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After 37 Years, Partners Find Breaking Up Is Hard to Do
Gina Passarella
The Legal Intelligencer
A multimillion-dollar dispute among decades-long friends and law partners is being aired out in court as the two sides fight over whether a shareholders agreement provides for payment beyond a retirement fund if one of the partners voluntarily resigns.
Edward F. Chacker and Andrew G. Gay have been law partners in some capacity since 1973, currently practicing personal injury and criminal defense work under the banner Gay Chacker & Mittin. They entered into a formal shareholders agreement in 1992 that has governed their professional relationship ever since.
Gay officially resigned from the firm as of Dec. 31, 2008, but offered to stay on as of counsel. His name appeared on the firm's Web site, as of press time. He has since withdrawn his share from the firm's retirement account, or slightly more than $2 million, according to court documents.
The two and only shareholders are now fighting over whether Gay is due the value of his share of the firm, or $1 million. Chacker argues in court papers the shareholders agreement specifically avoided discussion of retirement or voluntary resignation because the firm had the separate retirement account. Instead, he argues, the agreement governed what would happen if one of the shareholders died, became disabled or was involuntarily terminated by the other shareholder, according to court filings.
The dispute began toward the end of 2008 and into the beginning of 2009 as the two sides wrote tempered, though pointed, letters back and forth arguing their points on the issue. After more than a year without resolution, Gay had his attorney, George Bochetto of Bochetto & Lentz, send Chacker a letter dated Jan. 7, 2010, demanding payment of the $1 million plus interest. He also requested an accounting of referral fees owed to the firm as of Dec. 31, 2008, pointing out that Gay was owed 50 percent of those fees, according to the letter.
Chacker promptly filed a declaratory action in Philad ...
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