Ex-Partner, 82, Sues High-Profile Divorce Firm, Claims Broken Pact to Support Him
A rift in a high-profile divorce law firm over compensation for an 82-year-old partner has resulted in a $26 million lawsuit.
Norman Sheresky sued his former partners on Friday, claiming they had broken an oral promise to support him financially in the later years of his career, the New York Times reports. Sheresky “left the firm in a huff last month,” the Times says, resulting in a dispute that raises bigger questions about how to handle older partners who are nearing retirement.
The partners’ 16-lawyer law firm, Sheresky Aronson Mayefsky & Sloan, was one of New York’s top divorce firms, handling cases for clients such as Christie Brinkley’s ex-husband, Peter Cook, and an owner of Tavern on the Green, the story says. The partnership dissolved after Sheresky’s exit, but Sheresky was in the dark about it, he says, until the firm sent a letter and he saw his name was dropped on the letterhead. The partnership was reformed and is now named Aronson Mayefsky & Sloan.
Sheresky claims the firm had agreed to pay him $100,000 a year, in addition to his regular profits, to acknowledge his work as a younger man building up the law firm. He also claims a promise to pay his life insurance premiums. It wasn’t until a lunch in 2007, he says, that he was told the $100,000 payments were only intended to last 10 years, and were supposed to be a buyout.
For their part, former partners David Aronson, 61, and Allan Mayefsky, 57, deny any oral promise to continue to support Sheresky, the Times says. Mayefsky says the younger partners did their part, paying Sheresky an equal share even as they became the rainmakers.
Sheresky sees parallels between his dispute with his former partners and those of divorcing couples. “It’s like a lot of relationships,” he told the Times. “We were in love, and somehow they decided they’re not in love anymore.”
