This AP story featured by Findlaw.com, reports that:
NEW YORK (AP) - A jury has awarded a law firm $1.4 million in damages because several of its clients were stolen by a rookie lawyer at another firm. Rosenberg Minc, a personal injury firm, had sued another personal injury firm, Mallilo & Grossman, and one of that firm's lawyers for carrying out the client theft scheme. * * *Posted by Marcia Oddi at May 29, 2004 05:51 PM[Philip Vogt, lawyer for the Rosenberg Minc firm,] said trial evidence showed Pimsler, a 1997 graduate of Touro Law School, called Rosenberg Minc's answering service every weekend between March 1998 and May 1999, pretended to be a partner in the firm and collected messages. Pimsler used the messages to contact Rosenberg Minc's potential clients, meet them and get them to sign retainer agreements for Mallilo & Grossman, Vogt said.
Rosenberg Minc learned that its calls were being intercepted when a client who had spoken to Pimsler called to complain that a car service had not arrived to pick him up. Pimsler was arrested in May 1999 in a sting operation. Vogt said Pimsler denied stealing clients. The defendant claimed he never succeeded at reaching any client except the detective in the sting operation.
Court papers show Pimsler pleaded guilty in Queens Criminal Court on July 30, 1999, to second-degree criminal impersonation and was sentenced by Judge Joseph Grosso to three years probation. Pimsler was disbarred in October 2001.
Vogt said senior lawyers at Mallilo & Grossman should have been suspicious that Pimsler, as a first-year associate, was generating so much business.