A Durban attorney has been slapped with a court interdict to immediately return about 300 client files she allegedly stole “in a clandestine manner” from her former employer ahead of her resignation to set up her own law firm.
Storm Moore, who was a senior associate at Eversheds Sutherland KZN, has also been accused of fiddling with the company’s billing system, terminating mandates in her favour in contingency matters where Eversheds had carried costs upfront, and making a misrepresentation to the Road Accident Fund in an attempt to get an award paid to her new company instead of Eversheds.
The urgent application brought by the Umhlanga Ridge-based law firm came before acting judge Murray Pitman on Friday.
While Moore opposed the application and sent legal representatives to court, the interdict was granted by consent.
She is to return the client files and notify all clients who have signed termination of mandates with Eversheds in favour of her firm, Moore and Associates, about this.
She has until early April to oppose the finalisation of the order.
In his affidavit, Eversheds director Donovan Avenant said Moore opened her own legal practice in January. It was only after she left that the firm – and they started receiving termination of mandates from clients – that they discovered she had taken the files.
He said security camera footage from January 3 2020 – the day she resigned – depicted her and her husband removing the files and placing them into boxes and carrying them out of the basement on a trolley after working hours.
“But given the volume of files removed, the probabilities are that she started removing files in the same way prior to this.”
He said it was also discovered that from early December she had been logging into the company’s billing system and had either deleted or altered the records of work done on these clients.
“These records comprise work in progress which is ultimately converted and billed to the client.”
He said a rudimentary reconciliation of the information now available shows that she deleted unbilled fees to the value of about R320,500.
“This conduct is not only unbecoming of a legal practitioner but is unlawful,” he said.
“It was deliberate and calculated.
“She has taken the files for her own monetary benefit, and at the same time has given contingency clients the benefit of a potentially free service from Eversheds by trying to delete all or most evidence of the billable work undertaken on these matters.”
Avenant said the firm was now forensically reconstructing its records and believed it could be owed as much as R500,000 from clients, on top of what it was owed for the contingency matters.
Then came an “alarming revelation”. A contingency matter with the Road Accident Fund was settled in 2019 and the money was to be paid into Eversheds’s account. When an Eversheds staffer followed up with the fund in late February, it emerged that Moore had allegedly unlawfully signed a notice of withdrawal on behalf of Eversheds and a substitution for her own firm.
“This was long after she had left the company. She was clearly not authorised to do so. She deceived the RAF,” Avenant said.
“While our investigation is still incomplete, partly due to the removal of the files and manipulation of the records, there is enough evidence to show there is massive financial prejudice and that she is determined to continue this deceit.”
‘Bullying’
In her affidavit, Moore said she had little time to prepare a full response but would “confine myself to dealing with what is fundamental”.
She said that prior to joining Eversheds she had been employed by Tate, Nolan & Knight and had built up a list of major clients who she took with her to Eversheds.
In terms of a restraint of trade she signed with Eversheds, these clients were excluded.
In response to a request for comment, Moore described the application as “another attempt to continue the bullying I have been subjected to for the better part of 18 months”.
“The last straw was a unilateral change to my remuneration structure in December ... this was at the point my practice was registered.”
She said the clients, who had mandated the upliftment of their files, had all been clients who moved with her to Eversheds, and their mandates “still rest with me”.
The RAF contingency matter was also one of these.
“I have undertaken to assess any fees owed and to pay Eversheds. However, to date I have not received proper accounting of what is still outstanding.”
She said she had never, and would never, act unlawfully or in any way compromise her clients or her reputation.