Jeffrey Wertkin enters U.S District Court for the Northern District of California for sentencing.

Before his sentencing hearing in San Francisco federal court on Wednesday, Jeffrey Wertkin looked almost cheerful. The former Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld partner was flanked by his wife, parents, in-laws and half a dozen other supporters, chatting and even smiling, all but indistinguishable in his dark suit and blue tie from every other lawyer in the building.

By the end, he was fighting back tears as he hugged his wife, Erin, while his mother sobbed in the hallway outside U.S. District Judge Maxine Chesney's 19th floor courtroom.

Chesney sentenced Wertkin to 30 months in prison for stealing dozens of sealed qui tam complaints before he left his job at the Justice Department to join Akin in April 2016, then donning sunglasses and a wig and attempting to sell one of the documents for $310,000 to an undercover FBI agent.

If anything, Chesney's sentence was on the lenient side—prosecutors asked for 34 months. The judge seemed swayed in part by the 87 letters of support from Wertkin's family and friends, who uniformly expressed utter shock at his conduct.

“I don't doubt something went very wrong in Mr. Wertkin's life,” Chesney said.

But even now, it's still not entirely clear how or why it all happened. How someone so smart—Wertkin has a law degree and PhD from Georgetown—did something even his lawyer called “stupid, stupid.” Why, when his salary had just tripled to $450,000 after leaving government, he felt such a need for more money. How he could live his whole life as a “straight arrow,” a rule-follower, only to risk it all on such a half-baked, felonious scheme.

Why?

His lawyer, Cris Arguedas of Arguedas, Cassman & Headley said in court that he had a “breakdown,” and that he suffered from undiagnosed and untreated anxiety and depression.

But for Chesney, it didn't quite add up. “People just don't do this because they're depressed. When you're depressed, you pull the covers over your head and stay in bed,” she said. “People don't do this just because they're anxious.”

Looking at Wertkin's life as described in the one-hour hearing and other court documents, what's striking in part is how utterly typical he sounds. He could be almost any litigator.

He threw himself into schoolwork and excelled because he craved external approval. His sense of self-worth was tied to his job performance.

When he spent three months in Alabama for his first big trial, it put a strain on his family life. When he lost the trial (the judge sua sponte determined that the jury had been given the wrong instructions and dismissed the case), he was crushed.

He felt pressure to provide his family with a bigger house in a nicer neighborhood. He drank too much coffee in the daytime to stay alert, and too much alcohol at night to fall asleep. He slept poorly.

He got increasingly stressed and short-tempered, but blamed his wife and his job, rather than his own feelings of inadequacy.

It would make for a convenient narrative at this point to pin the blame for his downfall on Akin Gump—that the cutthroat pressure of Big Law corrupted an upstanding public servant.

But no, that's not it. Wertkin set his scheme in motion before he even started working at Akin Gump. He said he was so worried about business development that he snuck into his supervisor's office late at night to copy documents that he planned to use to target his marketing efforts.

“The idea that before he left government, he anticipated feeling pressure … tells you Jeff had some significant issues,” said Akin Gump chairperson Kim Koopersmith in an interview. “It wasn't the firm that had issues. It was Jeff.”

She stressed that Akin Gump routinely adds lateral partners from the government and has extensive programs to support them. That includes introducing new laterals to clients, giving them public speaking opportunities, and making sure partners across practice groups are invested in their success.

But Wertkin didn't give any of this a chance—his wrongdoing predated his first day of work.

In court, Chesney struggled to make sense of it.

“Everyone who is a trial lawyer has experienced great periods of stress, of pressure, of having to satisfy your home responsibilities … people at home in many instances not understanding why you are spending so much time doing what you're doing and not spending time with your family,” she said. “You almost have to be married to another trial lawyer for them to understand that.”

“These are tremendous pressures, but they are dealt with and experienced frequently, on a regular basis, by everybody in the profession who decides to do trial work. If you don't want to be facing those, then you do transactional work on contracts and stay out of the courtroom,” Chesney said.

As for Wertkin, he briefly addressed the court in a steady voice, as befitting a litigator. “I am deeply ashamed of my actions,” he said. “I would like to apologize to the court, the prosecutors, my family, my friends, my former colleagues at the Department of Justice for my misconduct and breach of trust,” he said. “I will dedicate the rest of my life to making amends, and I hope that one day, I can earn their forgiveness.”

See also Ex-Akin/DOJ Lawyer Gets 2.5 Years in Prison for Lifting Sealed Whistleblower Lawsuits

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