Legal News

Cohen Milstein Law Firm Reunited. Sort of. Does it Feel So Good?

By Nathan Koppel

There’s a new wrinkle in the civil war that surfaced last month at the Cohen Milstein law firm in D.C., which had been one of the more prominent plantiffs’ firms in the country.

To recap, Michael Hausfeld, who had headed the firm’s antitrust group, sent an email to firm colleagues announcing that he had been “expelled” from the firm, in an “abrupt and unceremonious fashion.”

Here’s a Law Blog interview with Hausfeld, who started his own firm, Hausfeld LLP, with a group of lawyers from his old shop.

Last week, Philadelphia federal judge Paul Diamond intervened in the fracas, according to this report by the Legal Intelligencer.

The judge is presiding over an antitrust suit that has so far yielded $120 million in settlement. Problem is that Hausfeld wants his new firm to serve as a lead counsel while Cohen Milstein has told the judge that its lawyers have done most of the work. (A point that Hausfeld LLP contests.)

Cohen Milstein filed a motion earlier this month, according to the Intelligencer, asserting that it “remains more than qualified to continue its role as co-lead counsel” and that further that Hausfeld’s new firm “has no offices of its own and was working from temporary space.” Nasty.

Get along, the judge essentially told the firms in an order last week. “There are lawyers at both Cohen Milstein and Hausfeld LLP who have considerable experience and expertise in this matter,” the judge wrote, concluding that that both firms should serve as co-lead counsel.

We at the Law Blog are suckers for a happy ending.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on December 03, 2008 (boomark / email).