Sonnenschein Partner Pay Policy Examined at Trial
A former partner who claims Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal owes him $8.5 million testified last week that the firm took him off a huge contingency case and didn’t compensate him properly when it resulted in a huge settlement.
The case had sought damages from Libya on behalf of victims killed in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.
Testifying last week in Washington, D.C., superior court, ex-partner Douglas Rosenthal said the firm stopped giving him billable credit on the Libya case in 1998 and took away his authority in 2002 because it wasn’t generating any fees yet, Legal Times reports. Even though Libya signed a settlement agreement in October 2002, his pay for 2003 and 2004 decreased $25,000, Rosenthal said.
Rosenthal’s lawyers contend the case resulted in a $17 million windfall for the firm and that its failure to reward him violated both oral and written agreements.
Rosenthal testified about the oral agreement, saying the managing partner had agreed to pay him for 600 hours he spent on the case at a former firm.
He also testified about details of Sonnenschein’s partner compensation policy. He said the open policy allowed partners to see how much money every other partner was making. Pay was based on billing credit and origination, realization of fees, and billable hours.
One of Rosenthal’s lawyers, Gary Malone, told jurors in opening arguments that Sonnenschein pressured Rosenthal to abandon the case to concentrate on corporate clients.
But a lawyer for Sonnenschein, Michele Roberts, didn’t see it that way. She said the firm gave Rosenthal 129 staff members to help him. “We’re here witnessing Doug Rosenthal’s efforts to squeeze money, his efforts to grab money, from his former law firm,” she said.
