This is right out of Atlas Shrugged - just a few generations later.
Some of the fraudulent accounting adjustments and acts might have been the MO for money-laundering, govt fraud, tax evasion, and wire-transfers offshore :
a. Reversing disbursement write-offs---improperly reversing millions of dollars of write-offs of client disbursements that the Firm had no intention or reasonable expectation of collecting.
b. Reclassifying disbursement payments – improperly reclassifying millions of dollars of payments that had been applied to client disbursements; and applying the payments instead to outstanding fee amounts.
c. Reclassifying "Of Counsel" payments – millions of dollars of compensation to Of Counsel lawyers as equity partner compensation may have been reclassified. "Of Counsel" compensation is generally treated as an expense in financial statements.
d. Reversing credit card write-offs – charges from an American Express and other cards that had not previously been expensed, and were not chargeable to clients, might have been falsely written-off. Hiding the amount in the books as an unbilled client disbursement receivable then illegally reversing the write-off at year-end. The amount might have remained on the books as an unbilled client disbursement receivable.
e. Reclassifying salaried partner expenses – improperly reclassifying salaried partners as equity partner so as to issue millions of dollars in compensation, and amortization of benefits related to salaried, non-equity partners. Treating payouts amounts expenses on financial statements, so the reclassification had the effect of falsely reducing expenses. This change in treatment may not have been disclosed to the Firm’s auditors nor disclosed on the audited financial statements.
f. perhaps fraudulently seeking sought backdated checks to post to the prior year to hide the date on which checks were received. The effort was to minimize the risk that auditors would discover that December checks received in January, including backdated checks, were being posted to the prior year.
g. Applying partner capital as fee revenue – millions that that had been contributed by a partner to satisfy his capital requirement might have been applied as a fee payment for the client of a different partner. This amount might have been illegally backed out of fees and applied to the partner’s capital account for the fiscal year, but might have been reapplied as a fee payment for the same client.
h. Applying loan repayments as revenue – bank loans that benefitted partners might have been restructured so that the loan repayment would increase the Firm’s revenue.
I. Did the Firm fraudulently claim revenue that they did not have and pushing expenses and financial obligations off into the future?