(Photo: shutterstock.com)Mystery Recruiter ID'd in Suit Against Kilpatrick Townsend Partner Pair
"I don't think he wanted people in the legal industry knowing he sued his former clients," said a defense attorney in the breach of contract suit Partners Legal Search filed over a search fee.
December 10, 2019 at 04:50 PM
4 minute read
The original version of this story was published on Texas Lawyer
Partners Legal Search of Houston, owned by veteran Texas recruiter James M. Wilson, has been identified in court documents as the search firm that sued two partners of Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton in Houston this summer over a search fee related to their move to that firm.
In June, a search firm identified as USPLS L.C. sued Houston lawyers Patrick Gaas and Daniel Shank, alleging they breached a yearlong search contract by cutting the recruiter out of a deal that allowed Kilpatrick Townsend to launch a Houston office in 2017. ULPLS was identified in the petition as the "assignee of causes of action" of a professional employment agency.
But in a demand letter USPLC lawyer Ross Spence sent to Kilpatrick Townsend in September 2017, the search firm he represents is identified as Partners Legal Search. The letter is attached as an exhibit to a motion for protection from a subpoena that Kilpatrick Townsend, which is not a defendant, filed last month in the suit.
"You are advised to negotiate a placement fee with Jim Wilson of Partners Legal Search. Absent a negotiated fee, PLS [Partners Legal Search] will be suing for its usual and customary fee based upon the combined first-year salaries and benefits of all members of this practice group you hire," Spence wrote in the letter to Kilpatrick Townsend.
Partners Legal Search's effort to mask its identity with the use of an assignee has ultimately proven unsuccessful, but the tactic is not unexpected considering the sensitivity of the relationship between recruiters and their lawyer clients, even as new lawsuits between recruiters and clients are filed consistently.
"I don't think he [Wilson] wanted people in the legal industry knowing he sued his former clients," said Alistair Dawson, a partner in Beck Redden in Houston who represents Gaas and Shank.
Dawson said his clients maintain they don't owe Wilson a fee.
"They did retain him, Mr. Wilson, to be their exclusive recruiter, and their position is he is the only one they used. He just didn't have anything to do with the Kilpatrick [Townsend] deal," Dawson said.
Providing more details, a demand letter that Spence sent to Gaas and Shank in June 2018 reveals that Partners Legal Search sought damages of $1.2 million—the fee it would have received for the placement—and attorneys fees that had totaled $30,500 by that point.
Wilson could not immediately be reached for comment. Spence, a partner in Snow Spence Green in Houston, also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Partners Legal Search is located in Houston and New York, according to its bare-bones website.
In the past, Wilson worked at Major, Wilson & Africa, but he split with the recruiting firm, now known as Mayor, Lindsey & Africa, in 1995.
In USPLC v. Gaas, the search firm alleged that Gaas and Shank breached a contract they signed in January 2017 by engaging in discussions with Kilpatrick Townsend in September 2017.
The two lawyers led a 13-lawyer group from Coats Rose to Atlanta-based Kilpatrick Townsend, allowing the latter firm to open a Houston office in October 2017.
Kilpatrick Townsend's motion for protection is pending before 129th District Judge Michael Gomez. The suit is set for trial in August 2020.
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Search Firm Sues 2 Kilpatrick Townsend Lawyers, Alleging Unpaid Placement Fee
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