(Reuters) – Marketing and legal advisory firm Baretz + Brunelle LLC on Monday asked a New York federal court to preemptively rule that it did not steal trade secrets from competitor Decipher Investigative Intelligence, which , according to her, threatened legal action.

Bartez + Brunelle’s filing for declaratory judgment says Decipher sent the company a cease and desist letter in March. The company said Decipher claimed that its co-founder Howard Rosenberg brought trade secrets to Baretz + Brunelle that were used to help the company create a tool to assess candidates for legal positions.

The tool Baretz+Brunelle says it was developed provides due diligence to law firms looking to hire competitors’ lawyers. The practice of recruiting among rivals has increased at major law firms amid a greater war for talent in the legal industry.

Decipher launched its own product in 2015 to assess law firm hires it markets to clients, according to the filing.

Neither a Decipher spokesperson nor Michael Ellenhorn, co-founder and CEO of Decipher, immediately responded to requests for comment on Monday.

Baretz + Brunelle announced Monday that it has launched a new talent intelligence and analytics practice with Rosenberg, who joined in February, at the helm.

The company said in its lawsuit that Decipher publicly describes its due diligence practices in hiring attorneys, so any allegations of trade secret infringement should not stand.

“They didn’t want to take this legal action, but when Decipher threatened them with frivolous lawsuits and the possibility of challenging their integrity with their world-class clients, they had no choice,” David Slarskey said. , the lawyer representing Baretz + Brunelle.

Rosenberg left Decipher in 2019 and returned all Decipher-related documents in his possession to the company, according to the complaint. He had a non-compete that expired in September 2021, he said.

The case is Baretz+Brunelle LLC v. KSL Global Market Research LLC, United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, No. 1:22-cv-04202.

For Baretz+Brunelle: David Slarskey and Richard Weingarten of Slarskey

To Decrypt: Not available

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