If You Hire Eliot Spitzer To Represent You, Be Sure To Check Those Billable Hours

Will famous lawyer/soon-to-be private citizen Eliot Spitzer be disbarred? Shockingly, maybe not. "Richard Maltz, a former deputy chief counsel at the First Department disciplinary committee, agreed that in cases involving facts similar to those being attributed to Mr. Spitzer, involving a first offense and no apparent aggravating circumstances, the committee is 'very likely' to issue a non-public letter of admonition," but not disbar, reports New York Lawyer. He's also likely to skate on money laundering charges: "Money laundering requires the use of money that is already dirty—the statute starts out with the funds having to be the proceeds of specific unlawful activity and this appears to be clean money," notes Kathryn Keneally, a partner at a firm that specializes in white-collar crimes. "As one of my late mentors said, 'He didn't clean the money, he made it dirty.'" Which is as good a legacy for Spitzer as any we can think of: He didn't clean the money, he made it dirty. NYL