A wealthy Georgia family has sued a former Sutherland Asbill & Brennan partner, Bennett Kight, claiming he plundered at least $60 million from trusts he oversaw for more than 20 years. The family also names the firm and current partner Robert Smith as co-defendants in a legal malpractice suit filed March 6 in Fulton County State Court.
The trusts and related assets at issue belong to the wife and heirs of industrialist and philanthropist Walter Bunzl, who died in 1988. The suit says they were worth more than $130 million before Kight, his co-defendants and others launched a complicated scheme to set up more than 100 companies and other entities to funnel money through them and into the defendants’ pockets.
