The estate of Coudert Brothers has reached a $116,000 settlement with a former associate in its Paris office to resolve a dispute over his 2002 termination. Paul Schmidtberger, who worked in what was called Coudert Freres, in 2003 obtained a 257,825 euro judgment in the Paris Labor Court for unlawful dismissal. After a series of appeals, Schmidtberger’s judgment became final at 138,324 euros.
By then, Coudert Brothers had broken up, having filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in September 2006. Schmidtberger, who has gone on to write fiction, filed a notice of enrollment of the French judgment in state court in Maine, along with an affidavit saying that W. Laurence Craig, a former Coudert partner who is now senior counsel at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, was liable for the judgment and owned property in Maine.
