ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLANT ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLEES

Bryan H. Babb James R. Fisher

Indianapolis, Indiana Debra H. Miller

Indianapolis, Indiana 

Peter A. Schroeder

Indianapolis, Indiana

ATTORNEYS FOR AMICI CURIAE

PROFESSOR WILLIAM HENDERSON,

INDIANA UNIVERSITY, MAURER SCHOOL 

OF LAW, AND GROUP OF INTERESTED 

LAW FIRMS

Julia Blackwell Gelinas

Maggie L. Smith

Indianapolis, Indiana

______________________________________________________________________________

In the

Indiana Supreme Court _________________________________

No. 29S02-1504-PL-165

COHEN & MALAD, LLP,

Appellant (Plaintiff/Counterclaim 

Defendant below),

 v.

JOHN P. DALY, JR., GOLITKO & DALY, P.C.,

AND GOLITKO LEGAL GROUP, P.C.,

Appellees (Defendants/Counterclaim 

Plaintiffs below). 

_________________________________

Appeal from the Hamilton Superior Court, No. 29D03-1105-PL-6478

The Honorable William J. Hughes, Judge

_________________________________

On Petition To Transfer from the Indiana Court of Appeals, No. 29A02-1308-PL-741

_________________________________

April 8, 2015
Per Curiam.

The law firm Cohen & Malad, LLP (“C & M”), filed a quantum meruit claim for part of 

the contingent fees earned in cases that were handled first by C & M attorneys (including John P. 

Daly, Jr., when employed there as an associate) and later by Daly and his law firm after he left C

& M. The trial court found that C & M attorneys – including Daly while employed there –

worked a substantial number of hours on those cases and that most of those cases generated 

attorney fees. The court nevertheless denied C & M quantum meruit relief because it found Daly 

was not unjustly enriched where: (1) the client in each case at issue chose to continue with Daly 

when he left C & M, (2) C & M and Daly had no agreement about what would happen if they 

parted ways, (3) their employment agreement had no provision for file ownership and lacked a

non-competition covenant, and (4) C & M made a “very shrewd deal” for Daly’s services when 

it employed him on a salary basis, and C & M was “very well compensated” for Daly’s time at C

& M, as shown by the amount of fees Daly helped C & M generate on other cases while he 

worked there. (App. at 32-33.) C & M appealed. Citing the four enumerated findings above, the 

Court of Appeals affirmed, over Judge Crone’s dissent. Cohen & Malad, LLP v. Daly, 17 

N.E.3d 940 (Ind. Ct. App. 2014). We grant transfer. 

Absent agreement otherwise, “a lawyer retained under a contingent fee contract but 

discharged prior to the contingency is entitled to recover the value of services rendered if there is 

a subsequent settlement or award[,]” and in that case, “the fee is to be measured by the 

proportion of the total fee equal to the contribution of the discharged lawyer’s efforts to the 

ultimate result[.]” Galanis v. Lyons & Truitt, 715 N.E.2d 858, 860 (Ind. 1999). The trial court’s 

findings of fact and conclusions of law do not acknowledge Galanis or apply its standards. 

Accordingly, we reverse and remand with instructions to determine, in accordance with Galanis, 

what proportional contributions toward the results in the cases at issue were made by attorneys 

working for C & M, and to enter a corresponding judgment in C & M’s favor. We summarily 

affirm the part of the Court of Appeals opinion addressing whether C & M should have sued its 

former clients to recover attorney fees from them. See Ind. Appellate Rule 58(A)(2). 

 

All Justices concur. 

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