Nonequity Parter Liable for $84K in Receivables After Firm Dissolves
An appeals court in New Jersey has affirmed an $84,850 verdict against a lawyer who claimed his status as a contract partner meant he didn’t have a fiduciary duty to his firm when it dissolved.
John Pribish was at Friedman Siegelbaum for just seven months when the firm shut down in 2000, following the departures of Marc Friedman and Joseph Siegelbaum, who took their lucrative technology practice to Goodwin Procter, the New Jersey Law Journal reports.
The publication reports that Pribish was sued over fees owed to the firm by clients he brought in and continued to represent after the dissolution.
Pribish was obligated to help the firm wind up its affairs by collecting receivables, but he breached that duty when he accepted money on his own behalf or that of another lawyer without telling Friedman Siegelbaum or trying to secure the amounts owed to the firm, said the three-judge panel determined.
