The former chief operating officer of Am Law 100 law firm Proskauer Rose misled an IT employee and an eDiscovery consultant in order to override the law firm’s internal security controls and steal confidential information, a complaint filed in the New York federal court at the end of December alleges.
Proskauer claims that Jonathan O’Brien created a “shopping list” of secret and sensitive information that he intended to steal. While Proskauer’s computer and information systems are programmed to prevent the copying of files and data onto removable storage media such as USB drives, the firm alleges that O’Brien took advantage of his senior position and overrode those measures, telling an IT employee that he needed to copy files to a USB drive to provide information to an external consultant.
“The outside consultant had in fact received all requested information via email. The consultant never requested, and never received, a thumb drive from Mr. O’Brien or anyone else at the Firm,” the complaint alleges.
Proskauer claims – claims that are denied – that O’Brien stole proprietary operational reports, models and analyses; software and programming tools developed to create proprietary reports and data matrices; other proprietary know-how; and confidential financial data including the financial performance, profitability and other metrics of each department, practice group and office across the firm.
The theft of information is alleged to have taken place in December, with O’Brien handing in his notice on 20 December.
The complaint further alleges that O’Brien attempted to cover his tracks by deleting emails, claiming:
“Mr. O’Brien’s plot also included an effort to delete massive amounts of his email. For several years, Mr. O’Brien had been subject to a litigation hold, meaning that his emails could not be deleted as they might be evidence in potential litigation. In December 2022, Mr. O’Brien overrode the Firm’s controls to remove his litigation hold. Circumventing the Firm’s General Counsel, who is responsible for instituting and removing litigation holds, Mr. O’Brien directed one of the Firm’s e-Discovery consultants to lift his litigation hold. She complied. When a hold is lifted, all emails older than one year are instantaneously deleted.”
O’Brien is represented by Russell Beck from Beck Reed Riden, who through an external agency provided Legal IT Insider with a statement saying: “As you can imagine, Mr. O’Brien has a very different perspective on the case and is eager to tell his story, which will provide the truth of what actually happened. Out of respect for the process, he hopes to refrain from hashing this out in the press.”