Manhattan Supreme Court at 60 Centre Street

Attorneys for ex-Pierce Bainbridge Beck Price & Hecht partner Don Lewis and his former colleagues squared off in a Manhattan courtroom Friday over an effort to dismiss parts of Lewis' suit against the firm and its personnel and to strike scandalous allegations.

While Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Andrea Masley made no immediate ruling from the bench, she expressed frustration at the complaint's length and complexity.

Lewis sued Pierce Bainbridge earlier this year, alleging he was illegally fired from Pierce Bainbridge based on a false sexual assault complaint made by a staffer. The firm has called the assault allegation "credible" and said Lewis was fired for violating the terms of his leave, but Lewis said he was terminated for pushing back on global managing partner John Pierce's misuse of firm money.

Marc Mukasey, who represents Pierce Bainbridge, many of its partners and a firm staffer, told Masley on Friday that Lewis' complaint was more meant to embarrass the defendants than to seek relief. He urged the judge to free most of Pierce Bainbridge's defendants from the case, saying the claims against them were vague and not consistent with how similar suits have been pleaded against other law firms.

"I just don't think that Don Lewis, the plaintiff, needs to have a personal assistant [as a defendant]. He doesn't care if they're in the case or not. What he wants is money from Pierce Bainbridge," Mukasey said. "He has a beef with the firm and with the guy who fired him."

But Lewis' attorney, Neal Brickman, said the other side was mischaracterizing the complaint and its context. Despite its 96 pages, he said the complaint was straightforward and said, despite having had three months to review a draft of it, Pierce Bainbridge never argued that it was too complex or confusing.

"You have to admit, it could have been plainer and more concise," Masley interjected.

"Your honor, you have no disagreement from me," Brickman acknowledged. "It could have been shorter. But none of those reasons justify the relief that the defendants ask."

The oral arguments that took place Friday were the first major courtroom clash between Lewis and his former firm. Each side sued the other in May, with Lewis suing in New York and Pierce Bainbridge filing a suit in Los Angeles that accused him of extortion, and Lewis followed up with a second complaint that accused Pierce Bainbridge and its lawyers of defaming him.

Masley implored the parties to keep the focus on the allegations in Lewis's complaint, rather than on the other litigation.

Brickman, Mukasey and Kate Olivieri, an associate at Mukasey Frenchman & Sklaroff, sparred at length before Masley about whether several of the 20 causes of action found support in the allegations of the suit.

The judge made several comments suggesting she thought Lewis' complaint should have been simpler, saying "it's hard to tell" who is accused of what.

Olivieri told Justice Masley that Lewis had engaged in the kind of "group pleading" that courts frown upon when alleging that his former partners breached their fiduciary duties to him by not protesting his firing. She also said his invocation of Section 349 of New York's General Business Law was misguided, saying that's a law to protect consumers.

She further argued that Lewis' claims against a staffer at the firm were legally insufficient. While Lewis has said the staffer, Lauren Schaefer Green, had an unusual degree of authority at the firm, Olivieri said she was a mere assistant and was "repeatedly dragged through the mud" for no good reason.

"These are personal grievances," she said. "They're not violations of the law."

Brickman said the complaint laid out in "excruciating detail" exactly how the law was broken, however. He said the embarrassing details that the Pierce Bainbridge defendants have sought to strike establish context and motive key to understanding their actions, and despite Mukasey's argument to the contrary, all of it could be confirmed or denied.

Brickman added that Lewis was an equity partner at Pierce Bainbridge, despite the firm's insistence otherwise, and said his partners neglected to honor their obligations to him by looking the other way when Pierce, the firm's managing partner, took steps to remove him from the firm.

"At its core, what this all stems from is Mr. Pierce was looting the coffers of Pierce Bainbridge," Brickman argued. "Mr. Lewis confronted him about it and told him to stop it … As a result of that, Mr. Lewis was illegally expelled from the partnership."

Masley ended the argument by imploring the parties to read her rules and to make a motion if they wanted relief, rather than requesting it orally.