The allegations in a recently filed case in Philadelphia’s Court of Common Pleas are an eyebrow raising, gossipy read that also has lots of potential implications for how Biglaw firms do business.
The plaintiff, personal injury firm Fritz and Bianculli, alleges Biglaw firm Holland & Knight allowed three employees to improperly access their confidential client information. Fritz and Bianculli hired Holland & Knight, but they allege the firm failed to flag a potential conflict involving one of its then-partners, Patrick McCabe. McCabe, who has since left the firm for Polsinelli as part of a mass lateral move, was involved in divorce proceeding with his wife, Kristy McCabe, who was employed at Fritz and Bianculli.
The complaint alleges McCabe accessed the client files of Fritz and Bianculli in order to gain an advantage in his divorce proceeding. It also alleges two others were involved in McCabe’s effort to improperly access information about his wife. As reported by Law.com:
The suit claims that during the divorce proceedings, McCabe accessed Fritz and Bianculli’s client file despite not being assigned to work on its matters and deduced his wife’s password and login information for her work computer, subsequently beginning to monitor and record communications between his wife and her employer.
“McCabe admitted such unlawful and unethical access by providing screenshots he took of the laptop during discovery in the divorce proceedings and certifying under oath that he had obtained this information by illegally accessing the Fritz and Bianculli email server,” the suit alleges, suggesting that McCabe did so in an effort to substantiate his belief that his wife was having an affair with Brian Fritz, a leader at Fritz & Bianculli.
Over the course of the divorce proceeding, Kristy McCabe obtained three restraining orders against her husband. According to the complaint, the second triggered a conflict check at the Biglaw firm.
After McCabe’s wife filed a second temporary restraining order in July 2023, the suit says Holland & Knight flagged the conflict between its representation of Fritz and Bianculli and McCabe, terminating the contract between the two firms and neglecting to inform Fritz and Bianculli of McCabe’s unauthorized file access.
“There was no explanation why the second restraining order triggered a conflict while the first restraining order did not,” the suit alleges. “Holland and Knight intentionally omitted and failed to disclose that Defendant McCabe had routinely been accessing the confidential files at will[,] … failed to take any precautions to protect the confidential files from Defendant McCabe[,] … [and] failed to take any steps or employ any measures to limit which attorneys and/or staff could gain access to the confidential files.”
According to the complaint, Fritz and Bianculli discovered the unauthorized accessing of its files in March of 2024. They’re seeking over $150,000 in damages, fees and costs.
McCabe, through his attorney, Joe Tucker of Tucker Law Group, came out swinging against the allegations, “This case has been brought by a law firm whose owner engaged in a three-year salacious affair with Mr. McCabe’s wife, who is also an employee of Fritz and Bianculli LLC. It has no merit. We believe it has been brought to harass Mr. McCabe further and to leverage the underlying divorce litigation between Mr. McCabe and Ms. McCabe. We look forward to exposing all the facts of the case and the people at Fritz and Bianculli LLC for who they are and what they did.”
Holland & Knight has not commented on the litigation.
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Mastodon @[email protected].