2 Bickering Law Firms Settle Legal Dispute

The prominent Los Angeles law firm of Wyman Bautzer Kuchel & Silbert has settled a two-year legal dispute with former partners who left and took some of the firm’s biggest clients with them. Both sides, however, continued bickering Tuesday about how to characterize the settlement.

The $2.3-million settlement with the 12 former partners--who subsequently formed the law firm of Christensen, White, Miller, Fink & Jacobs--came after a Los Angeles judge ruled last August that the group had “improperly solicited” clients to switch to them even before they left Wyman Bautzer. Some of the clients who switched were Capital Cities/ABC, MGM/UA and Campbell Soup.

Howard L. Weitzman, a managing partner with Wyman Bautzer, said Wyman Bautzer will receive $1.5 million in exchange for the release of all claims against Christensen for alleged defamation and trade libel. The firm will also receive $600,000 for the release of other misconduct claims, such as breach of fiduciary duty and solicitation of clients.

The final $200,000 payment involves the settlement of a legal fee dispute with Columbia National Bank, a former client that switched to the Christensen firm, he said.

“We won totally in the liability phase (of the trial), and we felt it was better to resolve the matter now and get on with our lives,” Weitzman said.

But Barry Fink, a partner with Christensen, insisted that his firm had not paid any money in damages to Wyman Bautzer. “It’s no harm, no foul--nobody gets anything, nobody pays anything,” he said.

Fink said Wyman Bautzer’s insurer, the Chubb Insurance Group, paid out $2.1 million, and Columbia National paid the other $200,000. Fink said he believed that the Chubb payment was made from Wyman Bautzer’s own policy and was not for damages caused by Christensen but for legal fees.

“Howard would like to portray this as some victory for Wyman. As far as I’m concerned, it’s another bit of malarkey,” he said. “It’s pretty much a standoff.”

But Weitzman said the money was paid from Christensen’s policy with Chubb, not Wyman Bautzer’s, and was specifically for release of claims against the former partners. The Chubb group has paid some of Wyman’s legal fees but not all, he said.

“They are bitter people who lost this litigation in a big way. They desperately want to characterize the facts different from what they are,” Weitzman said.