A former accomplice at one in every of actual property’s most well-known legislation companies is accusing the highest litigator of mendacity in regards to the firm’s monetary well being and withholding tens of millions in wages.
Eric Herschmann, who left Kasowitz LLP this 12 months, filed a lawsuit this week in New York State Supreme Courtroom. Within the grievance beforehand reported by Bloomberg Legislation, Herschmann alleges he’s owed tens of millions in unpaid wages resulting from Kasowitz’s mismanagement of the corporate, which brought on income to break down.
Kasowitz allegedly “secretly saddle[d] the agency with large quantities of debt to pay accomplice distributions,” based on the lawsuit. Moreover, Herschmann claims Kasowitz breached his fiduciary duties.
Along with unpaid wages, Herschmann is looking for “an accounting of the agency’s secretive funds.” He didn’t reply to the publication’s request for remark.
In a press release to The Actual Deal, a spokesperson for Kasowitz LLP mentioned the lawsuit was “a false doc crammed with inaccuracies and misstatements of reality.”
“For 30 years, Mr. Herschmann was paid terribly properly for comparatively few billable hours and small quantities of enterprise,” the spokesperson added.
Herschmann was a accomplice on the agency, lengthy referred to as Kasowitz Benson Torres, from 1996 to 2020, when he departed to function a senior adviser in President Donald Trump’s first time period. He beforehand served on Trump’s authorized crew through the president’s first impeachment trial.
After leaving the White Home, Herschmann was lured again to his outdated agency after studying from Kasowitz that the corporate was “financially wholesome and profitable,” based on the lawsuit. He was allegedly promised a job that will drive “roughly $10 million per 12 months in enterprise.”
This 12 months, Herschmann and two different ex-partners at Kasowitz — together with one of many namesakes of the agency’s former moniker — launched Herschmann Benson Bowen. Different departures from Kasowitz’s agency this 12 months embody a pair of companions who left in March and a major litigator who moved on in June.
Kasowitz rebranded in June to take away the names of a pair of former companions.
The agency dates again to 1993 and counts trade heavyweights, together with SL Green, JDS Development, JLL and Associated Corporations, together with characters like former Douglas Elliman chairman Howard Lorber and billionaire developer Ben Ashkenazy.
In 2023, Kasowitz was named Follow Group of the 12 months for Actual Property by Law360.
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