Former partner Stephen R. Connoni has sued Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge, his former firm. He claims they fired him from his job as a contract (or capital, it’s not clear – see paragraph 6 of the complaint) partner and failed him to pay his full comp.
EAPD has had two layoffs recently: 25 attorneys and 35 staff in March 2009; and 50 staff in November 2008. We don’t update the layoff tracker for individual layoffs (a/k/a the “Deidre Dare Rule”), so we won’t be adding Connoni to the list.
We’ve made the actual complaint available, after the jump.
Faithful cub reporter Solomon Grundy managed to track down Connoni's pleading. According to the complaint, filed in New York Supreme on April 28:
Connoni was an equity partner at K&L Gates practicing corporate and securities law. He claims to have co-led the team that grew the firm’s New York practice from the ground up to a team of 25 generating $14 million in revenues. In the summer of 2007, he had discussions with EAPD and decided to lateral over to start up their practice.
A quick bit of context: K&L Gates had PPP of $800,000 in 2007; EAPD was at $740,000 in 2006 (couldn’t find data for 2007). K&L Gates had the advantage in the prestige ranking, too, coming in at #69 on the Vault 100, EAPD didn’t make the list. So it seems to have been a bit of a strange move at the time, going to lower PPP and less prestige.
Be that as it may, things didn’t work out as planned.
Connoni was supposed to be paid $625,000 for 2008, payable $23,000 per month, with balloon payments in June and January. He was expected to bill $800,000 for his own work and generate $1.9 million. Because he was going to be starting from scratch, there was some wiggle room on the total comp – if he didn’t make his numbers, the firm could “adjust” the amounts “appropriately.”
Connoni claims he got little support from his colleagues, despite his rainmaking efforts. They wouldn’t even share work with him. Connoni did bill the $800,000 – problem is, he only collected $100,000. He claimed his clients were slow payers and tried to do the collections himself, but the firm took the receivables over his objections.
Not surprisingly, EAPD decided the appropriate adjustment was to make the June balloon payment equal to zero. Not only that, they told him in late September that he was fired, effective end of the year. That didn’t stop them from collecting his capital contribution for September and October, though.
EAPD hasn’t responded yet.
Connoni was admitted to the New York bar in 1985 from NYU Law.
Connoni apparently was at a firm called Hertzog, Calamari and Gleason in 1997, according to a 10-K on which he’s the contact for an issuer. He was at K&L Gates by February, 2000, according to this registration statement for PartMiner, which was ultimately pulled, by the way.
[Ed: Not only is Solomon Grundy writing for us now, he's out combing the high schools courts all day looking for dates scoops.]
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