Trump vs. the Lawyers

While most of us have gone to the mattresses, bracing for the worst and hoping for the best in this financial crisis, there are some who continue business as usual.

Take Donald Trump, for instance.

Trump, who has been duking it out with his former lawyers from Morrison Cohen, accusing them of overbilling him, while the law firm pursues its own claim against him for $470,000 in unpaid legal bills, is still at it.

Alas, Trump has been dealt a blow by New York Supreme Court Justice Herman Cahn, who denied his bid to disqualify the Morrison Cohen lawyers from representing some new clients who ---- guess what? ---- are also being sued by Trump. You have to hand it to The Donald: He makes full use of his constitutional rights to the court system.

In the latter case, Trump is going after a property group called Crescent Heights Diamond, which entered into a licensing agreement to use the name "Trump Tower" or "Trump Plaza" for a 70-story "luxury condominium" building in Tel Aviv, Israel, in return for paying him royalties on the sale of condo units.

He contends the Crescent principals broke the terms of the 2006 deal by selling the land instead of proceeding with the project. He wants a cool $45 million as recompense.

Justice Cahn was not impressed by any of the arguments put forth by The Donald's current lawyers at Meister Selig & Fein. In turn, he rejected arguments that the Morrison Cohen lawyers, on the defensive themselves against Trump, somehow have a conflict of interest by representing parties who are also defendants in a case brought by Trump. Or that somehow, the Morrison Cohen folks have inside knowledge of the Trump organization, such as it is.

"Again, the conclusory assertions that Morrison 'may have had' access to Trump's practices and policies with respect to licensing matters" while conducting discovery in the two prior litigations that had nothing to do with licensing matters, falls far short of the standard required," the judge wrote.

Indeed, Justice Cahn noted that David Scharf, the lead Morrison lawyer who represented Trump in litigation over earthmoving at the Trump National Golf Course in Briarcliff, New York, has said that "there was no unfettered access" to Trump records during that litigation, and that "Morrison never reviewed documents from files at Trump's offices that had not been pulled by Trump's own staff." (Is the Donald just a little paranoid, perhaps?)

So what the judge's ruling means is that Trump faces the prospect of being deposed by his former counsel, counsel whom he is suing for malpractice.

We can only hope that the event is videotaped. It could have more tension than an episode of The Apprentice.

Karen Donovan