Candidates Claim Transparency, But Do Not Provide Full List Of Clients

Original article appeared in BostonGlobe.com


Neither Brown, nor Warren have been completely open, and have traded charges over legal work.

Having boasted their transparency in revealing the cases and clients they have handled during their legal careers, Senator Scott Brown and Democratic challenger Elizabeth Warren have yet to produce a full list of clients. Both have dribbled out the information in recent days in ways that make it difficult for the media and the public to vet.

The issue has become a flashpoint in the campaign as Brown has tried to undermine Warren’s reputation as a consumer advocate by pointing to her work for two corporate clients.

Warren, meanwhile, has more recently countered that Brown has not been forthcoming about his work as a real estate lawyer, and needs to explain how that work may have intersected with his position as a state lawmaker in the years before he was elected to the US Senate in 2010.

After days of indicating he would release a full list of clients, the Brown campaign gave the Globe a partial list at 5:45 p.m. Tuesday. In an e-mail, the campaign promised that it was working on a full list of corporate clients, but insisted that a preliminary list of two title insurance companies, three banks, and two mortgage companies represented most of the work he performed while serving as a title agent and real estate closing attorney in Wrentham for about 25 years. His noncorporate work related primarily to wills and trusts, the campaign said.

Warren, a Harvard Law School bankruptcy specialist, released a list of 13 cases Monday night, just 15 minutes before the start of her second debate with Brown. Her campaign described those often complex cases in brief, flattering terms. But the list did not include all the clients Warren has consulted with or represented over the years that may not have appeared on court dockets.

Instead, Warren’s list was partial. She included all clients she represented since 2008, information that was already public in disclosure forms she filed when she went to Washington to lead a congressional panel and then serve in the Obama administration.

The cases she included from before 2008 were those already available from other publicly searchable databases, when she represented a client in court.

That meant her list excluded cases in which she may have consulted or served clients in other ways. A 2002 affidavit, first posted on the conservative blog Legal Insurrection, shows examples of some of those consulting clients not mentioned in Monday night’s release. That affidavit shows that among them were Dow Chemical, according to Warren’s 2002 affidavit, filed as part of another case. The campaign confirmed that Warren, an expert in bankruptcy trusts, consulted for the company, but did not provide details, citing attorney client privilege. In that period, the company set up a trust to pay plaintiffs who claimed in lawsuits that silicone breast implants had led to health problems.

Warren’s campaign would not say why it would not disclose the full list of her clients.

Their partial release of the Harvard professor’s cases moments before the debate was timed to do two things: meet a challenge Brown gave her last week to reveal all of her clients, and to challenge Brown to release his clients, so she could gain the offensive during the televised face off Monday night.

Brown has maintained he has not held anything back about his own legal work. But before releasing a partial list of clients Tuesday, he had offered only broad parameters — none in writing — about his 25-year legal career. He said at a press conference last Thursday that he served as a judge advocate general in the military and that he has also maintained a small real estate practice, run out of his home for the last seven to nine years. But in some years, Brown has earned more than $100,000 from that practice, according to public disclosure forms he filed with the state when he was a state legislator.

Claiming his legal practice was fairly simple, Brown said he does real estate closings as a title agent, before naming some, but not all, of his corporate clients .

Brown then said he would double-check the information when he got home and update the public on Friday, which he did not do.

During Monday night’s debate, moderator David Gregory mentioned that Warren had released a list of her clients, without realizing it was only partial, and asked Brown why he had not done so.

Brown insisted that he did release the information about a week ago, claiming he is a real estate attorney that represents small banks from his home office.

Warren then pointed out that there was no list, and suggested he had something to hide. 

Efforts have been made to contrast Brown's work as a small title attorney against Warren's work for large corporations, such as LTV Steel who were trying to avoid paying into a retired coal miners fund.