A former Manhattan law firm partner who filed false expense reports for almost $200,000 to pay his yacht club membership and credit card bills has been disbarred.
Robert J. Pape, a former trusts and estates partner at New York's Putney, Twombly, Hall & Hirson, charged personal expenses both to his firm and to his clients. He frequently sought reimbursement multiple times for the same item in a practice known as "double dipping."
Indeed, the referee who heard the disciplinary case against Pape marveled that the lawyer had elevated double dipping to an art form.