Ex-Law Partner Secreted Assets from Tennis Star Jimmy Connors, Suit Contends
A high-profile client has proven problematic for a small Illinois law firm.
Two former partners are now embroiled in litigation over whether one manipulated the firm’s representation of tennis star Jimmy Connors for his own personal benefit, reports the Madison Record.
In compensation for work performed for him by Brennan Cates and Constance on various matters, Connors agreed to pay the St. Clair law firm 20 percent of the money he received in his Argosy gambling venture. But as Connors was about to deliver 458,333 shares of stock in the company partner Edward Brennan encouraged him to hold off, contends Michael Constance in a suit filed late last month in St. Clair County Circuit Court.
Then, once the firm dissolved in 1997, a decade after it was formed, Brennan, without telling his two law partners, sued Connors for breach of contract and settled with him for a substantial sum, the suit says. It alleges that the money should have gone to the law firm.
Constance is seeking compensatory and punitive damages, including a third of the Connors settlement.
The article doesn’t include any comment from Brennan.
