Pierce Bainbridge Beck Price & Hecht and its former partner Donald Lewis have been battling each other for nearly 10 months over the circumstances of Lewis' departure from the firm. And the parties have been locked in court since May, with dueling lawsuits packed with scandalous allegations filed in New York and California.

Now Pierce Bainbridge contends the dispute never belonged in court.

The law firm, in court documents filed Friday in Manhattan Supreme Court, requested that Lewis' allegations be arbitrated based on an agreement that it just discovered. The firm said that it realized only last month that Lewis signed a "worksite employee acknowledgment," or WEA, in the course of his onboarding process that includes an agreement to arbitrate with Pierce Bainbridge.

"The WEA signed by Donald Lewis was kept in his personnel file," Pierce Bainbridge's human resources director Dana Glass said in an affidavit filed on Friday, "but to my knowledge and belief, neither the firm nor its counsel in this action performed a comprehensive review of each of the documents in the personnel file until mid-December 2019 when another firm partner reviewed a copy of his own WEA and noted the arbitration provision contained therein."

The dispute between Pierce Bainbridge and Lewis was publicly aired in May when Lewis sued the firm, several partners and its outside counsel at Putney, Twombly, Hall & Hirson in New York. Lewis claimed he was illegally terminated following a false accusation of sexual assault because he raised questions about global managing partner John Pierce's use of borrowed money.

Pierce Bainbridge then sued Lewis in Los Angeles, claiming extortion and defamation; that case has since been dismissed on jurisdictional grounds.

In the Friday court documents in the New York case, Pierce Bainbridge's lawyers at Mukasey Frenchman & Sklaroff argued Lewis faced no prejudice with the firm invoking the arbitration agreement after several months of litigation. No discovery has taken place, the firm filed its motion to dismiss Lewis' suit on Dec. 9, and the case is only in its "very early stages," the firm argued.

The law firm defendants initially sought dismissal in July, but they filed new motions to toss the case after Lewis filed an amended complaint in October.

As of Monday, Pierce Bainbridge had not filed a motion to compel Lewis' second suit against the firm, filed in June in New York, in which Lewis accused John Pierce, lawyers at Littler Mendelson and others of defamation in connection with their responses to his first suit.

Earlier this month, a woman using a "Jane Doe" pseudonym who claims she is a victim of the alleged sexual assault that led to Lewis' termination requested the court seal the record of the second case, or parts of it, and prevent the use of her name in public documents.

Neal Brickman, who represents Lewis, said in an email that his client would oppose the push for arbitration, partly because, he said, Pierce Bainbridge has already waived its right to arbitrate by suing Lewis over the same set of allegations. Brickman declined to comment on the Jane Doe filing.

Lewis said in an email that Pierce Bainbridge's claim to have just found the arbitration clause is "not credible," as the firm was recently arbitrating with another former partner. He said the firm wants to "cover…up" his allegations and evidence of wrongdoing.

Marc Mukasey, who represents the Pierce Bainbridge defendants, and John Pierce didn't immediately respond to comment requests on Monday.

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