Diamond McCarthy LLP is suing a former partner, who Diamond McCarthy says unjustly pocketed a $1.4 million fee for her work as Dreier LLP’s bankruptcy trustee, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Sheila Gowan, a former federal prosecutor in New York, began unwinding Ponzi-scheme operator Marc Dreier’s law firm in December 2008 while working as a partner at Diamond McCarthy. She moved to Sadowski Fischer PLLC in February 2013 and took the assignment with her, concluding work on the case in May when Dreier’s creditor-repayment plan went into effect. In a suit filed earlier this month in Texas state court, Diamond McCarthy says that it is entitled to much of the $1.4 million because its partnership agreement requires all fees earned by its lawyers, including as a bankruptcy trustee, to flow back to the firm. The firm says that it brought the suit “with considerable regret and only after potential avenues of compromise reached an impasse.”
