One of the good guys at Balch Bingham bails out in the wake of Burt Newsome vehicle crash, possibly signaling an exodus of the firm's best and brightest

Burt Newsome crash scene

Is the suspicious vehicle crash that nearly killed Birmingham attorney Burt Newsome reverberating in the upper reaches of the Balch Bingham law firm? The answer appears to be yes, following the resignation last week of Mike Bowers as head of the firm's Atlanta office.

Bowers, a former attorney general of Georgia, has a reputation as a corruption fighter. Did he become uncomfortable at a firm that might be connected to the Newsome crash? We don't have a definitive answer yet, but banbalch.com addresses the issue in a post titled "Former Georgia Attorney General Dumps Balch; Exodus of the Good Begins." From the post:

 

Former Georgia Attorney General Mike Bowers has quit embattled law firm Balch & Bingham. Law.com is reporting he has jumped to Johnson Marlowe.

Two years ago, we wrote about the Dean of Balch’s Atlanta office, writing:

We know about some of the great and honorable partners at Balch & Bingham who truly have been hurt by the alleged unsavory, racist, and criminal conduct by a few bad apples at the firm.

In Atlanta, a controversy has exploded over the high legal fees paid to a law firm to investigate a first-class junket to South Africa.

And who offered the most ethical, most honorable, most insightful observations on the matter? A Balch & Bingham partner….Mike Bowers.

Ban Balch does not see the firm as purely a landing spot for swamp creatures:

    We have always known there are truly inherently good people at Balch.

    In 2017, Bowers and another Balch partner were fighting corruption in Georgia. We wrote:

Two outstanding Balch partners in Atlanta have been fighting alleged self-dealing corruption against an”Atlanta attorney accused of using his position as a special prosecutor to force businesses to forfeit hundreds of thousands of dollars in assets from which he then allegedly drew his fees.”

According to The Daily Report, Balch partners Christopher Anulewicz and Mike Bowers (a former Georgia Attorney General) “contend that [Michael] Lambros uses his special prosecutorial authority and the threat of prosecution to orchestrate the surrender of defendants’ assets and that a court-ordered review of his escrow account records shows that Lambros paid his fees and costs from forfeiture settlements only after they were deposited in his firm escrow account. That, they argued, constituted an illegal contingency fee.”

Unlike their Balch counterparts in Birmingham that lied about the CDLU and then created a secretive Star Chamber to allegedly hide what appears to be unethical or possible criminal acts in the Newsome Conspiracy Case, Anulewicz and Bowers are fighting against corruption and injustice.

Would anyone with a solid moral compass want to stay at Balch?

Now that Balch defenders, stooges, and buffoons have disgraced the law firm even further, sensible partners appear to have had enough.

The exodus of good, experienced, and honorable partners at Balch satellites has begun.

As Balch continues to be left behind with what appears to be an embittered leadership team, inexperienced attorneys, and fewer clients, what will the moral of the story be?

Don’t vow to fight to the death with a sole-practitioner attorney who was almost killed?

Don’t orchestrate an embarrassing campaign that utterly backfired?

Don’t let a humiliating spectacle of uncontrolled stupidity overshadow the wise, the good, and the honorable?

Maybe all of the above.

We wish The Honorable Mike Bowers the best of luck as he says good-bye to Balch.

 

Mike Bowers