Some of our best friends are lawyers, and sometimes they wonder why the public holds their profession in such disrepute. Exhibit A could be the shakedown specialists at Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd, who have been ordered to pay sanctions over a lawsuit against Boeing in which the key witness was a fabrication.

Robbins Geller is the plaintiffs firm created by discredited tort kingpin Bill Lerach out of the ruins of Milberg Weiss, which fell apart in 2006 after its partners were indicted. Lerach later went to the slammer...