William Voge.

The sexting controversy that led to the resignation of Latham & Watkins chairman William Voge in March 2018 has continued to reverberate in the Chicago area.

In the months after Voge resigned, his lawyer sought criminal charges against Andrea Vassell, the Naperville, Illinois, woman with whom Voge exchanged messages. Vassell, in turn, lodged disciplinary complaints against Voge's attorney, as well as the chairman of Kirkland & Ellis—pulled in only because he received an unsolicited email from Vassell—and another prominent Chicago lawyer.

All of those investigations fizzled: Vassell was never charged and no disciplinary action was taken against the lawyers. But 20 months after Vassell's claims first surfaced, her insistence that she was wronged by two law firm leaders is still creating headaches—especially now that she claims to be writing a book about her experiences.

Illinois prosecutors declined to press charges against Vassell in October 2018. By October 2019, the Illinois Attorney Registration & Disciplinary Commission had rejected all three of Vassell's complaints—against Terry Ekl, a partner at Ekl, Williams & Provenzale who represented Voge; Kirkland chairman Jeffrey Hammes; and Michael Shakman, a partner at Miller Shakman Levine & Feldman who represented Kirkland, Hammes and Thomas Kuhns, Kirkland's general counsel.

Now, Vassell claims she's writing a book about her experiences with Voge and the New Canaan Society, the Christian men's organization where she first encountered Voge. Vassell said she is planning to use documents she obtained from the ARDC in her book—drawing sharp objections from Kirkland in late September this year.

Vassell told The American Lawyer that she had planned to write about New Canaan "before I even knew who Bill Voge was."

Voge, while voicing regret that he ever became involved with Vassell—whom he never met in person—maintained he was a victim of her harassment and questioned whether she is even writing a book.

Kirkland declined to offer an on-the-record comment.

Shakman declined to comment, citing Illinois Supreme Court Rule 766, which designates parts of the disciplinary process as confidential. He cited that same rule in a Sept. 20 email to Vassell, telling her his Kirkland clients "do not agree to you using such documents or information for any purpose, including the book you are working on."

Ekl rejected any notion of Vassell as a victim and dismissed her planned book as having "zero credibility and no literary value at all."

Vassell said she reached out to a number of attorneys in at the beginning of 2018, alleging that Voge had threatened her with legal action if she further exposed their relationship. Among those she contacted were Hammes and Kuhns—she later told the ARDC she picked Hammes because Kirkland was a top competitor of Latham's.

According to records of the exchanges, Kuhns told Vassell that Kirkland didn't handle such matters and to "not send us any more emails of any kind." But Kuhns also forwarded her emails to Everett "Kip" Johnson, Jr., Latham's general counsel. As a result, Voge learned about her outreach to Kirkland and allegedly threatened her with prison time, Vassell said.

Voge resigned March 20, 2018, citing a "personal mistake." Nine days later, a consultant with Ekl's firm requested the Naperville Police Department investigate Vassell for allegedly waging an "orchestrated campaign of intimidation and harassment."

Vassell allegedly sent hundreds of emails to Voge, his friends, family and leaders of the New Canaan Society, according to a police report. But by Oct. 26, 2018, Will County prosecutors had begun informing the parties they would not be charging Vassell.

"We were fine with that. At that point, she had basically stopped harassing Bill," Ekl said.

Vassell filed disciplinary complaints against Hammes and Ekl the next day. She said her criminal defense lawyer, James M. Ryan, the son of former Illinois Attorney General James E. Ryan, told her that her email to Kirkland should have been protected by attorney-client privilege, even though Kirkland never agreed to represent her. (Ryan did not respond to requests for comment.)

Kirkland later argued it had no duty to Vassell because she was never a client. Kuhns said in an affidavit submitted to the ARDC that he had forwarded "several unsolicited emails" from Vassell to Latham's general counsel, all without Hammes' knowledge or approval.

Vassell's complaint against Ekl accused him of making false claims, sending "a very intimidating, aggressive and rude man" to her home, and attempting to blackmail her into signing a nondisclosure agreement.

Ekl said in a letter to the ARDC that he never engaged in any inappropriate communication with Vassell, whom he described as a "deeply disturbed individual who engaged in a campaign to harass my client." He said all he wanted to do was to get Vassell to stop her alleged harassment.

The ARDC closed its investigations into Hammes and Ekl in May of this year, during the first phase of the agency's disciplinary review. As part of that process, however, Vassell received Hammes and Ekl's responses. She filed a grievance against Shakman after he said she was prohibited from publishing those materials in her book.

The ARDC rejected Vassell's complaint against Shakman on Oct. 4, finding that he can argue his position about the confidentiality of the documents. Vassell maintained that Shakman's argument is "not true."

Vassell said she told her editor her book would be finished by the end of the year. She said she did not accept any money upfront and declined to say who her publisher is. Vassell said she is focusing on the New Canaan Society, but Voge factors into it.

After taking issue with past reporting on the Voge scandal, Vassell added, "I've been through enough with all of these people. I don't want to go through anything else."

On that point, Ekl agreed. "If I never hear the name of Andrea Vassell for the rest of my life, I would be perfectly happy," he said.