Texas law firm Jackson Walker said in court filings that it was an unbiased advocate for the businesses it was guiding through bankruptcy in recent years. It never mentioned that one of its bankruptcy lawyers at the time was in a romantic relationship with the judge overseeing at least two dozen of those chapter 11 cases, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Jackson Walker didn’t disclose that one of its law partners, Elizabeth Freeman, was living with bankruptcy judge David R. Jones, and didn’t correct its paperwork in the bankruptcy cases after learning of the couple’s relationship. The possible conflict of interest could have kept Jackson Walker off chapter 11 cases it filed in Houston’s bankruptcy court — and that earned the firm nearly $10 million in fees, The Wall Street Journal found through a review of court records. Judge Jones resigned from the bench earlier this month amid an official misconduct probe by the federal appeals court that appointed him after he confirmed his romantic relationship with Freeman to the Journal. Earlier this week, the Justice Department’s Office of the U.S. Trustee, which oversees the nation’s bankruptcy courts, said it has started to review Jackson Walker’s fee requests in light of Jones’s resignation. Jackson Walker told the Journal earlier this month that the firm in March 2021 first learned of an allegation that Freeman was in a relationship with Jones. Jackson Walker declined to comment on when it verified that the relationship was real and on the fee requests. It said in a court filing Thursday regarding a pending fee request that it “is working to evaluate and address the issues that have come to light over the past three weeks.”
