What Was David Boies Thinking?

I'm no specialist on legal ethics, and I'm not going to pretend to start now, but I have a different reason for recapping this.  This being the story of Boies-Schiller's recommending that big-time clients including Adelphia, Tyco, Qwest, and half a dozen others, use a document management firm called Amici LLC which was founded by a former colleague of David Boies (who, colorfully, pled guilty in 1997 to four felony counts of overbilling the federal government and served 33 months in prison), and which was indirectly owned in part by several of Boies' relatives including three of his children—with no disclosure of the relationship. 

With respect to ethics, I'll let my former Stanford law professor Deborah Rhode pronounce the verdict:  "It's certainly an appearance of impropriety."

With respect to economics?  All told, it looks as though the clients spent $5-$10-million apiece with Amici, and, although there are the usual protestations that the fees were fair, indeed approved by the bankruptcy court in the case of Adelphia, all Boies-Schiller could come up with when word broke yesterday in The Wall Street Journal was lamely saying the nondisclosure was "inadvertent."  Upshot:  Boies-Schiller has resigned its representation at Adelphia's request and, while Tyco and Qwest aren't commenting yet, don't be surprised to see them follow suit.

Today Boies is quoted in damage-control mode as saying "I should have made certain that everyone knew about it," but the real blow is not just the loss of Adelphia et al. as clients in the short run, but rather to his reputation for holding himself and his firm out as corporate governance champions.  Caesar's Wife, anyone?

Simply another example of "What was he thinking?"  That, to be sure, but I recount this for another reason.  Boies' choice not to disclose—and anyone of his intellect and rigor made, at some point, that conscious choice—reveals a hubris that those at the top of their game can fall victim to.  At the very least, he acted with "vast carelessness," in F. Scott Fitzgerald's felicitous phrase (referring to the very rich).

But of course, neither you nor I would let power or wealth lead us astray from our principles, would we?