Houston labor and employment attorney Dean Schaner, who was sued by a recruiting company over a placement fee after he joined Holland & Knight in 2016, has left the Am Law 100 firm to open his own firm based out of his home in Bellaire, a city that is part of Metropolitan Area.

Schaner said he left Holland & Knight in late November and is temporarily practicing at Weinberg Law Firm in Houston until he opens Schaner Law Firm on Jan. 16, 2018.

Schaner said he decided to make the move to a solo practice he could run out of his home for family reasons. He also said he looks forward to handling employment litigation on both sides of the docket, after having spent 30 years on the defense side. And by practicing at his own firm, he can bill at a lower rate than at a large firm, he said.

Schaner said his departure from Holland & Knight is not linked to the breach of contract suit  Cassidy Recruiting of Dallas filed against him in August 2016, alleging he used another recruiter to make a move to Holland & Knight's Houston's office despite promising to use the plaintiff's services. He denied the allegations and sought a declaratory judgment that no enforceable contract existed between the recruiting firm and him.

On Nov. 6, 2016, 234th District Judge Wesley Ward of Houston signed a joint motion to dismiss the order.

Schaner said he can't talk about the litigation. “All I can say is it was dismissed and that's that,” he said.

Nitin Sud, a solo practitioner in Bellaire who represented Cassidy Recruiting in Cassidy Recruiting v. Schaner, also declined to comment.

Bradley Hancock, executive partner at Holland & Knight's Houston office, did not immediately respond to a request for a comment.