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Finally Finishing Unfinished Business?
The law of unfinished business, as applied to cases billed on an hourly basis, has been the subject of much commentary and case law.
In 2014, the New York Court of Appeals definitively ended the debate in New York when it held that dissolved firms did not have any right to the post-dissolution hourly billings for matters left unfinished when a firm dissolved. In re Thelen LLP, 995 N.Y.S.2d 534, 536-37 (2014). In so doing the court held in part: “We hold that pending hourly fee matters are not partnership 'property' or 'unfinished business' within the meaning of New York's Partnership Law. A law firm does not own a client or an engagement, and is only entitled to be paid for services actually rendered.” Id.
California did not definitively address this issue until this month. On March 5, 2018, the Supreme Court of California decided Heller Ehrman LLP v. Davis Wright Tremane LLP, S236208 (March 5, 2018). In Heller Ehrman, the high California court, like the New York Court of Appeals, found that a dissolved law firm did not have a property interest in hourly matters for work performed after dissolution. Id. at 20. The case is worth exploring as it impacts, among other things, lawyer mobility and clients choice of counsel.
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