Legal Ethics
Former Client Seeks Punitives, Claims Hogan & Hartson Aided Competitor
Posted Mar 13, 2009, 07:23 pm CST
By Martha Neil
A former client of Hogan & Hartson has sued the law firm for malpractice, claiming that it aided a competitor.
At issue in the dispute is two competing brands of over-the-counter mouthguards used by buyers to prevent their teeth from grinding while they sleep. Prestige Brands Inc. hired Hogan partner Howard Holstein in 2005 to help the company get approval from the U.S. Food & Drug Administration to market its own Doctor's NightGuard without a prescription, reports the National Law Journal.
But then, a month after the Prestige product won approval, the company's general counsel learned from an FDA website that competitor DenTek Oral Care Inc.--also represented by Holstein--had received FDA approval for a similar product, too.
In a complaint filed last month in Washington, D.C., Superior Court, Prestige contends that Hogan & Hartson concealed the conflict of interest, the NLJ recounts. The company also claims the law firm used confidential information gleaned during its representation of Prestige to help speed the DenTek product onto store shelves "substantially earlier than what could otherwise be accomplished."
In addition to the Hogan firm, Holstein and a former Hogan partner, Jeffrey Shapiro, are also named as defendants in the malpractice case, which seeks compensatory and punitive damages and reimbursement of attorney fees paid to Hogan & Hartson. Shapiro now works for Hyman Phelps & McNamara.
The Hogan firm and Holstein declined to comment; Shapiro apparently may not have been contacted by the legal publication. Hogan, which hasn't yet responded to the complaint, has retained partner Mark Foster of Zuckerman Spaeder.
Prestige is represented by partner Marianne Roach Casserly of the Washington, D.C., office of Alston & Bird.