Retired NFL Players Sue Manatt, McKool Over Multimillion-Dollar Legal Win

Herb Adderley, a retired NFL star who played for Vince Lombardi, called the $28 million verdict two Am Law 200 firms won in late 2008 on behalf of retired NFL players a bigger deal than all three Super Bowls Adderley won as a player -- combined.

Flash-forward 18 months. Two separate classes of retired NFL players have sued the two firms, Manatt, Phelps & Phillips and McKool Smith, alleging that they left some retirees out of the settlement and blew the chance for much greater damages, according to a copy of the complaint. The original class action accused the NFL players' union of intentionally excluding retired players from licensing deals, including the ultra-lucrative deal through which the video game maker Electronic Arts purchased the right to use player names and images in its popular John Madden franchise. The union, represented by Dewey & LeBoeuf, denied the allegations, but a sympathetic jury delivered the $28 million verdict, which was to be distributed to about 2,000 retired players. (The two sides eventually settled for just over $26 million.)

Now some of those retired players, including Bernard Parrish, who made the original contact with Manatt partner Ronald Katz, are alleging that Manatt and McKool failed to argue strenuously for damages and missed a chance to introduce incriminating e-mails about the Electronic Arts deal, court records show. Manatt and McKool released a joint statement Friday in which they said they remain "very proud of the jury verdict we won for our clients," and that they "plan to defend ourselves in this case with the same integrity we exhibited in the retired players' case." Lewis LeClair was the lead McKool partner on the underlying case.

The crux of the suit centers on e-mails an Electronic Arts executive sent to other EA employees. In those e-mails, the executive complains that the NFL players' union was inflexible on its policy of keeping retired players out of the vide ...