Order Barring Lawyers From FDIC Bank Suit to Be Appealed
A major national law firm will appeal an order barring it from representing the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. in a suit against former executives of defunct Heritage Bank, the Santa Ana institution regulators closed two years ago.
The law firm--Finley, Kumble, Wagner, Heine, Underberg, Manley & Casey--will ask the state Court of Appeal in Santa Ana next week to overturn the order, said Richard G. Osborn, a litigation partner in the Los Angeles office of the New York-based firm.
Superior Court Judge Robert C. Todd ruled June 9 that Finley, Kumble must be disqualified because it hired a lawyer who had been working for one of the defendants named in the FDIC’s suit against Heritage. The type of work the lawyer was doing, and allegedly continued to do for the defendant at Finley, Kumble, created an impermissible conflict of interest, the judge decided.
Todd also ordered that work in the Heritage Bank case be halted until the representation issue is resolved by higher courts.
Finley, Kumble reportedly earned about $1.5 million in the first year of the Heritage litigation.
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