Milberg Weiss and Two Partners Indicted

Law.com is reporting that Milberg Weiss, the class action law firm, and two of its partners have been indicted in LA for activities related to their class action work:

Specifically, a Thursday indictment charging Bershad, partner Steven Schulman and, most notably, the firm itself with illegally paying clients to be lead plaintiffs, said the firm "kept cash used to make such payments in a safe located in a credenza in Bershad's office at Milberg Weiss, to which access was strictly limited."

In charging the firm and its two partners with using that stash as part of more than $11.3 million paid in illegal kickbacks to lead plaintiffs, the L.A. prosecutors made the argument that a plaintiffs firm that's made its name -- and earned Republicans' ire -- by suing America's biggest companies for fraud was itself a corrupt operation.