Despite the State Bar’s objection, a Los Angeles County judge has extended the conservatorship of trial lawyer Tom Girardi, 81, which could set a dangerous precedent, according to a legal expert.
“It's almost an invitation to use conservatorship as a shield against responsibility if people are coming after you for alleged wrongdoing,” said Tom Coleman, an attorney and founder of the Spectrum Institute's Disability and Guardianship Project in Palm Springs. “It’s being used in a way that was never intended.”
Girardi, founder of the law firm Girardi & Keese, appeared on the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills TV show with his wife Erika Jayne before she filed for divorce last year.
The LA Times reported that Girardi's law firm is currently undergoing an involuntary bankruptcy imposed by creditors. He also faces discipline from the State Bar for allegedly misappropriating client funds and refusing to obey a court order.
According to a March 15 minute order, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Daniel Juarez extended Girardi's temporary conservatorship through June 30.
“I'm disappointed that the judge ignored the State Bar’s objection because the State Bar raised legitimate concerns about potential collusion and also the public is being shortchanged by not being able to have a proper investigation with the conservatorship being used as a subterfuge,” Coleman told the Southern California Record.
The State Bar had tried to intervene to stop the court from extending the conservatorship over Girardi who is charged with violating the Rules of Professional Conduct and the State Bar Act.
According to California State Bar attorney James J. Chang's March 12 objection, Girardi's petition for conservatorship was filed under "highly unusual circumstances" and came only after he "became enmeshed in mounting legal troubles and as he is facing imminent State Bar discipline."
Coleman said the judge "doesn't care what the State Bar says."
“Why should he? He’s not under the State Bar’s control," he said.
Last month, Girardi's brother, Robert Girardi, 77, was appointed temporary guardian over his older brother's conservatorship, which includes the person and the estate, according to media reports, and when the younger Girardi tried to terminate his attorney brother’s law license, the State Bar declined to accept the resignation.
In a March 13 letter to Girardi's attorney Nicholas Van Brunt, Chang responded that an attorney who is the subject of an open investigation cannot resign his or her license to practice law unless approved by the California Supreme Court after review by a State Bar court.
"An attorney under State Bar investigation who attempts to resign his law license must, among other things, enter into a written stipulation as to facts and conclusions of law regarding any disciplinary complaints, investigations, or proceedings that are pending against the attorney at the time his or her resignation was filed," Chang wrote.
In its objections, the State Bar requested a second doctor's opinion to establish incapacity in light of the fact that Girardi had continued to make prominent public appearances at which he spoke at length on complex legal matters shortly before the conservatorship petition was filed.
"Alzheimer's or dementia doesn't just kick in over a three-month period," Coleman said. "A reasonable approach would have been for the judge to accept that the points raised by the State Bar are not frivolous and say that the affidavit of one doctor appears to be deficient for the reasons that the State Bar said.”
Van Brunt declined to comment on pending litigation but his reply to the State Bar's objections said that the state agency had no interest in protecting Girardi, which is the purpose of a conservatorship.
Once a judge places an individual under a conservatorship, the person becomes a conservatee or ward of the state and loses many civil rights and liberties to the person who is appointed guardian.
"Given that the State Bar has no standing in this proceeding, that there is no dispute among parties actually interested in this proceeding as to whether Mr. Girardi needs the protections, and that Mr. Girardi will not be practicing law again in this State, there is no need that the Conservatorship Estate, which is already subsumed by an involuntary bankruptcy, be charged with the expense of an independent capacity evaluation that has no bearing on the State Bar’s interests in protecting the public," Van Brunt wrote in his March 14 reply brief.