Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1992

Abstract

In March 1992, the Office of Thrift Supervision sent shock waves through the legal community when it initiated a $275 million enforcement actions against New York’s Kaye, Scholer, Fierman, Hays & Handler and froze the firm’s assets, all based on the firm’s alleged misdeeds in representing the now-defunct Lincoln Savings & Loan. The OTS action, together with the recent spate of prefessional liability suits by the Resolution Trust Corporation and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, raises questions with far-reaching consequences for the legal profession. Perhaps most disturbing, particularly in light of the OTS’s unprecedented assault on Kaye, Scholer, is the question posed by U.S. District Court Judge Stanley Sporkin at the beginning of the Lincoln Savings Case:

Where were these professionals…when these clearly improper actions were being consummated?... Why didn’t any of them speak up or disassociate themselves from the transaction?... What is difficult to understand is that with all the professional talent involved (both accounting and legal), why at least one professional would not have blown the whistle to stop the overreaching that took place in this case.

Lincoln Sav. & Loan Ass’n v. Wall, 743 F. Supp. 901, 920 (D.D.C. 1990).

Publication Citation

Litig., Sum. 1992, at 30.

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