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Douglas S. Malan

The Connecticut Law Tribune

11-20-2006

While Brian T. Valery's legal education is in question, he could likely graduate with honors from the Frank Abagnale Jr. school of deceit.

Valery is under fire for his pro hac vice appearance in a 2005 complex litigation case heard in Stamford, Conn. His motion to appear, which went unopposed, was based on his affidavit stating he was an attorney in good standing at the New York City firm of Anderson Kill & Olick. He also claimed to be a member of the New York Bar with no history of discipline.

As it turns out, Valery not only isn't a member of the Bar, there's no record that he ever applied or sat for the bar exam in New York or even set foot in a Fordham Law School classroom, which he told Anderson Kill partners he was doing at night to advance his career beyond that of a paralegal, Connecticut grievance officials say.

Abagnale, a notorious con artist on whom the 2002 movie "Catch Me If You Can" is based, was convicted of passing bad checks worth millions of dollars while working in the Louisiana attorney general's office. He got that job thanks in part to a forged Harvard Law School transcript.

In an apparently similar display of dupery, Valery, after working at Anderson Kill since 1996, told the firm in 2004 he had passed the New York Bar. Partners at the 132-lawyer firm have conceded to Connecticut grievance authorities that they regrettably took Valery at his word.

Telephone calls to Valery's residence in Massapequa Park, N.Y., and his cell phone went unreturned. Anderson Kill terminated him on Oct. 23 of this year.

RED FLAGS

In May 2005, Valery applied for temporary admission in Connecticut to represent defendants in Steadfast Insurance Co. v. The Purdue Frederick Co., et al.

"[M]y firm and I have acquired specialized skill and knowledge with respect to the Purdue defendants' insurance coverage important to the trial of this matter," he stated in a May 17, 2005, affidavit attesting to his legal background.

At no point did anyone check the veracity of his credentials -- not Anderson Kill, not Greenwich, Conn., attorney James R. Fogarty, who requested the court permit Valery's appearance, and not Stamford Superior Court Judge Taggart D. Adams, who granted the application a month later. Fogarty, of Fogarty, Cohen, Selby & Nemiroff, did not return a call by press time.

Only a telephone call to Anderson Kill from one of Valery's college friends tipped the New York firm off to Valery's deceit, according to an investigation conducted by Connecticut Chief Disciplinary Counsel Mark A. Dubois. The friend apparently couldn't find Valery's name among registered New York lawyers, but found him listed as an Anderson Kill attorney. The call raised red flags at Anderson Kill. By then, the Connecticut case in question had settled.

Apprised of that development, Dubois moved on Nov. 8 to have Valery presented in Superior Court for possible sanctions. Though Valery was admitted only for the Purdue case, he remains registered as an active member of the state bar, said Dubois, who is seeking to have Valery's name removed from that list.

"Be assured that neither Anderson Kill's attorneys nor Attorney Fogarty was aware of Mr. Valery's falsehoods in his [a]ffidavit to the [c]ourt," Anderson Kill officials wrote in an Oct. 30 letter to Dubois. "Had [Valery] been a new attorney employee previously unknown to us, we would, of course, have taken the customary steps to confirm his qualifications and his bar admission status. In retrospect, we should have applied those same background checking procedures to Mr. Valery," they conceded.

The letter noted that at least one of the firm's partners oversaw all of Valery's work during the Purdue litigation.

In an interview last week, Anderson Kill President and CEO Jeffrey L. Glatzer said the firm is in the process of pulling files that Valery worked on for any possible client reimbursement matters. Glatzer would not disclose how many clients that might include. "We haven't been able to find any pro hac vice appearances outside of Connecticut," he maintained.

Once an investigation ensued, Valery's deceit was quickly apparent, Dubois determined. Anderson Kill partner John H. Doyle III discovered from the bursar at Fordham Law School that the school had no record of Valery attending classes there. Doyle then received a letter from James Edward Pelzer, clerk of the Supreme Court Appellate Division in Brooklyn, N.Y., stating that neither Valery's name nor any deviate spelling appeared on the list of those admitted to practice law in New York.

In its Oct. 30 letter to Dubois, Anderson Kill partners noted that "we have notified the Purdue Pharma clients of Mr. Valery's true status and have offered to make adjustments to the firm's invoices to properly reflect that status." They added that "we have since modified our procedures for doing ... admissions checks to prevent this from happening again."

The firm also claimed to have disclosed the unauthorized practice of law matter to the New York attorney general, but Brad Maione, spokesman for AG Eliot Spitzer, said last week that he had no knowledge of the case.

Dubois said Stamford Superior Court Judge Edward R. Karazin Jr. is set to hear Valery's presentment on Dec. 14. Anderson Kill & Olick has retained legal ethics attorney David P. Atkins, of Zeldes, Needle & Cooper in Bridgeport, Conn., to represent the firm in connection to the matter.