Cellino Withheld Nearly $1M From Attorney to Spite Her Boyfriend Barnes, Suit Claims
In another setback for the Cellino & Barnes dissolution, attorney Ellen Sturm claims Ross Cellino has refused to approve a nearly $1 million payment to her.
February 26, 2020 at 06:21 PM
4 minute read
In another complication in the bitter breakup of Cellino & Barnes, an attorney at the firm who is dating partner Stephen Barnes sued his longtime partner Ross Cellino on Tuesday for allegedly failing to pay her $936,000 she was owed for her work on a major case.
Ellen Sturm, a former Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom lawyer who moved to Cellino & Barnes in 2009, said in her complaint that she worked for years on a major case involving a 14-year-old boy who was badly injured by an exploding product. She said it was settled in 2018 on confidential terms that amount to "one of the largest personal injury settlements in U.S. history" and she was owed 8% of the firm's fee under a deal reached back in 2012.
After the case was settled, however, Cellino took the position Sturm had merely "handled the motions and appeals" that was a normal part of her salaried work, the suit claims. She said Cellino's protest was unprecedented and clearly driven by his animus for Barnes and said the firm's records would make clear that she "was involved in every facet of the case, including strategy, research and writing, document review, client contact, retention of experts" and more.
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