John Pierce. Photo by Jack Newsham/ALM.

Three name partners at Pierce Bainbridge Beck Price & Hecht and several other partners have jumped ship from the upstart plaintiffs firm since early March, when Law.com reported that managing partner John Pierce was on leave amid firm financing questions.

Maxim Price, David Hecht and Carolynn Beck are leaving or have already left the firm, according to documents and Law.com interviews.

Hecht, an intellectual property litigator in New York, confirmed in an interview he had left and was starting his own firm. He declined further comment. His LinkedIn profile states he now works at Hecht Partners LLP.

Price, who with Hecht led the New York office, and Beck, who was in the firm's Washington, D.C., office, said in emails seen by Law.com that they have resigned from the firm. It's not clear where they are going next. 

The news comes about a month after a Pierce Bainbridge spokeswoman said March 9 that Pierce was on leave, with an investigation finding that he had borrowed money from an unconventional funding source for his own personal use. That lender, Karish Kapital, filed a lien against Pierce and the firm in late February.

Law.com subsequently reported that the firm's lawyer Marc Mukasey sought to withdraw from representing the firm in its bruising fight with Donald Lewis, a former partner who has traded toxic allegations of financial and sexual misconduct with the firm and its lawyers. The firm was also sued by an entity called West Coast Business Capital that said the firm reneged on a high-risk, high-return funding agreement.

It's not only name partners who have left recently. Douglas Curran, who was at one point the firm's U.S. managing partner, and Jonathan Kortmansky have both moved to the bicoastal litigation boutique of BraunHagey & Borden, according to its website. Jonathan Sorkowitz has started his own firm, according to his LinkedIn profile. All three were in New York.

Pierce declined to comment.

The departures and reports of financial trouble have hit the firm at about the same time the coronavirus pandemic threw the legal industry, and the economy at large, into chaos. Pay cuts and work reductions have been reported at firms large and small, though some in the legal industry have said business opportunities may arise from the tumult.

Hecht, in a phone call, said he couldn't share details about his new firm and any partners or other people affiliated with it. New York state records state that Hecht Partners was registered in late March. "There will be a greater announcement that is imminent," he said.

Price and Beck didn't respond to comment requests. The emails in which they said that they had resigned were shown to Law.com by Gus Escamilla, who has been asking for information from the firm related to its representation of his company, Greenway Nutraceuticals. He said he was dissatisfied with Pierce Bainbridge's work on his case.

The firm has also been sued by another high-risk lender, known as a merchant cash advance company. Slate Advance LLC said in a complaint filed in Nassau County Supreme Court on March 17 that it advanced $500,000 to Pierce Bainbridge in November 2019 in exchange for 13% of the firm's receipts every week until it had paid back $749,500.

The firm borrowed a smaller amount in January and defaulted on the deals in February and March, owing more than $230,000, Slate said.