Judge Rules Against Recruiter Seeking Fee from Blank Rome
A recruiter has lost a lawsuit seeking a $730,000 fee from Blank Rome for proposing a merger with Healy & Baillie.
Judge Herman Cahn of Manhattan said an e-mail exchange between Blank Rome and the plaintiff, Mark Bruce International, was not an enforceable contract, the New York Law Journal reports. Blank Rome later merged with the smaller firm with the help of a different recruiter, which got the $730,000 fee sought by Mark Bruce.
The e-mails did not specify a price and were nothing more than an “unenforceable agreement to agree,” Cahn wrote in the opinion (PDF posted by the New York Law Journal).
In another recent case, a judge tossed a suit by a different recruiter seeking a fee from Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld for referring a Korea specialist to the firm. The judge said the firm hired the lawyer because of the efforts of a different recruiter.
