Lawyers Getting Money From Their Clients Is One Thing, But Vice Versa?

Talk about suing a man out of house and home!

Row housesYou ever have a case remind you of a song? I’ve been on a run of classics lately. Thinking about Justice Thomas taking what reasonable minds could understand to be bribes for 20 years, thinking about being childish and nicknaming him Mr. Tom Tom for an article, deciding against it, and then thinking of the Tom Tom Club’s classic Genius of Love. From there it went to sampling, how Genius of Love got sampled and turned into a track featuring Mariah Carey and the Ol’ Dirty Bastard, and then the case before us. From the New York Law Journal:

A defendant-turned-lawyer attempting to collect on a more than $500,000 judgement against his former attorney is asking a judge to force the sale of the attorney’s house to collect his debts.

Attorney Robert J. Feldman owes ex-client Donald Glassman $519,682.08, according to a judgement filed last year in Manhattan Supreme Court.

The debt stems from a protracted legal battle Glassman began over a decade ago, with a jury ultimately finding Feldman liable for malpractice and defamation for calling Glassman a “dangerous jerk” and a ”total a-hole” online.

On Friday, Glassman asked a Suffolk County Court judge to order that the Suffolk County Sheriff’s office be allowed to sell Feldman’s Sayville, NY, property out from under him in order to make Glassman whole.

It is important to appreciate when serendipity strikes. What a small jump from Ol’ Dirty Bastard to a case centered on someone being called a “dangerous jerk” and a “total a-hole.” So small in fact, it it would be a mistake to not give this case a theme song.

It takes a special kind of petty to kick a man out of his own home over a lawsuit. Top shelf petty. 50 Cent-level petty, if you will:

I think that the big take away from this is that you shouldn’t mix business and friendships:

The conflict dates back to 2006, when Glassman…hired Feldman, then a friend, to represent him, according to court filings. Glassman then sued Feldman for $30,000 to return his retainer agreement, arguing Feldman never should have agreed to become his attorney in the first place because he was actually a material witness to the first trial.

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Now look at them. Even if they were to make peace after all of this, sleepovers will never be the same. In the event that they prepare a playlist for the occasion:

Ex-Client Asks Judge To Force Sale Of Former Attorney’s Home To Collect Lien [New York Law Journal]


Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s.  He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at cwilliams@abovethelaw.com and by tweet at @WritesForRent.

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