Rheingold Firm Seeks TRO Against Ex-Partner, Says He Took 600 Client Files to Napoli Bern
Updated: Hunter Shkolnik wore jeans to his new law office at Napoli Bern Ripka today, expecting to work on putting away his client files.
But at 10:30 a.m. he found out he had a court hearing later in the day in a case filed this morning by the New York personal injury firm at which he formerly was a partner, he tells the ABA Journal.
The litigation, which was filed in Manhattan Supreme Court by Rheingold, Valet, Rheingold & McCartney, sought a restraining order against Shkolnik. It said he took more than 600 client files and other proprietary information, before he exited for the Napoli firm last week, allegedly obtaining the material through the firm’s computer system and by persuading a cleaning woman to open a locked storage area after hours, Bloomberg reports.
By 2 p.m., “the TRO was denied and the judge has specifically said that I have the right to contact my clients and continue to represent them in the future,” Shkolnik tells the ABA Journal. Meanwhile, “in that time I was able to get my two lawyers to court and go out and buy a suit and get it hemmed” prior to the court hearing.
Shkolnik, who was represented by Michael Ross and Clifford Robert, said he did nothing wrong by taking “material dealing specifically with matters that needed my attention in the coming weeks that I needed to have physically with me.”
He will, however, be turning some files over to his now-former firm, and he and Rheingold Valet are expected to resolve financial issues either in arbitration or by continuing with the supreme court case.
However, Bryce Friedman, who is representing the Rheingold firm, tells the ABA Journal that the TRO wasn’t pursued because Shkolnik voluntarily agreed to turn over the files at issue by 3 p.m. tomorrow and that was acceptable to his client. The judge in the case did issue an order, according to Friedman, which basically said the parties are to do what they agreed to in court today.
“Self help when you leave a law firm is not appropriate…and that’s why this went to court,” says Friedman, contending that Shkolnik “literally drove a truck up over the weekend and took a whole bunch of files.”
Updated and rewritten at 7:55 p.m. to include and accord with new information provided by Shkolnik and Friedman.
