Madoff Even Screwing up Divorces

The chair of Paul Weiss‘s real-estate department is trying to re-open his uncontested divorce from 2006.  Steven Simkin (Penn BS ’69, Penn JD ’73) agreed to a $6.6 million settlement with his wife.  Simkin (pictured) arrived at that number, in part, by giving her cash for half of the couple’s $5.4 million nominal value of an investment with Bernie Madoff.  Now he wants the money he gave her back.

Paul Weiss had 2007 PEP of just under $2.6 million (#9 on the Global 100). Granted, the guy must be coming up close on mandatory retirement, but isn’t it a little crass to go after his wife of 30 years for his mistake?  I doubt she picked the investment and I doubt he was going to keep giving her the $500,000 the account would have spun off had Madoff been able to keep the balls in the air.

Not surprisingly, Simkin isn’t the only Paul Weiss lawyer to lose money.  Madoff’s MO was to bleed clusters of people dry.  Among the list of victims (WSJ Law Blog has a story about the privacy violation implicit in publication of the list), we also found Of Counsel David Washburn (UVM BA ’52, NYU LLB ’55) and Of Counsel Martin London (Cornell BA ’55, NYU LLB ’57).

Full disclosure: we found the London connection when we were making sure that our hero, Marty Lipton, wasn’t on the list.  We’re happy to report, Marty was too smart for this charade.  Neither was Harvey Miller.  Let us know if you find anyone interesting.

Related posts:

1. 80s M&A Litigator Lends Hand to Madoff Recovery Work
2. Madoff Boondoggle Now with BigLaw Connection!
3. BigLaw Lines up for Madoff Work
4. Madoff Bumps Dreier from Throne
5. Madoff Bankruptcy Fees

Tagged as: madoff, paul weiss, wachtell, weil gotshal