By Dan McCue

CHARLESTON -- While it’s still too early to tell how the investment fraud case against economist Al Parish will stack up in the annals of Charleston legal history, one thing is clear: Scores of attorneys both around town and throughout the Southeast are being kept busy by the case.

Already at least two dozen members of the bar—counting those representing clients in related civil matters that are currently stayed by order of U.S. District Judge David C. Norton—have filed complaints or other documents in federal and state court in Charleston.

All this within two months after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission logged its initial five-count civil complaint against Parish.

But what will it all mean in the long run to Charleston’s legal community? And where will it all go from here?

A trio of the attorneys involved in the case, Andrew Savage, Parish’s defense attorney; Paul Reynolds Thurmond, who has been retained by Yolanda Parish, Parish’s wife and business partner; and J. David Dantzler, the Atlanta-based attorney working with the court-appointed receiver in the case, recently offered a behind the scenes look at the case and described what it has meant for their practices.

“It’s certainly a big case, but the thing about cases is that they never seem to be what they appeared to be at the outset,” Savage said.

Shortly after that comment, the other shoe dropped on Parish with the announcement of an 11-count federal indictment on charges of mail and wire fraud and making false statements to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that could land in him in prison for as much as 205 years.

Parish also faces criminal penalties of up to $2.5 million. He was expected to be arraigned on the criminal charges on May 23 at the federal courthouse in Charleston.