Jacoby Sues Meyers to End Partnership : Lawyers: The suit alleges mismanagement of their law firm, the pioneering chain of low-cost, storefront offices.

Jacoby & Meyers, which used TV ads to spark a revolution in low-cost storefront law firms, is going to court again. But this time there’s a twist--Jacoby is suing Meyers.

A suit filed in Superior Court in Los Angeles this month shows Leonard Jacoby is suing longtime partner Stephen Meyers, seeking dissolution of the partnership.

Jacoby also is suing Gail Koff, a third partner who has a 20% stake in the partnership that during the 1980s grew from one office in California into a nationwide law firm with 150 offices in California, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, New York and New Jersey.

The Arizona and California offices were generally supervised by Jacoby from Los Angeles and the northeastern offices by Meyers and Koff, who live in New York.

The field offices operated as linked neighborhood law offices, providing legal services “to middle-class individuals,” the suit said.

In addition, the partnership opened specialized units containing centralized groups of attorneys with particular practice skills, including personal injury units.

Besides dissolution of the partnership, Jacoby’s suit alleges fraud by Meyers and Koff, breach of oral agreement and infliction of emotional distress. He gave no specific amount for damages he is seeking, but from the suit it appeared they would total more than $14 million.

None of the partners was immediately available for comment.

The suit said the trouble started with the declining economic situation in the United States in the late 1980s.

“In response to these economic forces and other financial setbacks, the partnership was forced to retreat from its expansion plans and to consolidate its offices,” the suit said.

By the middle of last year, the firm had closed most of its field offices and specialty units. It currently operates eight personal injury units and 12 field offices.

The suit says Jacoby offered several alternative organizational structures but “these suggestions were given short shrift by Koff and Meyers.”

It said Koff and Meyers “undertook a deliberate course of action to isolate Jacoby from operation of the partnership.”

They stopped paying rent on the firm’s principal office in Los Angeles, and refused to give him financial information, Jacoby alleges.