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A Texas immigration firm owned by lawyers Andrew Thomas and Eric Price is demanding more than $1 million in damages from former lawyer Aaron Christensen, alleging he resigned on April 27 without notice or explanation and solicited the firm's clients for his own competing firm.

Related firms Thomas Price PLLC and Andrew T. Thomas PLLC allege in a petition filed on Tuesday in state district court in Houston that Christensen took client information with him when he left the firm and used it for his personal gain.

The firm is known as Thomas Price PLLC in Dallas and Andrew T. Thomas PLLC in Houston.

Judge Kristen Hawkins of the 11th District in Harris County signed a temporary restraining order on Tuesday to prevent Christensen or his new firm from using client information taken from his old firm, interfering with client contracts, destroying any client information related to any client solicitation, or using any trade secrets from his former firm.

Christensen broadly denied the allegations in an answer filed on Tuesday, and he filed a defamation counterclaim seeking $500,000 for a posting about him on his former firm's Facebook account, which alleged he had acted in a dishonest and malicious way.

In an interview on Thursday, Christensen said his only communication with clients from his former firm was to notify them that he had opened his own firm on May 4. To date, he said, he has not signed up any clients from his former firm, nor accepted payment from any of them.

But Dale Jefferson, who represents the plaintiffs, said in an interview on Thursday that the suit isn't an effort to stop Christensen from forming his own firm, but a response to him seeking to "shortcut" the work of building a client base.

"At a time where people are in perhaps the most critical crossroads of their life, trying to garner American citizenship, lawyers are supposed to be there to help them, not to figure out a way to exploit an employment arrangement for their own financial gain," said Jefferson, a partner at Martin, Disiere, Jefferson & Wisdom in Houston.

The petition alleges that after Christensen resigned he left behind a business plan, which, the plaintiffs assert, demonstrates that he had been planning his competing firm while on the job. It also alleges he downloaded information from the firm's client database, including phone numbers, email information and "likely" their home addresses, and that he had access to clients' immigration status and credit card data.

"Unfortunately, Christensen used the wrongfully misappropriated data to contact the firm's clients in an effort to get them to breach their ongoing business relationship and payment plans with the firm and instead wrongfully divert that business for his personal financial gain," the petition alleges.

Due to Christensen's "deceitful and dishonest behavior," the firm has fielded calls from clients asking why Christensen instructed them to not make payments to the firm because he is their attorney, according to the petition.

The immigration firm brings tortious interference with contract and business relations and breach of fiduciary duty causes of action against Christensen, who started work at the firm in 2016, and alleges he violated the Texas Uniform Trade Secrets Act.