Howrey trustee seeks to recover client fees from former partners

The trustee administering the estate of defunct firm Howrey is pursuing 70 law firms that hired former Howrey lawyers. The suit seeks to recover millions of dollars in client fees that those lawyers took with them to their new firms. The firms named in the suit include Winston & Strawn, Baker Botts and Baker Hostetler. “When a lawyer leaves a law firm and goes to successor firm and takes cases and files and business that is unfinished with him or her, and that work is worked on at the new firm ... the departing lawyers have a fiduciary duty to take all the profits from the unfinished business and deliver them back to their old law firm in bankruptcy, Howrey, for the benefit of Howrey’s creditors,” said Allan Diamond, the Houston lawyer representing creditors in the bankruptcy.

Howrey trustee seeks to recover client fees from former partners washingtonpost.com Mon, Jul 23, 2012