News Summary
Both sides were claiming victory Monday after a judge's ruling in the epic legal battle between a defunct Santa Monica litigation boutique and one of the state's largest law firms.
Seven years after Debra Pole and William Fitzgerald decamped to San Francisco's Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison, leaving Dickson, Carlson & Campillo in financial ruins, the fight continues over how to split the profits generated from client Baxter Healthcare Corp.
Late Friday, Superior Court Judge Cesar Sarmiento of Malibu laid out in a written ruling how he believes the profits from the Baxter litigation should be divided between the two firms.
Paul D. Murphy, lawyer for the former Dickson Carlson, said Monday, "I can't give you a hard and fast dollar figure, although we believe it will be somewhere between $10 and $15 million that we are owed."
Keker & Van Nest partner Elliott Peters, lawyer for Brobeck Phleger and for Pole and Fitzgerald, scoffed at Murphy's $20 million figure.
"When the dust settles, the plaintiffs are going to owe us between half-a-million and a million dollars or [it will be] a walkaway," Peters said.
Dickson Carlson had sought $26 million in the accounting case. Campillo v. Pole, SC039264 (L.A. Super. Ct. filed Nov. 9, 1995).
Both sides said Sarmiento will have to set up a mechanism to decipher the final tally. The judge could hold a hearing himself or appoint a special master, the lawyers said.
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