Mass marketing pioneer Jacoby& Meyers says it has engaged a high-techlaw firm in upstate New York to manageits personal injury practice, but a defectinglawyer in New Jersey says it’s really atakeover that turns a struggling Jacoby &Meyers into a shell.

Gail Koff, the firm’s soleprincipal, said in a telephone interview onThursday that 60-lawyer, five-state,Jacoby & Meyers had forged a “strategicalliance” with Newburgh’s 50-lawyerFinkelstein Levine Gittelsohn & Partners.