A Westside attorney who has represented many inmates has filed lawsuits against the state bar

Aaron Spolin, a Princeton-educated lawyer and former McKinsey consultant who has signed up thousands of inmate clients seeking release under new criminal justice reform laws, was hit with a second indictment by the State Bar of California last week.

The 18 charges filed Thursday follow the filing of the first disciplinary charges in August and provide more examples of what the bar contends Spolin and his Westside firm used deceptive marketing and outright lies to convince desperate families to hire him.

One alleged violation related to a 2023 press release on Spolin's website announcing that Gov. Gavin Newsom had commuted the sentence of one of his clients. In fact, the man told The Times newspaper last year, that he had followed the journey alone, and Spolin had done nothing about it. At the time, Spolin's company was urging families to pay more than $9,000 to keep moving, which trail experts said was unlikely to succeed.

In one incident cited by the bar, a lawyer working for Spolin told a Los Angeles man, Wesner Charles Jr., who was serving a 27-year-to-life sentence for attempted carjacking and robbery, that the reform law could “get him out” in six to eight months.

Spolin charged the family $19,000 without telling them that Charles and others convicted of violent crimes did not meet the requirements for consideration. The LA County district attorney's office had written “no less than nine letters” to Spolin advising him that such cases “will not be prosecuted,” wrote Cindy Chan, a supervising attorney in the Office of Chief Counsel for the Criminal Court.

Charles, who maintained his innocence, was later acquitted with the help of a different lawyer.

The other new allegations relate to three other arrested men from LA whose families paid between $11,500 and $21,700 for fruitless legal services.

If convicted, Spolin, 39, faces possible penalties ranging from probation to disbarment by the state Supreme Court.

Spolin's attorney, Erin Joyce, previously told The Times that her client has been “fully cooperating with the State Bar and will continue to cooperate.” He is looking forward to resolving this matter as soon as possible.”

In a filing last month, Joyce wrote that bar prosecutors informed him that they “intend to prosecute vigorously. [Spolin]to bring many cases in succession.” He acknowledged the ongoing criminal investigation by the state attorney general into Spolin's practices, but denied any wrongdoing.

He wrote that “for more than a year,” Spolin has “refused to be represented” by the nature of the charges against the bar and that he “has also modified or removed his company's promotional statements …”

Spolin worked for the Bronx district attorney's office before moving to LA and starting a practice focused on representing inmates under a series of laws aimed at reducing mass incarceration.

He told The Times last year that he used techniques he learned as a McKinsey consultant to organize his business. He outsourced his company to his workplace, used templates for legal documents and paid lawyers from the Philippines and other parts of the developing world around $10 an hour.