Hand Over Client Info, 9th Circuit Tells Ex-Hagens Berman Counsel
Upholding a preliminary injunction issued by a federal court in western Washington state, the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has told two onetime counsel for Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro to hand over information about prospective clients they lined up for their now-former law firm.
Eran Rubinstein and Susan Boltz-Rubinstein, who are married to each other and live in Pennsylvania, lined up clients in Australia for the national plaintiffs firm and then didn’t fully inform Hagens Berman about the representations to which it was potentially committed, District Judge Ricardo Martinez held late last month. The firm hence could be irreparably harmed, he found, if the information isn’t provided, reports the National Law Journal in an article reprinted in New York Lawyer (reg. req.).
On July 31, the 9th Circuit upheld Martinez’s preliminary injunction.
However, the couple, who filed a competing complaint in Pennsylvania that has since been removed to federal court there, contend that the firm breached its $30,000-per-month agreement to have them develop clients.
This is the second federal case brought by a national plaintiffs firm in recent years, the legal publication notes. In the earlier case, Berman DeValerio Pease Tabacco Burt & Pucillo contended that it paid the two attorneys some $234,775 for work that benefited another law firm for which the couple subsequently worked, Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman & Robbins.
The earlier case was apparently settled on undisclosed terms in 2008.
