Fast-forward almost a year, to June 20, 2022. Cadwalader sent over its first bill—for $677,925.32. And that was just the start, according to the court papers. By November, the Kaplans had paid Blanche’s firm $1.65 million, and Cadwalader said they owed even more. On November 19, 2022, at 5:27 a.m., those court papers allege, Blanche emailed the Kaplans: “I am forced to instruct my team to stop work on this matter.” That bill needed to be paid.

Thus began a legal battle between the Kaplans and Blanche that dragged on and on and on—and continues to this day, even as Blanche now finds himself on the executive floor of the Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice Building in Washington, DC. Blanche may now be the acting attorney general of the United States of America—after nearly two years as Trump’s personal attorney and another as deputy AG—but he’s still contesting the lawsuit from his former clients from Great Neck. They’re accusing him of malpractice and forgery.

The Kaplan twins had an early brush with the American legal system while still in college. Their dad, Stewart, an allergist, sued the University of Rochester for $200,000 when the boys weren’t given summa cum laude status, even though they had near-perfect GPAs, as The New York Post reported in a story headlined “‘Flaw’ Degree.” The university reportedly adjusted the diplomas when it was informed of the discrepancy. Despite the alleged “mental anguish, psychological and emotional trauma,” according to the Post, Adam and Daniel managed to move ahead with their careers. By 2016, they’d landed jobs at Morgan Stanley.

The following year, according to the Kaplans’s suit against Blanche, they were the subject of an internal investigation at Morgan Stanley into allegations that they made unauthorized changes to client documents. The twins denied wrongdoing, lawyered up, then hired a legal malpractice specialist, Daniel Abrams, to sue the Kaplans’ own attorneys, whom they allegedly refused to pay. (The Kaplans lost on summary judgment, and the suit was eventually settled.)

The brothers continued to bounce around the finance world, passing through Merrill Lynch for a spell, then an outfit called IHT Wealth Management. They picked up clients along the way, many of them family friends and neighbors, some of them quite old and infirm.