ROANOKE TIMES  
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Saturday, August 31, 1996              TAG: 9609030053
SECTION: VIRGINIA                 PAGE: C-3  EDITION: METRO  
SOURCE: JAN VERTEFEUILLE STAFF WRITER
MEMO: ***CORRECTION***
      Published correction ran on September 4, 1996.
         Bruce Stockburger is still a general partner in the Roanoke law firm 
      of Gentry Locke Rakes & Moore. Incorrect information was included in a 
      story Saturday and in other recent stories about a lawsuit in federal 
      court.

JUDGE WHO RULED LAWSUIT FRIVOLOUS TURNS OVER CASE LAWYERS PLANNED TO SANCTION ATTACK HIM

After attorneys he planned to sanction for filing a frivolous lawsuit attacked him personally in court documents, U.S. District Judge Samuel Wilson has recused himself from the case.

Wilson turned over the Roanoke case to a North Carolina federal judge this week after the lawyers he planned to sanction accused him of being part of what they see as a statewide cover-up of legal malpractice that involves a prominent Roanoke law firm and the entire Virginia Supreme Court.

The case has produced angry words rarely seen in the formal language of court documents.

Judges often disqualify themselves from a case if they have a conflict of interest - for instance, if their former law partners are representing one of the parties. But it's less common for a judge to recuse himself in the middle of an ongoing case.

Wilson had planned to sanction Roanoke attorney Joseph Anthony; Anthony's co-counsel, Michael Richardson of Tennessee; and their client, Blacksburg developer Georgia Anne Snyder-Falkinham, for filing a frivolous lawsuit.

In a motion filed in response to the judge's decision to sanction them, Anthony and Richardson argued that Wilson enjoys "personal, first-name relationships" with the families of some of the lawyers named in the legal malpractice claim. They also raised questions about the judge's integrity.

In the one-page order recusing himself, Wilson gives no reason for doing so.

U.S. District Judge William Osteen in Greensboro now will decide whether to dismiss Anthony's lawsuit and whether to impose sanctions. Wilson had written in an opinion that he planned to do those things, but he hadn't entered an order making it official.

Anthony said he was glad Wilson removed himself from the case, but even with an out-of-state judge now assigned to it, "I can't say I have faith it will be handled appropriately."

Wilson said in an Aug. 5 decision that he planned to sanction Snyder-Falkinham and her attorneys for filing a lawsuit he said was designed simply to "harass and embarrass" attorneys at the three law firms named in the suit. He dismissed the suit before trial, saying it was a meritless case "with all the grace and charm of a drive-by shooting."

He asked both sides to file briefs with him on how much Anthony, Richardson and Snyder-Falkinham should be forced to pay. He said he planned to require them to pay some or all of the other side's attorneys fees, which were $53,000 as of the latest tally in May.

Snyder-Falkinham originally sued attorney Bruce Stockburger, a former partner with Roanoke's Gentry Locke Rakes & Moore, who represented her business interests. She said Stockburger had conflicts of interest he didn't reveal to her when he agreed to represent her in two trusts established through Crestar Bank. His law firm represented the bank.

Nor did Stockburger tell her, she said, that he was representing former University of Virginia basketball star Ralph Sampson when he helped persuade her to become partners with Sampson's corporation to build a Blacksburg luxury town house project. That project eventually lost her millions of dollars, she said.

Stockburger and Gentry Locke settled with her for an undisclosed amount. However, Snyder-Falkinham has never cashed the check, saying she didn't agree to settle.

She hired new attorneys and went back to court, but a state judge ruled that the case had in fact been settled. She then appealed that decision to the Virginia Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court upheld the state judge's decision this year. Snyder-Falkinham then filed the federal lawsuit in question, claiming that well-connected Gentry Locke lawyers conspired with Supreme Court justices to "corruptly" decide against her.

As evidence, the suit cites an anonymous letter sent to the seven Supreme Court justices that was supposedly written by the "grateful wife" of a Gentry Locke attorney, thanking the justices for protecting the firm.

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