The Tom Girardi scandal appeared poised to claim two more legal careers Friday as the State Bar of California initiated disbarment proceedings against the disgraced trial attorney’s son-in-law and another lawyer at his once-vaunted firm.

Agency prosecutors are seeking to strip the licenses of former Girardi Keese litigators David Lira, who is married to Girardi’s daughter, and Keith Griffin, one of last lawyers to flee the crumbling firm two years ago.

Disciplinary notices filed in State Bar Court accuse both of misappropriating funds and other misconduct related to the firm’s representation of the families of airline crash victims killed in a 2018 crash off the coast of Indonesia.

Revelations about money missing from the Lion Air settlements led to the collapse of Girardi’s firm in 2020, scrutiny of his troubled history with client funds, his disbarment last year and a federal indictment earlier this year accusing him and Lira of wire fraud charges. Both have pleaded not guilty.

The State Bar case against Lira and Griffin alleges that they helped him conceal from their clients, Indonesian widows and orphans, that millions in settlement money had arrived into a firm trust account, but that it was not flowing on to the clients.

Lira is accused of issuing checks totalling $2.7 million from an account holding the Boeing money to pay “individuals and entities that were unrelated to the client families.” Prosecutors allege that both men were aware Girardi was lying to clients...

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