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Junior creditors of Caesars Entertainment launched a fresh attack against a top U.S. restructuring attorney, alleging that he misled a judge and asking that the law firm be disqualified from parts of the casino group's bankruptcy case, Reuters reported yesterday. Jones Day, the junior bondholders' law firm, asked the court to reconsider a May order that allowed the bankrupt unit of Caesars Entertainment Corp to hire Kirkland, led by James Sprayregen. The dispute between two of the best-known law firms in corporate restructuring adds another layer of feuding to Caesars' $18 billion bankruptcy, which involves the biggest U.S. private equity and hedge fund firms. In a new court filing on Friday, Jones Day revealed evidence from a board meeting of the operating unit that it says shows testimony by Sprayregen at a trial over Kirkland's hiring by Caesars was incomplete and misleading. Kirkland & Ellis denied the allegation and said that it was without merit. Jones Day initially filed a redacted version of the motion last week, but Bankruptcy Judge Benjamin Goldgar in Chicago rejected that for procedural reasons.

A judge has rejected an unusual attempt by junior bondholders of Caesars Entertainment's bankrupt operating unit to disqualify law firm Kirkland & Ellis from leading the casino group's $18 billion chapter 11 restructuring, Reuters reported yesterday. Jones Day, the junior bondholders' law firm, had asked the court to reconsider a May order that allowed the bankrupt unit of Caesars Entertainment Corp. to hire Kirkland’s James Sprayregen. The fresh motion in the contentious bankruptcy case accused Sprayregen of giving misleading court testimony earlier this year regarding pre-bankruptcy work Kirkland handled for Caesars. Jones said that it unearthed new evidence including minutes from a 2014 board meeting. Jones Day's heavily redacted filing did not disclose the meeting minutes. In his denial to consider the motion at a Nov. 18 hearing, Bankruptcy Judge Benjamin Goldgar said Jones Day should have requested court permission before filing such a restricted document. He said they could ask to refile the motion.

Jurors in the Dewey & LeBoeuf criminal trial stuck it out for one more day of deliberations on Wednesday, laboring uneventfully even as the months-long trial threatened to end in a mistrial, the American Lawyer reported today. Yesterday was the 18th full day of deliberations in the trial of Dewey & LeBoeuf chairman Steven Davis, former executive director Stephen DiCarmine and former chief financial officer Joel Sanders. Over nearly four weeks of deliberations, the Manhattan jury has twice complained of deadlock—and twice delivered partial verdicts that cleared Dewey’s former leaders of relatively minor charges. Prosecutors accuse the trio of overseeing a scheme to conceal the firm’s true financial condition from lenders and investors before Dewey & LeBoeuf finally collapsed in 2012. Each defendant faces years in prison if convicted.

Hit with a big fine for violating a judge’s order, Michigan lawyer David W. Charron filed for bankruptcy protection to avoid paying it, the Wall Street Journal Bankruptcy Beat Blog reported on Friday. But a bankruptcy judge derailed that plan on Wednesday, ruling that Charron’s civil contempt fine of $363,506.77 — a penalty for orchestrating the sale of an insurance firm despite a court order not to do so — isn’t the type of debt that a person can get rid of using bankruptcy. In his 26-page ruling, Judge James Boyd said that Charron can’t cancel his debt to Glenn Morris, the former co-owner of insurance agency Morris, Schnoor & Gremel Inc.