BCG Attorney Search’s Barnes Sues Competitor KinneyRecruiting

A key force in the legal recruiting industry is going towards an upstart competitor – in court.

A. Harrison Barnes, owner and founder of this kind of corporations as BCG Attorney Search

and LegalAuthority, is suing Robert E. Kinney of Kinney Recruiting in Texas for anonymously

maligning Barnes and his corporations online. (Full disclosure: Profession Mission, which is

affiliated with these websites, is the proprietor of JDJournal.com.)

Whilst it is widespread for disgruntled ex-staff and unhappy consumers to complain about

firms on websites and chat boards, this is an unusual situation in which an anonymous critic

was discovered to be the proprietor of a competing business.

It is also unusual that Kinney, in accordance to the complaint, went to extraordinary lengths

to avert the aggrieved party from finding his identity. When Barnes sought his identity from

RipOff Report, Kinney even employed a substantial-priced law company to stop RipOff

Report turning more than his identity pursuant to a court purchase Barnes obtained. Kinney

had registered on Ripoff Report as “Albert” and completed a posting on RipOff Report

beneath this fake identify. The case is extraordinary simply because Barnes was ready to

obtain a court order for info that is typically fiercely guarded by the Very first Amendment.

(Kinney is a former employee of BCG Lawyer Search.)

Apart from Kinney, the lawsuit also targets a number of persons, like 1 solo practitioner in

specific. The solo practitioner in query had set up a web site largely devoted to attacking

Barnes. Kinney and the other defendants are accused of employing on the web “rip-off

report” websites and anonymous private blogs to spread incorrect information about Barnes

and his companies.

In accordance to the complaint, the defendants have “gone past expressing their opinions”

and “mounted a vicious smear campaign towards Barnes and his legal recruiting

organizations.”

The complaint also alleges that when Kinney was an worker of BCG Attorney Search in

2004, he devised an unethical kickback scheme, trying to spend an associate underneath the

table at Preston, Gates and Ellis (now K&L Gates) to hire a single of his candidates. Barnes

says that when he found this scheme, he and other BCG Lawyer Search recruiters right

away fired Kinney. The complaint in the action even has an e mail from Kinney the place he

talks about paying out the bribe to an associate at Preston Gates in return for employing a

candidate.

Incredibly, Kinney determined above 4 many years immediately after operating for Barnes

and BCG Attorney Search to start out maligning Barnes and his corporations on the internet.

Kinney even attacks firms of Barnes that were not even in existence at the time Kinney

worked for BCG Attorney Search.

Barnes says the actions of these anonymous online critics have broken each his popularity,

and that of his organizations, foremost to missed company possibilities, misplaced shoppers,

weakened morale, and loss of staff.

The suit, filed this week with the California Superior Court, County of Los Angeles, Northeast

District, seeks $ten million in damages.

Robert Kinney Austin