Hubbell, Rose Law Firm Settle Suit, Avoid Trial

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Former Clinton aide Webster L. Hubbell and the Rose Law Firm have settled a lawsuit filed by a couple who alleged that he mishandled a problem involving a business loan. The settlement avoided a jury trial that was set to begin Tuesday.

Hubbell, who held the No. 3 post at the Justice Department until he resigned in 1994, and the firm, where First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton was once a partner, were defendants in a civil malpractice case filed by Robert H. Kinkead and Virginia “Joyce” Kinkead.

The Kinkeads claimed that Hubbell directed them to sign papers putting up more than $200,000 in property as collateral on a $96,000 loan from Union National Bank.

The pair also claimed that Hubbell and the firm engaged in malpractice by representing the Kinkeads and the bank at the same time, and that the bank foreclosed on their property as a result of the handling of their case. Hubbell claimed that he offered advice to Kinkead as a friend and didn’t charge for it.

Terms of the settlement, reached Friday, were not revealed. The Kinkeads sought more than $4 million in compensatory and punitive damages.

Court records showed that Kinkead was convicted in the early 1990s of obtaining money from the bank under false pretenses and was sentenced to three months’ home detention. Prosecutors said he overstated the amount of business he was doing through an insurance company.

Little Rock attorney Timothy Dudley, who represented the Kinkeads, said he couldn’t comment on the settlement.