With fewer than three weeks to go before a Sept. 25 trial on the merits, chaos has been introduced to the legal proceedings brought by Christopher Cipoletti and the American Numismatic Association against its former computer services vendor, John Nebel of Computer Systems Design, and several former ANA employees that include former comptroller Wayne Abraham, museum curator Larry Lee and Information Technology director Barbara (Susie) Nulty.

The ANA’s attorney has withdrawn and the trial has been postponed until January 2008.

The law firm of Davis Graham and Stubbs LLP, and as the filed motion papers say, “(including Janet Savage, Sybil Kisken and Stephanie Ries),” have applied to the Colorado District Court “for an order permitting them to withdraw as attorneys” for the ANA and Cipoletti.

From the inception of the suit in July 2005 until August of this year — more than two years — Cipoletti and the ANA have both been represented by Janet Savage, a partner in the Davis, Graham law firm. As she explained in a court-filed document dated Aug. 30, Savage “undertook the representation of plaintiffs [ANA and Cipoletti] pursuant to Colorado Rule of Professional Conduct 1.13(e), which ‘recognizes that a lawyer for an organization may also represent a principal officer or major shareholder.’