A U.S. magistrate in Texas is urging the lawyers in a legal recruitment lawsuit to start focusing more on the facts of the dispute than dwelling on matters of process, as he suggested that a recent dustup over subpoenas issued to law firms was wasting “a lot of time and money.”

The judge, Andrew Austin, expressed frustration about what he called “game playing” in the case, which involves a Texas recruiter’s trade secret claims against a former employee named Evan Jowers. Austin, of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, on Friday denied Jowers’ move to stop his former employer, MWK Recruiting Inc., from sending additional third-party subpoenas to other law firms.