Clients of probate attorney under investigation seek control of his assets

Three former clients of probate lawyer Robert Graham filed an involuntarily bankruptcy petition Thursday against his law practice.

The five-page petition, prepared by Las Vegas bankruptcy attorney Gerald Gordon, alleges Graham’s Lawyers West firm misappropriated more than $1.9 million of funds belonging to the clients.

Gordon said he was so concerned about the damage Graham allegedly caused his clients that he is not charging them for his work on the case.

“This is so fundamentally contrary to the role of attorneys and how we’re supposed to act and represent our clients,” he said.

The petition, which was filed in Las Vegas Bankruptcy Court, shows that Gordon is representing the estate of Michael B. Macknin, the Sharona Dagani Trust and the Margueritte Owens Revocable Trust.

Gordon said he planned to file court papers Friday seeking the appointment of a temporary bankruptcy trustee to take control of the assets Graham held in three separate firms he ran over the years, including Lawyers West.

Graham’s lawyer, Lance Hendron, could not be reached for comment late Thursday.

Graham, a prominent player in the probate legal community for years, is the target of a joint FBI-Las Vegas police investigation into the disappearance of his clients’ funds.

The State Bar of Nevada has alleged in a complaint that Graham stole millions of dollars from his clients before abruptly closing his Lawyers West firm in Summerlin on Dec. 2 and laying off his employees.

A bar analysis of Graham’s bank records shows that his law practice should be holding more than $13 million in funds for clients. But the balances in his accounts are far less, Assistant Bar Counsel Janeen Isaacson wrote in the complaint.

The Nevada Supreme Court has suspended Graham’s license temporarily while the state bar conducts disciplinary proceedings.

In an interview with the Las Vegas Review-Journal on Tuesday, a shaken Graham expressed remorse and described his law practice as a 20-year business failure.

“I was responsible for the litigation and felt I had no out,” Graham said. “So bit by bit, I moved the chairs on the deck. Each year, things got worse and worse, and I tried to bail myself out and just couldn’t.”

Graham declined to explain what had happened to the missing client money.

But in a sworn court affidavit, he said: “There is no doubt that there has been substantial damage done as a result of the losses of the practice in question over the last 20 years.”

When asked during the Review-Journal interview what he would say to his former clients, Graham said: “There’ll be a time when I can fall to my knees and ask them to please forgive me. I’ve been sidetracked. How I ended up here, I’ll never know.”

Contact Jeff German at jgerman@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4564. Follow @JGermanRJ on Twitter