Spurned recruiter sues BigLaw partner who used competitor; was recorded phone call a contract?
A legal recruiting firm in Dallas claims a recorded phone call will show a law firm partner agreed to work with the company exclusively if he pursued an opportunity at Holland & Knight.
The partner, Dean Schaner of Haynes and Boone, used another recruiting firm before jumping to Holland & Knight, according to a lawsuit filed by the spurned recruiter, Cassidy Recruiting. The suit seeks between $200,000 and $1 million in compensatory and punitive damages, costs and interest, report Texas Lawyer (sub. req.) and Bloomberg Big Law Business.
Recruiters typically earn 25 percent of a candidate’s salary for placement with a law firm, and Cassidy Recruiting should have received a fee estimated at $100,000 to $250,000, according to the suit, filed Aug. 12 in Harris County, Texas. The complaint alleges breach of contract, fraud and negligent representation.
Schaner’s lawyer, Carmen Cavazos Pratt, told Texas Lawyer and Bloomberg that the allegations of the suit “are ridiculous, and Mr. Schaner vigorously denies them. We are confident that the suit will be dismissed in short order.”
Texas allows conversations to be recorded with the consent of only one of the parties. Cassidy Recruiting lawyer Nitin Sud played a portion of the November 2015 phone conversation with Schaner for Bloomberg Big Law Business.
On the recording, Sean Cassidy of Cassidy Recruiting doesn’t reveal at the outset the law firm for which he is recruiting. “Since we contacted you about it, I always ask two things Dean,” Cassidy says. “One, I ask that if it’s something you ultimately decide to pursue, I just ask that you work through me on it.”
“Sure, no problem, I understand how it works,” Schaner replies.
“I appreciate that,” Cassidy says. “And, I also ask that you agree to keep this one confidential.”
“Yeah, I will. I won’t mention it to anybody, I promise,” Schaner says.
At that point, Cassidy reveals the law firm is Holland & Knight. The entire phone call is more than six minutes in length, Sud told Bloomberg Big Law Business. He did not play the entire conversation for the publication.
Schaner didn’t respond to follow up phone calls and emails by Cassidy Recruiting, according to the suit. The recruiting firm said it learned in March that Schaner had moved to Holland & Knight, and the placement fee had been paid to a different recruiter.
Schaner told Bloomberg that the portion of the phone call played for the publication was a “misleading partial conversation” and he “never agreed to pursue the opportunity through Cassidy.” He also said he never revealed the Holland & Knight recruitment to anyone.
Schaner tells Bloomberg he told Cassidy that Holland & Knight “was not on my priority list at the time. He only recorded a part of our conversation and it was the only one we ever had. He never spoke to me again and did not submit my name to HK. And I NEVER agreed to hire him as my recruiter and nothing exists in writing to support any alleged agreement.”
Schaner said he got a call from another recruiter about three months after the conversation with Cassidy, and he had been pursuing other firms.
Bloomberg spoke with New York University law professor Samuel Estreicher for his take on the conversation and lawsuit. “Oral agreements can be enforceable, but the question is, is it enough?” he asked.
In Estreicher’s opinion, Cassidy could face problems because the alleged agreement is vague. “The problem is the informality of this whole thing,” said Estreicher. “The wording is unclear.”
