Biglaw, Partner Issues

Ex-Biglaw Partner Sues Over 'Destroyed' Reputation Thanks To Overbilling Scandal

For someone who's trying to save his reputation, it sure seems like this fellow isn't familiar with the Streisand effect.

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Overbilling gone wild?

Overbilling gone wild?

It’s been three years since DLA Piper’s billing practices came into question and made big waves thanks to a litigated billing dispute between the Biglaw firm and a former client. Normally, such a pedestrian suit wouldn’t have produced major headlines in the mainstream media, but this case was different — this case involved serious allegations of a “sweeping practice of overbilling,” supported by internal emails from DLA Piper that were peppered with phrases like “[t]hat bill shall know no limits,” and “churn that bill, baby!”

DLA Piper quickly denied that any overbilling had occurred and denounced the emails in question as “an offensive and inexcusable effort at humor.” The lawsuit between DLA Piper and Adam Victor, an energy industry executive who’d been accused of not paying his legal bills, has long since been quietly settled.

It seemed like this issue had been put to bed, but a former DLA Piper partner who was caught in the crosshairs of the email scandal is still feeling the reputational blow that came as a result of his connection to the controversy. Now he’s suing the firm’s outside counsel, whom he blames for letting the damaging emails see the light of day.

Last Friday, Erich Eisenegger filed suit, asserting causes of action for legal malpractice and breach of fiduciary duty against Kramon & Graham. The New York Times piece on the billing scandal that got Eisenegger so hot under the collar quoted an email from him in which he wrote, “I hear we are already 200k over our estimate — that’s Team DLA Piper!” Courthouse News Service has details Eisenegger’s filing (emphasis added):

Though hoping DLA’s outside counsel with Kramon & Graham “would competently represent him” in the Victor fee litigation, Eisenegger says the Baltimore firm’s “handling of the discovery … was marred by a series of costly errors steeped in gross negligence.” …

Eisenegger says the firm’s missteps damaged both DLA’s chance of success in the Victor litigation and the firm’s reputation, according to the complaint.

“Unlike DLA, however, whose size and multi-billion dollar brand was well equipped to continue and thrive after the embarrassing results of the discovery errors, Eisenegger’s singular profession[al] reputation was destroyed,” the complaint continues.

Eisenegger complains that Kramon breached rules of professional conduct in releasing “no less than 246,019 pages of unreviewed, unredacted documents which had not been reviewed for privilege, relevance, confidentiality, or any other basis for justifiably withholding or redacting the document.”

Eisenegger also claims that if Kramon had properly reviewed the documents in the first place, both he and DLA Piper could have avoided being dragged through the mud in the press. Eisenegger further claims that his comment — “I hear we are already 200k over our estimate – that’s Team DLA!” — was taken out of context, and had been meant as a warning. In fact, he says the much-publicized email string was “part of a much more thoughtful and serious discussion amongst associates and a DLA partner about DLA’s billing habits and professional lapses on … [Adam Victor’s original] case.”

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Eisenegger, who’d been working in a new partnership role at McDermott Will & Emery for about a year’s time when news of the email scandal first hit the presses, says that the firm fired him shortly thereafter. The erstwhile DLA and MWE partner claims that he “lost clients, pitch opportunities, the trust of his partners, and was unable to recover emotionally or professionally from his experience with the article and media frenzy.”

For someone who’s trying to save his reputation, it sure seems like this fellow isn’t familiar with the Streisand effect. Eisenegger is representing himself in this case, which should tamp down on the possibility of any possibly incriminating emails being produced during discovery. Best of luck to Eisenegger as he churns his own bills.

Former DLA Partner Slams Email Release as Careless [Courthouse News Service]
Ex-DLA Piper partner caught in ‘churn that bill, baby!’ crossfire sues firm’s counsel [ABA Journal]

Earlier: Overbilling Gone Wild: Paying the (DLA) Piper

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