Negative news coming out of the legal industry has occasionally crossed over from word of business troubles to serious personal troubles and tragedy. The latest such instance comes out of Pittsburgh.
K&L Gates was hesitant to say much Wednesday about an employee who police said went on a shooting rampage Tuesday at a suburban-Pittsburgh L.A. Fitness, killing four people, including himself, and injuring nine others.
"K&L Gates is deeply saddened by last night's events, and offers its condolences to the families and friends of all who were involved in this terrible tragedy," the firm said in a statement.
K&L Gates is offering on-site counseling for employees through the firm's employee assistance program, a firm spokesman said.
The spokesman confirmed that the alleged shooter, George Sodini, 48, was a systems analyst in the finance department and had worked at K&L Gates since 1999. Prior to that, according to media reports and his profile on LinkedIn, Sodini worked at Development Dimensions International.
He left behind an online diary that has since been taken down. The at-times explicit entries began on Nov. 5, 2008, discussing how his plan -- allegedly to carry out the shooting -- had been delayed. It was in an April 2009 entry that he first mentioned he worked at K&L Gates and that the firm had recently completed a second round of layoffs. After complaining about the firm making cuts "unnecessarily," Sodini went on to praise the firm but suspected he wouldn't survive the next round of layoffs.
"Most people there are OK and I would never have a shoot 'em up there," he wrote. "They paid me for 10 years so far!"
It seemed from his entries that Sodini's job was one thing keeping him going and preventing him from carrying out the shooting earlier.
"I predict I won't survive the next layoff," he wrote. "That is when there is no point to continue. Right now, life is bearable and I can get by indefinitely. Something bad must happen. The pay check is all I have left."
In a later July entry, Sodini said he had been promoted and received a raise and his LinkedIn profile said he was now a programmer/analyst at the firm. K&L Gates spokesman Mike Rick said he couldn't discuss whether Sodini had recently been promoted and could only confirm that he worked at the firm at the time of the incident.
He also confirmed that a man listed by name in Sodini's blog under the category "idiots" was an employee of the firm. That man's LinkedIn profile shows he is the director of information systems planning and development at K&L Gates. The Legal Intelligencer has chosen not to publish the employee's name.
All of those killed or wounded were women attending an aerobic workout class at the club Tuesday night, Allegheny County Police Superintendent Charles Moffatt said at a press conference. Sodini was a member at the gym, and there was no reason to stop him when he walked in. Moffatt said Sodini was dressed in workout clothes and carrying a gym bag. It was later reported that the gym bag contained a note and the guns used in the shooting. Moffatt said there were 52 rounds of ammunition missing and presumed to have been shot. The shooting took place around 8 p.m. Tuesday.
"I don't think anybody could have stopped him," Moffatt said at the press conference, which was made available on the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's Web site. The majority of Sodini's diary entries discussed how alone he felt and how he hadn't had a girlfriend in years. A Jan. 6, 2009, entry said he had walked into the gym that day with loaded guns but "chickened out."
His final entry was posted Aug. 3, the day before the shooting. At the top of the diary, where it listed his name and place of residency, Sodini had his birth date, Sept. 30, 1960, and death date, Aug. 4, 2009, listed.
"I took off today, Monday, and tomorrow to practice my routine and make sure it is well polished," Sodini wrote in the final entry. "I need to work out every detail, there is only one shot."
He said he wouldn't add any more entries because the "computer clicking" distracted him. Sodini said the "practice papers" and notes in his gym bag could be freely published.
"I will not be embarrassed, because, well, I will be dead," he wrote.
The shooting occurred in Collier, Pa.; Sodini is from neighboring Scott Township.
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