Attorneys at War Over Representation of King : The law: Current and former lawyers for beating victim file complaints. State Bar investigates.

Accusing each other of poaching and subterfuge, the two attorneys who have represented Rodney G. King are warring over how he should best be handled and have filed formal complaints against each other with the State Bar of California.

Steven A. Lerman, who represented King for the first year and a half after he was beaten by Los Angeles police officers, is charging that King’s new attorney, Milton C. Grimes, is a “shyster that ripped off this case from my office.”

Grimes has fired back that Lerman is involved in “unethical and unprofessional conduct” by refusing to turn over all of King’s records and continuing to lobby King’s family to win him back.

The complaints, filed earlier this month with the California State Bar, have triggered an investigation into whether the attorneys have violated state laws or the lawyer’s Code of Ethics in the way they have represented King. If found to be true, the allegations could lead to sanctions against the attorneys.

At stake in the battle between the lawyers is a treasure trove in potential legal fees. King has filed a multimillion-dollar civil suit against the city of Los Angeles for injuries he suffered during his 1991 beating by Los Angeles police in Lake View Terrace.

Lerman, a Beverly Hills lawyer, is contending that Grimes, who practices in Orange County, improperly poached King from his office by sneaking around King’s hospital room and, later, his apartment.

Lerman also is charging that since Grimes became King’s lawyer in October, he has been showboating his new client at various functions around town, including a high school speaking engagement and a trip to a Los Angeles Dodgers game during jury deliberations in the second trial in the King beating case.

“I’ve finally had a bellyful of all his nonsense,” Lerman said in an interview.

Grimes, meanwhile, is alleging that Lerman has refused to turn over all of his files in the King case, that he is still trying to influence the King family to win the client back and that he recently made public comments that portray King as “some kind of simple-minded, incompetent subhuman.”

Grimes could not be reached for comment Tuesday. But in his complaint to the Bar he said, “Mr. Lerman continues to try to involve himself in Mr. King’s ongoing case in a fashion that is extremely detrimental to Mr. King.”

Susan Scott, a spokeswoman for the Bar, said she could not comment about the ongoing investigations until they are completed.

King could not be reached for comment about the dispute between the two lawyers. But the aunt who raised him, Angela King, said she was “really surprised” when he suddenly dismissed Lerman and signed a retainer with Grimes. She said she had thought that her nephew was satisfied with Lerman. But she declined to pass judgment on his decision to change lawyers.

“He is a grown man,” she said. “He’s an adult. He’s old enough to make his own decisions, whether they’re right or wrong.”

Grimes became King’s attorney shortly after negotiations broke down between the city and Lerman over a cash settlement of his lawsuit against the city and the Los Angeles Police Department. According to sources, that payout would have provided King with almost $14 million over the rest of his life.

Sources also said that Grimes was able to win King over as a client through Kandyce Barnes, who is the aunt of King’s wife. When King changed lawyers, the two attorneys did not publicly express any strong distaste for one another. But in the months that followed, the pair began to quietly attack each other in a series of letters.

Copies of the letters were obtained this week by The Times, along with the formal complaints filed with the Bar, and they show the deep and mutual disgust the two lawyers have for each other.

In a Feb. 22 letter, Grimes told Lerman that he wanted King’s files sent to him in a timely fashion, including a private videotape made of King as he watched the not guilty verdicts in the first trial read on television.

“I have no intention of continuing to play the ring-around-the-rosies game we have engaged in thus far,” he told Lerman.

Grimes also flatly rejected Lerman’s suggestion that they work together as co-counsel on the King case. Such a partnership, Grimes wrote, would be “unequivocally, completely and utterly impossible.”

He closed by adding: “I am appalled at your seeming lack of professional courtesy and have no intention of sitting idly by while you, or anyone else, compromise the interests of Rodney Glen King.”

Lerman answered Grimes on March 10, and he sharply castigated him for presenting King at various public functions around the state. “You have dragged Rodney King all over the state with you, pissing off everyone along the way and causing irreparable damage to his media image,” Lerman wrote.

He told Grimes that his conduct was “indicative of a flagrant and inexcusable ignorance of the Code of Ethics, as well as a fundamental ignorance of litigation tactics and a tremendous ego.”

And “as far as your cute reference to ‘ring-around-the-rosy,’ ” Lerman pledged to Grimes that he would cooperate in turning over all of his work. “I do not desire any trouble with you personally,” Lerman wrote. “It is unproductive and it is a drain on my nervous system.”

On May 6, Grimes filed his complaint against Lerman with the California State Bar. He listed the dispute over the files, as well as a discrepancy in how much money Lerman is owed for his earlier work on the lawsuit--possibly as much as $1.2 million. He further complained that Lerman’s private investigator, Tom Owens, was writing a book about King drawn from experiences while “Mr. King was in the clutches of Mr. Lerman.”

“My client is highly distressed, as am I, at Mr. Lerman’s unethical and unprofessional conduct,” Grimes told the Bar.

Owens, who declined to give an interview to discuss the feud, wrote his own letter to Lerman on May 12. He staunchly defended Lerman and his own work on the King case. He cast Grimes as a lawyer who “slithered his way into the case.”

“In my professional opinion,” Owens wrote, “Grimes is one of those attorneys who gives the entire legal community a bad reputation.”

On May 14, Lerman filed a complaint against Grimes with the Bar and enclosed Owens’ letter. He dismissed Grimes complaint against him as “ridiculous” and said that Grimes had been acting “rude and sullen.”

“Finally,” Lerman told the Bar, “let me say that all of the allegations of the shyster that ripped off this case from my office are entirely false, malicious and contrived. I welcome the State Bar’s inquiry in the whole nasty mess.”