Akin Gump Wins Dismissal of Suit by Disappointed Recruiter
A New York judge has granted summary judgment to Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld in a suit by a recruiter who claimed he deserved to be paid for referring a Korea specialist to the law firm.
Judge Jane Solomon of Manhattan cited evidence that the law firm hired Korea specialist Chang-Joo Kim because of the efforts of another recruiter, the New York Law Journal reports.
Solomon said the plaintiff, Eric Sivin of Sivin-Tobin Associates, sent Kim’s resume to Stephen Vine, the lawyer who then headed the firm’s New York office, on Dec. 19, 2005. Vine said he didn’t remember the e-mail and wouldn’t have been interested because the firm did not have a Korea practice in its New York office, according to the summary of Solomon’s opinion by the legal publication.
A different recruiter, Boston Executive Search Associates, sent Kim’s resume less than two weeks later to Sukhan Kim, who headed Akin Gump’s Korea practice in Washington, D.C., Solomon said. Sukham Kim soon met with Chang-Joo Kim and asked firm chairman R. Bruce McLean to approve his hiring for Akin Gump’s New York office.
The firm paid the Boston firm a $227,500 fee for placing Kim and one of his colleagues.
Sivin-Tobin’s Eric Sivin told the New York Law Journal that the judge failed to recognize the considerable work he did getting Kim interested in Akin Gump.
