Call her a former employee, nonequity partner or contract worker, it doesn’t matter to Sheila M. Gowan—Diamond McCarthy has no claim to $1.4 million she earned while working on a huge Chapter 11 bankruptcy. That’s what she argued in a recent response to a breach-of-partnership lawsuit that her old law firm filed against her in Harris County state district court.
According to the original petition in Diamond McCarthy v. Gowan, which was filed on July 2, Gowan was a nonequity partner in Diamond McCarthy from April 2008 until February 2013. In December 2008, she was appointed Chapter 11 trustee of the Dreier LLP estate, a law firm that filed for bankruptcy after “its principal was indicted for committing investment fraud using a Ponzi scheme,” according to the petition. [See " Firm Sues Former Partner Over $1.4 Trustee Fee Earned in Drier Bankruptcy," Texas Lawyer, July 14, 2014, page 1.]
