Lawsuit Connecting Plaintiffs’ Law Firm and Miss. AG’s Office in Kickback Scheme Ordered Unsealed

As reported by Dan Fisher at Forbes, a lawsuit by a former partner alleging that a prominent Mississippi plaintiffs’ firm engaged in a kickback scheme to secure work through state Attorney General Jim Hood‘s office has been ordered unsealed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York.

The suit claims that the law firm, Bernstein Litowitz, paid $112,500 to a solo practitioner married to a staff attorney in Hood’s office for 207 hours of dubious work on a multi-plaintiff claim against a computer services company. The former partner, Bruce Bernstein, questioned the quality and necessity of the work to his colleagues which drew the response, “do you ever want us to work with Mississippi again?”

The law firm denied the allegations and settled with the former partner to avoid unsealing the lawsuit.  After the trial court ordered it unsealed, the firm appealed but lost when the Second Circuit upheld.