Font Size: 
Ex-DLA, Duane Morris Partner Facing Forgery Trial in Singapore
The American Lawyer
November 04, 2009
Trial began on Monday for Rudy Lim, a former partner at DLA Piper who left the firm in December 2006 to open Duane Morris' Singapore office.
Lim, 37, is charged with falsely inflating his salary at DLA to get Duane Morris to match.
Lim is accused of forging a payroll statement from DLA to show that his monthly draw from the firm was $65,000 instead of $25,000, which would boost his annual compensation from $300,000 at DLA to $780,000 at Duane Morris.
The Straits Times of Singapore reports that in January 2007, Lim began drawing $58,200 a month from his new firm -- an annual salary of $698,400 before taxes. But the pay increase would only be temporary.
DLA employees going through electronic records stored on Lim's computer found the forged payroll statement and alerted Singapore's Commercial Affairs Department. Lim resigned from Duane Morris in May 2007 after finding out about the investigation, the Straits Times reports. In Singapore, a forgery conviction carries a sentence of up to seven years in prison and a fine.
Lim, born in Indonesia of Chinese extraction, is admitted as a solicitor and barrister in Australia and as a solicitor in England and Wales. He previously worked at White & Case and Baker & McKenzie.
At DLA, Lim advised public and private companies on cross-border and domestic M&A, foreign direct investments and joint ventures. He made partner at DLA in February 2006 and chaired the firm's Indonesia practice.
After the forgery charges against Lim were made public, England's Solicitors Regulation Authority issued a report in March 2008 (pdf), which found that Lim deliberately created a false document to aid him in salary negotiations with Duane Morris.
Lim defended himself at a disciplinary hearing, claiming he didn't forge the payroll document for personal gain and that the accusations shouldn't affect his professional standing. But The Law Society of England and Wales, which monitors professional conduct, disagreed and disbarred him.
Bernard Doray from Singapore's Bernard & Rada is representing Lim, who is free on $80,000 bail. Doray did not immediately respond to a request for comment. DLA and Duane Morris declined to comment.
This article first appeared on The Am Law Daily blog on AmericanLawyer.com.
