UPDATE 2-Ex-Milberg partner Bershad gets 6 months in prison

(Recasts first paragraph to add Schulman sentencing; adds details, background about Schulman)

By Gina Keating

LOS ANGELES, Oct 27 (Reuters) - Two former Milberg Weiss partners were sentenced on Monday to six months in federal prison for their roles in a scheme to pay clients to serve as plaintiffs in class-action lawsuits against U.S. corporations.

In sentencing David Bershad, 68, and Steven Schulman, 57, in separate hearings on Monday, U.S. District Judge John Walter rejected calls for leniency from their lawyers and prosecutors, citing the "breathtaking" scope of the conspiracy.

In addition to a prison sentence, Walter ordered Bershad to submit to three years of supervised release. He will begin serving his sentence on Jan. 5 at a federal prison camp in Otisville, New York.

As part of plea agreements, Bershad paid $8 million and Schulman paid about $2 million in fines and forfeiture of gains from the tainted cases.

His attorneys argued that Bershad should not serve prison time because his cooperation with the government probe had already taken a considerable personal toll, resulting in his divorce and lawsuits filed against him by his former firm.

Prosecutors also asked the judge to let Bershad serve half of a recommended six-month prison term in a community detention facility "in recognition of (his) substantial assistance in this case."

Walter said, however, that he considered Bershad's involvement in the conspiracy to be on par with that of Milberg partners Melvyn Weiss and William Lerach, who are now serving 30-month and 24-month prison terms, respectively.

Bershad told the court on Monday that he took "personal responsibility for what I did."

"It was wrong," he said.

The parties also requested a light sentence for the now-disbarred Schulman, who has health issues and a daughter to care for and has been financially ruined by the case.

"My error was to take the wrong route," Schulman told the judge. "And from that, all else followed. Everything."

In 2007, Bershad became the first of four Milberg partners to plead guilty in their seven-year probe of a wide-ranging kickbacks scheme that helped the firm, now known as Milberg LLP, become one of the top U.S. class-action firms.

Schulman's plea to a racketeering charge came several months later, when he admitted to negotiating secret kickbacks with a paid plaintiff in several Milberg class actions.

Bershad admitted to conspiring to hide the secret kickbacks from judges who presided over the firm's class-action and shareholder lawsuits, and of coaching plaintiffs to lie about the arrangement in sworn statements.