone, including lawyers. Some new lawyers, realizing that they’ve gone into six-figure debt on the promise of an enormous starting salary at Big Fancy Law Firm™ that never materialized, have become quite bitter.

Rather than writing bitter blog posts, or lobbying Congress for some kind of student loan relief, at least one lawyer has dealt with these tough economic times another way: running an “adoption Ponzi scheme.”

 

According to the ABA Journal, this attorney bilked families out of thousands of dollars, on the promise that he would help them adopt children who didn’t exist. Allegedly, this paragon of virtue and professional ethics knew that some of his “clients” couldn’t afford his fees, and sat back while they took out loans to pay for his non-existent services, digging themselves tens of thousands of dollars into debt.

 

Part of his sales pitch included forged documents and sonogram images. I really can’t say enough bad things about this guy if the allegations are true. Playing with a family’s emotions for the sake of defrauding them out of their hard-earned money is one of the lowest things a person can do, especially considering that prospective adoptive parents may be far more prone to emotional manipulation that the average client. After all, they’re about to bring a child into their lives, and trust their attorney to ensure that the process goes as smoothly as possible.

 

As we’ve said before, you should always check the credentials of your attorney before you hire them. This case provides a particularly egregious example of what can happen if you don’t.

 

Fortunately, according to LegalMatch statistics, attorney malpractice is not a common claim that clients bring, and reports of outright fraud by attorneys against their clients are even rarer. It should provide some comfort that most attorneys are far more ethical than this one.