But Thornton’s papers included inaccurate hourly rates and claimed attorney Michael Bradley — Garrett Bradley’s brother — was a Thornton employee who billed $500 per hour, when he was neither employed by the firm nor billed that much. Garrett Bradley later testified the errors were a “stupid mistake.”
In a dissent from the majority decision, committee member Richard Mackenzie said Bradley should face the presumptive two-year suspension for attorneys who knowingly make a false statement to a court under oath.
Mackenzie wrote that Bradley’s testimony denying that he read the document isn’t enough to establish that he never read and didn’t know the false representations contained in the declaration, which Bradley had certified was “true and correct.”
“Any reasonable attorney — particularly a managing partner — who was even mildly interested in the firm’s support for a request for a multi-million-dollar fee that his firm was seeking to be awarded, would have read it,” the dissent said.
The declaration also coincided with Bradley’s elevation to managing partner of Thornton about two weeks prior, Mackenzie noted.
