Phil Gregory, formerly of Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy. (Photo: Jason Doiy/ALM)

A former Bingham McCutchen partner has slapped his former lawyers at Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy with a multimillion-dollar professional negligence lawsuit, claiming they mishandled an arbitration where he was seeking millions in unpaid compensation guarantees from his old law firm.

In a complaint filed in San Francisco Superior Court on May 24, lawyers for former Bingham partner Michael DiSanto claims he had a written agreement with the firm that guaranteed him $2.5 million in annual compensation from when he joined in March 2013 through 2015, and at least $1.5 million in 2016, including salary and bonus.

According to the complaint, DiSanto hired the Cotchett firm and Philip Gregory, then a partner at Cotchett, shortly after DiSanto says he was terminated without cause in November 2014. Gregory was hired to pursue claims in arbitration against Bingham for failure to make good on the compensation agreement. DiSanto claims Gregory and the firm negligently mishandled his case and lost counterclaims that resulted in him having to hand over stock units he had been awarded by his prior employer, Maker Studios, where he previously served as general counsel.

DiSanto is seeking at least $3 million dollars for claims of professional negligence and breach of fiduciary duty against Gregory and Cotchett regarding his affirmative claims against Bingham and at least $3.7 million stemming from the loss on the stock counterclaims, according to the complaint.

Neither Gregory, who left Cotchett to start his own firm in February, nor name partner Joseph Cotchett immediately responded to multiple requests for comment on the allegations in the lawsuit.

According to his LinkedIn page, DiSanto is currently the chief administrative and legal officer at Limelight Networks. He also has stints at Dinsmore & Shohl, Reed Smith, Morrison & Foerster, Shearman & Sterling and the firm now known as Cooley on his LinkedIn resume. He was let go from Bingham the same month that roughly 750 lawyers and staffers from the firm were absorbed into Morgan, Lewis & Bockius.

According to the lawsuit, the defendants' work for DiSanto “fell below the standard of care.” DiSanto claims that Cotchett and Gregory failed to pursue discovery or interview potential witnesses that would have been beneficial to his claims against the firm, including other Bingham partners or the firm's head of recruiting who allegedly knew about his guaranteed compensation agreement. DiSanto claims that it was him and not his lawyers who contacted the recruiter he worked with when joining Bingham to get a declaration regarding his deal with the firm.

“Defendants did not allocate sufficient resources to handle plaintiff's matter competently,” Disanto's lawyers wrote. “Gregory did not, and on information and belief, was unable to, allocate a sufficient level of time and attention to be able to before consistently with the standard of care. This problem was exacerbated by defendants' failure to adequately staff plaintiff's case.”

DiSanto claims that the defendants' work product was “shoddy, poorly written, omitted important arguments and evidence” and was often only given to him to review at the last minute. He also said that his lawyer failed to prepare him to testify and didn't object to Bingham's counterclaims on the basis that the parties hadn't attempted to mediate them first as required.

“The failure by defendants to timely and properly assert this objection deprived plaintiff of the opportunity to settle the matter before an interim award was entered against him,” DiSanto's lawyers wrote.

DiSanto claims that the restricted stock units granted to him by Maker Studios rightfully belonged to him, but that the defendants failed to procure discovery and witnesses at his old employer to defend against Bingham's counterclaims.

DiSanto is represented by Asim Bhansali and Kate Lazarus of Kwun Bhansali Lazarus. DiSanto, Bhansali and Lazarus, who left Keker, Van Nest & Peters last month to launch a litigation boutique with colleague Michael Kwun, didn't immediately respond to messages.

Likewise, DiSanto didn't immediately respond to a message left at his office on Friday.