It began with one lawyer — the old man of the firm, his hair gone white, but his name still well-known after years of TV commercials — accusing two proteges of stealing the heart of his practice. A personal injury lawyer, personally injured. It ended with the younger lawyers in a crowded courtroom, giving their side of the knotted story. By then they had formed a new firm, with ads of their own, touting themselves as "Aggressive Attorneys."
A little too aggressive, apparently. The jury recently found the two proteges had committed civil theft and hit them with a verdict that could cost them nearly $2-million.
"This case has been a nightmare. Seven years. It's been going on for seven years," one defense attorney said last week, shuffling wearily out of another hearing. "It's an apocalyptic nightmare."
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In business, as in love, breakups can be messy. Colleagues part ways, accuse each other of unfair tactics, go to court. But the breakup between Richard Mulholland and his former associates, Bill Winters and Marc Yonker, rivals the nastiest of divorces.
The case offers a detailed tour of the highly competitive world of personal injury law. It is a world of pinstripe suits and gritty ambition, where lawyers exude politesse in court but can curse like sailors in private, where female employees are still routinely referred to as "girls," and where millions can be made by those who know when to settle and when to take a case to court, otherwise known as "the pit."
Personal injury attorneys come in two varieties — "finders" and "grinders." Finders put their faces on billboards and phone book ads, attracting clients, cases, fees. Then they hire grinders to work the phones, meet with insurance adjusters, juggle hundreds of cases for the chance of catching a big one.
Richard Riggsbee Mulholland, 74, is a classic finder. The Morgan & Morgan of his time, he pioneered the use of legal advertising two decades ago when other attorneys criticized the practice as unseemly. The lifelong Tampa resident had always been a loner who did things his way. At age 9 he shined shoes for a dime a pair, learning about marketing and competition; later he funded his law school education by playing the trumpet in his own orchestra, the Gentlemen of Swing.
He opened a solo personal injury firm in 1960 and, with the help of just one secretary, spent a decade handling every aspect of the car accident, slip and fall, burn and bite cases that came his way. For 15 years, he says, he slept on a bed in his office, while his three children lived with his ex-wife. One week, Mulholland tried three jury cases.
"If I keep this up, I'll never see 40," he realized.