The lawsuit alleged that Glover methodically copied “Sokolove Law’s entire digital operations playbook, the secret sauce behind Sokolove’s nearly 50-year success, and [delivered] it to JSIL and Stone upon joining them as Director of Operations.”
On Tuesday, the Stone firm fired back, filing a complaint alleging that Sokolove Law functions mainly as an “inbound and outbound telemarketing firm that generates leads” as opposed to a traditional law firm.
According to the complaint, Sokolove refers leads to various small firms in Massachusetts and across the country, including firms that have been “subject to public disciplinary proceedings and punishments, including for unethical fee sharing arrangements, and at least one firm subject to whistleblower allegations of massive multimillion-dollar fraudulent claims by a former employee.”
By contrast, Stone operates as a traditional personal injury group with 13 attorneys in offices around the state, its complaint stated.
The two rival firms have “fundamental differences” in their business models, with Stone garnering less than 3 percent of its revenue from referring clients to other firms, while Sokolove receives nearly all its revenue from such referrals, according to the Stone complaint.
But in its complaint, Sokolove said the Stone firm had tripled in size after Glover “handed over” Sokolove’s trade secrets.
Glover’s alleged use of the “stolen materials,” Sokolove said, “sent a digital signal back to Sokolove’s own servers, creating an irrefutable record of over 53,000 individual instances of unauthorized use over just the past two years.”
When confronted about the alleged theft, the “defendants offered no contrition, only denial of the importance of the stolen materials,” the complaint said. “Sokolove therefore brings this action to remedy this profound betrayal and recover what is rightfully theirs.”
Sokolove said its success is due in large part to its “proprietary and confidential systems.” While at the firm, Glover was “repeatedly and extensively exposed to some of Sokolove’s most valuable trade secrets, and other confidential information,” the complaint said.
The prized information includes Sokolove’s “playbook” for its remote call center, which has more than 100 agents, the firm said.
To train the agents, Sokolove said, it uses intake scripts, Power Point training, quizzes, and links to internal documents such as customer relationship management tools.
It also uses four private, internal use Google sites for intake advisors, case managers, operations, and information on asbestos defendants, Sokolove said.
The firm, using bolded italics, alleged in its lawsuit that Glover “copied and stole the [internal Sokolove] Case Managers website in full.”
Sokolove claims an estimated $10.8 million in damages, legal filings show.
Sokolove said it requires employees to sign confidentiality agreements, and Glover’s access to the company’s electronic systems was cut off following his last day of employment, per standard protocol.
He joined Sokolove in late 2009 and worked there for nearly six years, the lawsuit said. He resigned in October 2015, but before doing so allegedly stole Sokolove’s entire Google site for case managers, as well as documents related to the firm’s internal procedures, the lawsuit said. He allegedly downloaded the materials to a USB device that he transferred to the Stone firm, the complaint said.
Sokolove “only recently uncovered Glover’s betrayal” in April, when an employee discovered that Sokolove’s legacy case manager site, which the firm had retired, was still being used.
Sokolove said Glover had used the material he allegedly stole to make a “copycat version” of Sokolove’s intranet Google site, called Cornerstone.
However, Glover “unwittingly planted a digital beacon” on the stolen material, and the beacon “sent a signal back to Sokolove” every time a Stone employee accessed the information, the Sokolove complaint said.
The Stone firm’s growth in recent years is “a direct result” of its “misappropriation” of the proprietary technology, Sokolove alleged.
When confronted this spring, Glover “admitted to stealing these materials” but said they were merely “templates” with no benefit, the complaint said.
In its suit, the Stone firm alleged that Sokolove allowed “the former employee [Glover] access to Google Docs and Google Sites through his personal email address.”
In May, Stone said, it reached a confidentiality agreement with Sokolove so that it could show the rival firm that it “had not been using any [Sokolove] trade secrets.”
The agreement, Stone said, was meant to allow the parties to come to an “informal resolution” of the dispute.
Instead, Stone said, Sokolove used the information it received in that process to file its lawsuit, “without even attempting an informal resolution.”
The Stone complaint also accused Sokolove of false advertising to recruit nursing home abuse clients. Stone said Sokolove operates a website for an entity called the Nusing Home Abuse Center, which has an identical mailing address as Sokolove’s Chestnut Hill location.
The center, Stone said, is “falsely, deceptively, and misleadingly” portrayed as a neutral third event endorsing Sokolove Law’s services for nursing home litigation, when in fact Sokolove “has controlled” the center’s website and content. Additional websites controlled by Sokolove operate in a similar fashion, Stone said.
Essentially, Stone said, “Sokolove Law focuses on luring in potential clients with false, deceptive, and misleading representations about its large nationwide practice and track record, while, the entire time, planning to refer the clients out to various small and local firms in the Commonwealth and elsewhere.”
The Stone firm seeks unspecified financial damages. Trial dates haven’t been set for the suits.
A lawyer for Sokolove Law couldn’t immediately be reached for comment Thursday.
Barry Pollack, an attorney for the Stone firm, said in a statement that “the Jason Stone Injury Lawyers is a law firm that has not functioned, and has absolutely no intention to function, with a nerve center of its business in a telemarketing call center as the Sokolove company seems to suggest. JSIL is a respected and prominent Massachusetts law firm with more than a dozen practicing lawyers who represent clients zealously and diligently inside and outside of courtrooms.”
Travis Andersen can be reached at travis.andersen@globe.com.
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