(Photo: John Disney/ALM)Law Firm's Bankruptcy Looms Over Hardwick Embezzlement Trial
"Muddled" escrow accounts and the "poor condition of debtors' books and records" have delayed Morris Hardwick Schneider's bankruptcy proceedings, according to bankruptcy filings from the firm and its liquidating trustee.
September 21, 2018 at 02:49 PM
7 minute read
The original version of this story was published on Daily Report
Accounting records for Atlanta lawyer Nathan Hardwick IV's bankrupt former firm are expected to play a big part in his criminal trial for embezzlement, which started Sept. 17. Opening statements are scheduled for Monday in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.
Morris Hardwick Schneider is still in bankruptcy proceedings, more than three years after it filed for Chapter 11, due to the “poor condition of the debtor's books and records,” according to a recent filing by the liquidating trustee in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.
The residential real estate closing and foreclosure firm filed for bankruptcy on July 5, 2015. At its peak, it had been one of the largest closing and default firms in the nation, with about 800 employees in 13 states. Hardwick, the majority owner, ran the closing operation from Atlanta, while brothers Mark and Gerard Wittstadt, who each owned 22.5 percent of the firm, ran the foreclosure side from Maryland.
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