The Justice Network
Attorney Hall of Fame
God works wonders now and then; Behold a lawyer, an honest man.
—Benjamin Franklin
And sometimes behold a lawyer, an honest Woman.
The Angela Ford Story
Angela FordAngela Ford is a lawyer worthy of accolades. Ms. Ford’s work on the fen-phen case targeted the biggest problem facing the legal profession today: Corrupt lawyers and judges. Ms. Ford is the attorney who exposed the fen-phen lawyers accused of bilking their clients out of $94 million in settlement money. Ms. Ford broke an unwritten but strongly held rule: She went against another lawyer and confronted wrongdoing in the profession. Angela Ford had courage, fortitude, and resolve in taking on the lawyer-criminals and judge in the fen-phen case.
Attorney toppled diet-drug case Goliaths
Angela FordAttorney toppled diet-drug case
Goliaths
www.courier-journal.com
By Andrew Wolfson
September 7, 2009
She stands only 5-foot-3 and says she weighs "just north of 100 pounds."
She has said she once was so painfully shy that the thought of speaking before a group would cause her stomach to knot and her hands to perspire. She disliked school, earning mostly Bs and Cs at
Louisville's Mercy Academy, and in her first year after high school she worked as a dental hygienist.
But Angela Ford grew increasingly confident as she grew older, and went on to become the first female student government president at the University of Louisville.
And now the 51-year-old lawyer has proven herself on a much larger stage.
Taking on powerful interests, virtually by herself, the Lexington practitioner helped expose one of the biggest legal scandals in U.S. history — the theft of tens of millions of dollars from
Kentuckians injured by the diet drug fen-phen.
Her five-year fight culminated last month in the sentencing of disbarred lawyers William Gallion and Shirley Cunningham Jr. to long prison terms and a court order of $127million in restitution to her
423 clients, who previously were represented by those same lawyers.
Ford will get one-third of what is recovered; she's been paid about $7.5million so far, although part of that has gone to other lawyers who assisted her. Read more here
Attorney toppled diet-drug case Goliaths[...]
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Fen-phen attorneys sentenced to decades in prison
Fen-phen attorneys sentenced to decades in prision
Lexington Herald-Leader
COVINGTON — Two disbarred lawyers convicted of taking millions of dollars from their former clients are likely to spend much of their remaining lives in a federal prison.
U.S. District Judge Danny Reeves sentenced William Gallion, 58, to 25 years in prison and Shirley Cunningham Jr., 54, to 20 years in prison on Monday after a nearly daylong sentencing hearing in federal court in Covington.
Both sentences were less than what prosecutors had recommended for the two men, who were convicted in April of taking about $94 million from a $200 million fen-phen settlement that should have gone to their former clients in a 2001 Boone Circuit Court case. The men said Monday they would appeal their convictions. Read more here
Fen-phen attorneys sentenced to decades [...]
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How a Kentucky Solo Exposed the Fen-Phen Lawyers
How a Kentucky Solo Exposed the Fen-Phen
Lawyers
ABA Journal Law News Now
by Debra Cassens Weiss
September 8, 2009
The exposure of the fen-phen lawyers accused of bilking their clients out of $94 million in settlement money began in 2004 when a woman walked into the office of Lexington, Ky., solo Angela
Ford.
The woman wanted to know whether a lawyer could give away settlement money without her consent, the Courier-Journal reports. Ford promised to check it out, and went to look through the court
papers.
"She said she immediately saw red flags," the newspaper reports. "There was a flurry of motions after the case should have been over. And the lawyers had transferred an unspecified sum into a
charitable fund they called the Kentucky Fund for Healthy Living, formed to support health care issues—and were paying themselves an undisclosed sum to run it."
Five years later, two of the lawyers, Shirley Cunningham Jr. and William Gallion, were sentenced to prison terms of 20 to 25 years for keeping about $94 million in settlement money for themselves and
putting another $20 million into a charity they controlled. Ford has recovered $23 million for her clients after suing the lawyers, and is still trying to locate and obtain assets, including the
defendants’ stake in the racehorse Curlin. A third lawyer was acquitted.
Many believe the criminal case against the lawyers would not have been brought without Ford's suit against them and others, including the judge who approved the settlement. As more clients joined the
case, Ford says she was swamped with work. "I felt overwhelmed for the first few years," she told the Courier-Journal. "I worked seven days a week."
Ford worked alone on the case for four years without making any money. She used savings to pay her living expenses and the paychecks of her only employees, a paralegal and a secretary, according to
the story. Eventually she retained other lawyers to help. Her living expenses are evidently low; Ford still lives in a 1,368-square-foot home she bought in 1985 for $77,000 and just recently replaced
the Acura she had driven for years with a new Lexus.
The newspaper describes Ford as 5-foot-3 and just over 100 pounds. She was once "painfully shy" and had disliked school, making only Bs and Cs in high school. But she held her own in dinner table
conversations with her seven siblings and eventually became the first female student government president at the University of Louisville.
Previously, her biggest settlement came in 2003 when she obtained $4.4 million on behalf of 18 people who had accused six priests of sexual abuse.
New Orleans lawyer John Cummings III, the co-lead counsel in the fen-phen case, told the newspaper he sent Ford an alligator’s head to symbolize her ferocity. The head now sits on the floor of Ford’s
office.
"I told her that if I ever saw her in a wrassling match with an alligator," Cumming said, "I would help the alligator, to make it an equal fight."
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