Fortune Mag: Are Law Profs Trading Bad Advice for Big Bucks?

[WSJ_law_blog]

Back in February, when we spoke to Stanford’s Lawrence Lessig about his decision to refocus his scholarship, from copyright to eliminating the ill-effects of money in politics, he also mentioned that, “in the academic context, there’s corruption in the way that testimony is being bought, which changes how people research.”

We found the allusion provocative, coming as it did from Lessig, a career law prof. At the time we wondered whether there were other profs out there decrying the same perceived problem. Apparently there are: On Fortune magazine’s Web site, Roger Parloff reports that, in a forthcoming Stanford Law Review article titled “The Market for Bad Legal Advice,” Columbia law prof William Simon takes aim at colleagues who are becoming “enablers of pernicious… practices” by trading bad advice for big bucks.

In particular, Parloff’s piece highlights an accusation that Simon, in his law review article, levels against Cornell law school’s Charles Wolfram (pictured). When former Enron CEO Ken Lay was approached by whistle-blower Sherron Watkins about the possibility of an accounting scandal, Lay went to Vinson & Elkins, its outside firm, for a “preliminary investigation.” V&E reported back that all was fine and good, six weeks before Enron blew up. When called before a congressional committee to answer for its legal opinion, it produced a letter from Wolfram blessing its investigation.

In an interview, Wolfram told Parloff that while Simon’s article “makes some interesting points,” it greatly exaggerates any problem that might exist. “[Simon] seems to suggest that giving favorable testimony for a law firm is facilitating future wrongdoing by the law firm,” said Wolfram, who charges $650 an hour. “I think that’s unrealistic. Most of the testimony I’ve done is after the plane crash - the pilot having survived and crawled out of the fuselage. My testimony is that the pilot did not act negligently. [Simon] overinflates its importance.”

Photo: Cornell Law School