Suit Details Falling Out Between Former ‘Cochran Firm’ Partners

A California attorney who helped form a Los Angeles branch of a law firm bearing the name of celebrity lawyer Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. sued his former partners for breach of fiduciary duty in California state court.

It’s the latest in a string of lawsuits revolving around the firm, including a trademark dispute over the firm’s name.

Cochran, who died in 2005, was a California trial lawyer well known for representing celebrity clients such as O.J. Simpson, Sean “Puffy” Combs, Tupac Shakur, and Michael Jackson.

The law firm he co-founded began licensing use of its name to other firms throughout the U.S., with variable degrees of ownership in each local firm on the part of the “national” entity.

Plaintiff Randy H. McMurray co-formed the Cochran Firm Los Angeles LLP to act as a local office of the Cochran Firm LLP in 2007 with defendant Brian T. Dunn. They later brought defendant Joseph M. Barrett on board.

Dunn and Barrett “ousted” McMurray from the partnership, McMurray alleges in the complaint, and breached their fiduciary duty owed to him under their partnership agreement numerous times.

They used confidential information gained from conversations between McMurray and his wife to the McMurrays’ detriment and in violation of professional ethics rules, he alleges.

McMurray also claims that Dunn and Barrett formed an agreement among themselves “with the intent to usurp partnership opportunities to their own personal benefit.” This included the retention of clients from the Cochran Firm Los Angeles, to both his and the firm’s detriment.

Dunn hasn’t paid creditors or made any attempts to pay off partnership debts, the complaint says. Instead, he’s “implemented a plan to divert cases and assets from the Partnership to his own entity, The Cochran Firm California,” and has transferred hundreds of thousands of dollars of case proceeds from The Cochran Firm Los Angeles to this firm, in violation of the terms of partnership agreement, it says.

McMurray also alleges that Dunn harassed and attacked a firm office administrator, used McMurray’s credit card for personal travel, and provided free salary and overtime pay for an employee with whom Dunn had an intimate relationship.

McMurray is asking for punitive and exemplary damages.

The case is McMurray v. Dunn, Cal. Super. Ct., No. 19STCV31861, complaint filed 9/6/19.