A former tax partner at Willkie Farr & Gallagher has been suspended from practice for one year for billing clients for $30,000 worth of personal long-distance calls.
Patrick Carmody, who joined Willkie in 1990 and became a partner in 1998, resigned from the firm in April 2003, shortly after his misconduct was discovered. At the time, he testified at a disciplinary hearing last year, he had been earning around $1 million a year at the firm.
But the referee who heard the case determined that Carmody's actions were not aimed at saving money but at concealing from the firm the amount of time he was spending on non-billable personal matters.
Carmody, 45, sought "to avoid the embarrassment and professional repercussions that he perceived would occur if the Willkie partners ... became aware that he was not functioning as efficiently as expected of a highly compensated partner," the referee, Donald M. Zolin, wrote in his report.