Suit alleges law firm didn't pay promised bonuses because of free-spending CEO
A Texas lawyer has filed a lawsuit against his former law firm alleging he never got promised bonuses for establishing and managing a mass tort practice.
The July 22 suit by Houston lawyer Robert Schwartz claims Bailey & Galyen never paid him millions of dollars in bonuses he was to receive under his employment contract, Texas Lawyer (sub. req.) reports.
At one point, the law firm president and CEO, Phillip Galyen, told Schwartz that “the overhead ate up all the fees,” the suit says.
“In fact, under information and belief, the reason the fees were being eaten up” was because Galyen had taken out a $20 million loan through the firm to buy “condo vacation homes, a jet plane and other extravagant items,” the suit alleges.
The suit says that Galyen terminated Schwartz’s contract “instead of doing the right thing and purchasing one less condo vacation home or a jet plane in order to pay one of his loyal employees,” according to the Texas Lawyer account.
Galyen did not immediately respond to the ABA Journal’s request for comment.
