For Mel Lifshitz, Trust Is a Two-Way Street

For high-powered securities lawyer Mel Lifshitz, giving takes many forms, some more noble than others.

Since 2003, a charitable trust funded and administered by Lifshitz's family has donated money to various causes, most of them orthodox Jewish organizations. Another recipient of the charity's money, however, has been a limited partnership that was a plaintiff in more than a dozen class-action lawsuits filed by Lifshitz's firm over the past four years, a review of documents shows.

TheStreet.com found that the Melly & Rochelle Lifshitz Charitable Trust has invested at least $227,655 in the Delaware limited partnership, Colbart Birnet. In addition, a charitable trust set up by Lifshitz's law firm, Bernstein Liebhard & Lifshitz, one of the nation's top securities class-action firms, has invested at least $225,000 in the same partnership. ...