Law firm Kirkland & Ellis brought multibillion-dollar cases to David R. Jones’s court, aided by a local attorney who lived with the judge; ‘Why did no one look into it?’
Texas proving once again it’s primary concern is graft, grift and backroom dealings that grind justice into dust.
An unsigned, one-page bombshell of a letter made the rounds at Kirkland & Ellis, the world’s largest law firm by revenue. It threatened havoc for the firm and others that did business before the most powerful bankruptcy judge in the U.S.
The letter alleged that U.S. Bankruptcy Judge David R. Jones, chief of the bankruptcy court in Houston, was in a romantic relationship with Elizabeth Freeman, a Texas attorney who as Kirkland’s co-counsel helped the firm shepherd multibillion-dollar cases in Jones’s courtroom.
The anonymous letter first went to Michael Van Deelen, a former high-school math teacher with a history of filing lawsuits against people he believed had wronged him. He was angry over a bankruptcy plan from Kirkland—approved by Jones—that wiped out Van Deelen’s $146,541 investment in an oil-and-gas drilling company that had gone bust.
Van Deelen tried to submit the letter to court in his effort to disqualify Jones from the bankruptcy case involving his lost investment. In a court hearing, a Kirkland partner argued that the letter was unsubstantiated and moved to exclude it as evidence. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Marvin Isgur, Jones’s former law partner and a court colleague, sided with Kirkland. He denied Van Deelen’s request. Jones later signed an order to permanently seal the letter from public view.
