Circle of Greed; The Spectacular Rise and Fall of the Lawyer Who Brought Corporate America to its Knees

xii, 532 pages. Notes. Index. Inscribed on the half title page by Carl Cannon. Inscription reads For Bruce Drake, A valued colleague, and friend. Thanks for working with me so hard. Carl Cannon. Patrick Dillon is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and an award-winning architect. He is the author of seven books, including Circle of Greed, Truth, Lies, Gin: The Much-Lamented Death of Madam Geneva, and The Last Revolution. Carl M. Cannon (born 1953) is an American journalist who, as of 2021, is the executive editor and Washington, D.C. bureau chief of RealClearPolitics. Cannon was born in California and graduated from the University of Colorado. He worked as a reporter for the San Jose Mercury News, the Baltimore Sun, and the National Journal before being hired by RealClearPolitics in 2011. At the San Jose Mercury News he was part of the reporting team that was awarded the 1990 Pulitzer Prize in the category of general news reporting for coverage of the Loma Prieta earthquake. In 2003 he was elected president of the White House Correspondents Association. He has also served as a Fellow-in-Residence at the Harvard University Institute of Politics. Cannon, the sun of famed journalist Lou Cannon, is a recipient of the Aldo Beckman Award for Journalistic Excellence. Circle of Greed is the epic story of the rise and fall of Bill Lerach, once the leading class action lawyer in America and now a convicted felon. For more than two decades, Lerach threatened, shook down and sued top Fortune 500 companies, including Disney, Apple, Time Warner, and—most famously—Enron. Now, the man who brought corporate moguls to their knees has fallen prey to the same corrupt impulses of his enemies, and is paying the price by serving time in federal prison. If there was ever a modern Greek tragedy about a man and his times, about corporate arrogance and illusions and the scorched-earth tactics to not only counteract corporate America but to beat it at its own game, Bill Lerach's story is it. William "Bill" Shannon Lerach (born March 14, 1946, Ohio River Valley, Midwestern United States) is a disbarred lawyer who specialized in private Securities Class Action lawsuits. The $7.12 billion he obtained as the lead plaintiff's attorney in the case against Enron is currently the largest sum ever recovered in a group of securities class-action lawsuits in U.S. history. In 2007 he pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice and was sentenced to two years imprisonment. In 2009 he was disbarred from practicing law in California. As part of the settlement, Lerach would not cooperate as a witness and his law firm would be protected from any further prosecution. Over the course of his career, it has been estimated that Lerach recovered upward of $45 billion on behalf of defrauded investors. Lerach has stated that about 85% of his cases were brought due to insider trading, which he described as "footprints in the snow." In March 2010, a book about Lerach's life and career was published. Circle of Greed: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of the Lawyer Who Brought Corporate America to its Knees was written by journalists Patrick Dillon and Carl M. Cannon. In the same month, Lerach and writer, Patrick Dillon appeared on KPBS-FM, the San Diego NPR affiliate, to discuss the book. In his post-law practice years, Lerach has regularly lectured in law school classes at the Univ. of San Diego, Univ. of CA-Berkeley, Univ. of CA-San Diego in La Jolla and Univ. of Southern California discussing his career and many epic battles fighting major corporate fraud and related matters. He has also lectured and been interviewed for many years on the financial crises facing many state pensions and, additionally, has served as a consultant re litigation in these matters. He has also delivered two compelling lectures describing the battle to recover billions in damages for slave labor and theft of assets during the Holocaust at UC San Diego's Great Hall and at their Geisel Library. First Edition.…