Associate Wins $180K Over Withheld Origination Fee | The Legal Intelligencer 7/6/17, 10(34 AM

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Associate Wins $180K Over Withheld Origination Fee

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Associate Wins $180K Over Withheld Origination Fee | The Legal Intelligencer 7/6/17, 10(34 AM

Lizzy McLellan, The Legal Intelligencer

July 5, 2017 | 0 Comments

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Associate Wins $180K Over Withheld Origination Fee | The Legal Intelligencer 7/6/17, 10(34 AM

Credit: Ollinka/Shutterstock.com

A jury has awarded $180,000, including punitive damages, to a former associate of Ronald A.
Blumfield P.C., who claimed the firm failed to pay him origination fees promised in his employment
agreement.

A jury awarded Matthew Rong $112,500 in breach of contract damages and $67,500 in punitive
damages for conversion following a five-day trial in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas. Rong,
who left the Blumfield firm for Messa & Associates in 2012, now practices at McDonnell &
Associates in Cherry Hill, New Jersey.

Rong started working for Blumfield in 2010 as an unpaid intern, though he was hired as an
associate several months later. When he joined, the firm agreed to pay him 50 percent of all legal
fees generated from the cases he originated, a plaintiff's pretrial memorandum said.

In July 2011, Dao Qiang Wu and Hai Ying Li retained Rong to represent them in a personal injury
case. Wu had been injured that month when a driver crashed his car into a Burger King restaurant
in Philadelphia, sending Wu through the wall of the building. Wu and Li retained Rong because they
could communicate with him in Mandarin, according to Rong's lawyer, Justin Groen of Messa &
Associates.

When Rong left Blumfield's firm in April 2012, he did not take the case with him. But Wu and Li
chose to keep their case at Blumfield's firm with the understanding that Rong would get half of the
legal fees once the case resolved, the plaintiff's brief said.

The Wu case settled for $750,000 in August 2014, and the legal fees were $225,000. But Rong
learned about the settlement from Wu and Li, not from his former employer. Rong contacted
Blumfield about receiving his origination fee, to no avail, the brief asserted.

According to the plaintiff's memorandum, Blumfield testified that he placed half of the legal fees
from the Wu case into his own 401(k).

Meanwhile, the plaintiff's brief said, Rong took two other clients with him to Messa, and continued
to abide by the fee-sharing agreements with Blumfield for those cases.

Shortly after Rong sued Blumfield, the plaintiff's memo said, Blumfield moved to Florida. He then
filed a motion to remove the case to federal court, but later agreed to have the case remanded to
state court. Rong filed a Dragonetti claim against him for improper use of judicial proceedings, the
plaintiff's memo said.

Blumfield contended that there was no employment agreement with Rong, so Rong could not sue
for breach of contract. In a pretrial brief, Blumfield argued that Rong refused to work on the Wu
case once he left the Blumfield firm, so any obligation to pay him ceased.

"Really, to take advantage of someone in this capacity was pretty atrocious," said Groen, Rong's
attorney. "The community and the jury felt that doing what [Blumfield] did was stealing."

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Associate Wins $180K Over Withheld Origination Fee | The Legal Intelligencer 7/6/17, 10(34 AM

Joshua Byrne of Swartz Campbell, who represented Blumfield, did not return a call seeking
comment.

Lizzy McLellan writes about the Pennsylvania legal community and the business of law at firms of all
sizes. Contact her at lmclellan@alm.com. On Twitter: @LizzyMcLellTLI.

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