Legal News

Dismissed by Failed Firms, Associates (Naturally) File Suit

By Ashby Jones

Their law firms have crumbled and they may not be making a living by practicing law for the time being, but some former associates at Heller Ehrman and Thelen are putting their law degrees to work.

A former Heller associate recently filed a lawsuit in California state court seeking some $42,700 in unpaid vacation time and back wages. The suit, filed in San Francisco, alleges breach of contract, state wage and hour violations and violation of California’s Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act, which requires that employees receive notice 60 days prior to a mass layoff. Here’s the story, from the National Law Journal.

David Simon, who was recruited to Heller Ehrman’s San Francisco office in 2003, said in his lawsuit that the firm’s management sent an e-mail on Sept. 26 informing him of its pending dissolution, and terminated him in mid-October. At that time, he had accrued six weeks of paid vacation time and had anticipated receiving his paychecks for another six weeks. In his suit, Simon is seeking reimbursement for the unpaid vacation and paychecks, plus more than $15,000 in late penalties.

Simon’s follows another suit filed against Heller in federal court in October and two others invoking involving Thelen, each filed last month. (Click here and here for PDFs of those suits, courtesy of the Recorder.)

Thelen has not responded to requests for comment. Said one Heller Ehrman management-committee member to the NLJ: “We’re sorry that some employees have felt that they needed to file a lawsuit, but we’re hopeful that we’ll be able to work these issues out once we’re free of the control of the banks.”

And you know, LB Readers, what that means as well as we do — we’re guessing settlements are ahead, and we’re not reading much about these suits too deep in the new year.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on December 02, 2008 (boomark / email).