Seen a Rogue on the loose? Get in touch with our Roguemeister: JOHN SCHRAG jschrag@wweek.com (503) 243-2122 FAX: (503) 243-1115 You're getting sued, and you might lose a bundle. So you cook up a plan to purchase debt that is owed by the people who are suing you. That way, if they are successful in the suit against you, the money you pay them comes back to you--because you are their creditor. Is your head spinning? So was ours. Is this a lawful strategy? Apparently. Does that make it appropriate? We don't think so. That's why Kirk Hall, executive director of the Professional Liability Fund, is our Rogue of the week. The PLF is the state-sanctioned insurance company that provides malpractice insurance to all lawyers in Oregon. In 1994, two business partners who went bankrupt, Parley Pearce and Blair Woodfield, filed malpractice claims against their lawyers. Hall, whose insurance company would have to pay if the business partners prevailed in court, hired John Davenport of Sussman Shank Wapnick Caplan & Stiles to help. Through Davenport, the PLF set up a shell company to acquire a past debt owed by the partners, thus becoming their creditors. Last week, based on "intentionally evasive" answers Davenport gave under oath in order to conceal the PLF's role, the Oregon State Bar persuaded the Supreme Court to suspend Davenport from practicing law for six months. The bar could have gone after Hall also, but chose not to, deciding that his actions did not violate the ethics code governing lawyers. That may be, but the strategy of concealment Hall employed certainly doesn't fit with the spirit of the lawyers' ethics code, which forbids deceit or misrepresentation. Hall says that as a result of the controversy, the strategy will no longer be employed. But he and the PLF should have known better in the first place. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Willamette Week | originally published November 10, 1999