Did Lowenstein Role in 14-Lawyer Leap Unfairly Ruin Former Firm? Trial Nears
More than nine years after 14 lawyers leaped from a well-known New Jersey partnership to Lowenstein Sandler, a trial is nearing over claims that the 260-attorney firm went too far in soliciting the swift departure that soon destroyed the defectors’ former firm
Although Lowenstein denies that it did anything wrong, the state’s second-largest law firm will soon be in the uncomfortable position of having to make that argument to an Essex County jury, reports the New Jersey Law Journal in a lengthy article about the case. A trial is scheduled to begin in April.
The sudden conflagration of Ravin Sarasohn Cook Baumgarten Fisch & Rosen was sparked when key equity partners who had brought in some $5 million in business the previous year agreed in early February 2000 to leave for Lowenstein, the article recounts. By the end of the month, the Roseland, N.J.-based firm was dying after other partners suddenly made emergency exits, too, and associates and staff were fired.
In a lawsuit against Lowenstein, the Ravin firm contends that its rival violated fair business practices by inducing three key equity partners to leave without providing the 60-day notice required under a partnership agreement, among other allegations. It also claims that the Lowenstein firm used confidential Ravin information, including attorney pay and billing information, when soliciting certain lawyers to jump ship.
Rainmaking partner Kenneth Rosen, who practiced in the Ravin firm’s flagship bankruptcy group, led the exodus and is a co-defendant in the suit against Lowenstein, along with with two other former Ravin equity partners. In earlier arbitration, he did well, obtaining a dismissal and a ruling that he was entitled to $200,000 in severance pay.
But the retired federal judge serving as arbitrator “did, however, reject Rosen’s argument that he should share in the proceeds if Ravin Sarasohn prevails in the case against Lowenstein Sandler and wins damages,” the legal publication notes. “That would not be quite fair, the arbitrator ruled.”
