Mystery complainant sends ethics claim to 42 state bars; law firm seeks postal records for answers
Brownstone Law in Winter Park, Florida, has asked a federal court to help identify the mystery complainant who sent ethics complaints targeting the appellate law firm to 42 state bars.
The lawyer representing Brownstone Law, Roddy Lanigan, says the ethics charges are false and the return address on the envelopes identifies a law firm that had nothing to do with the complaint, the Orlando Sentinel reports. His lawsuit, filed last week, seeks surveillance video and credit-card information from the U.S. Postal Service in an effort to identify the person who mailed the letters.
NeJame Law’s Orlando office is listed as the return address on the envelope, though name partner Mark NeJame says no one at his office sent the letters. “I don’t like somebody hijacking my name and using it to hurt someone else,” NeJame told the Orlando Sentinel.
Lanigan wouldn’t disclose the ethics allegations, but he said the wording suggests the writer was someone with a legal background. “I can tell you this,” he told the newspaper. “The nature of the grievance in the bar letter itself was quite complicated, and I don’t think you have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out that it leads you to suspect that an attorney wrote them.”
Lanigan said the writer could be a competitor or a disgruntled former employee.
