According to a psychiatrist who examined him last month, the afflicted lawyer in Los Angeles, Tom Girardi, suffers from Alzheimer’s disease and cannot understand or participate in it.
The doctor’s assessment was filed in the High Court on Wednesday by a lawyer for Girardi’s younger brother, who is temporarily a conservator of the famous 81-year-old lawyer.
Dr. Nathan Lavid, a forensic and clinical psychiatrist in Long Beach, met with Girardi on February 26 as part of the conservatory case started in January by his brother Robert. According to an affidavit, Lavid found ‘major impairment’ in Girardi’s short-term memory, logical reasoning and recognition of familiar objects and people. The psychiatrist indicated that Girardi was experiencing errors and ‘thinking seriously disorganized’.
Girardi has dominated California civil law for decades, winning billions in claims for plaintiffs in the case of product liability, personal injury and toxic pollution. He is best known for his role in the case depicted in ‘Erin Brockovich’ and his marriage to singer Erika Jayne, a star of ‘Real Housewives of Beverly Hills’.
His venerable firm, Girardi Keese, collapsed in December amid emerging evidence that Girardi stole more than $ 13 million from settlements or otherwise stole from a fire victim and the survivors of victims of an Indonesian plane crash. Creditors then forced him into bankruptcy, and a federal judge referred him for criminal investigation.
A criminal lawyer he detained said in December that Girardi was unable to help his defense, highlight the missing money or understand his current difficulty. The psychiatrist’s statement reinforced these allegations.
Lavid, a Supreme Court counseling psychiatrist, wrote that Girardi “started” Alzheimer’s disease late, indicating that he was medically unable to attend a procedure “in the foreseeable future.”
“Dementia impairs his ability to understand the audience,” Lavid wrote. “His emotional distress is directly related to his dementia and is exacerbated by his confusion.”
The filing comes a day after the California State Bar, the agency that regulates the legal profession, ruled that Girardi was not eligible for the rights, after his license was ordered to be inactive. The move appears to be the result of conservatism and not any disciplinary action by the state bar.
A Times investigation found that Girardi and his firm had been sued more than 100 times in the past four decades, with numerous allegations of legal malpractice and the illegal use of settlement funds, but maintained an impeccable license at the state bar.
Girardi’s brother was appointed interim conservator after a trial last month, and the Orange County dentist is seeking a more permanent guardianship during a trial next week. Nicholas Van Brunt, a lawyer for Robert Girardi, said in an email: “It remains, of course, a heartbreaking time for Robert.”