Powerhouse music lawyer Dina LaPolt is suing a former regulation associate for allegedly disparaging her to purchasers and trade professionals after opening a competing agency.
LaPolt, a frequent Billboard honoree recognized for her illustration of main artists and advocacy for laws together with the Music Modernization Act, filed breach of contract and defamation claims on Dec. 19 towards lawyer Mariah Comer. The lawsuit alleges Comer has “declared battle” since leaving LaPolt Regulation and beginning her personal agency, Comer Tradition.
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“Given Comer’s false statements to trade professionals, her breaches of confidentiality, and the specter of additional false allegations being made public by means of litigation, plaintiffs have been compelled to carry this motion to determine the true info about Comer’s employment, efficiency and resignation,” reads the authorized criticism.
Based on the lawsuit, Comer joined LaPolt Regulation as an intern in 2019 after which full-time after graduating from Cornell Regulation College in 2021. LaPolt says she noticed “uncooked potential” in Comer and took her below her wing as a mentee, rapidly selling the younger lawyer to associate in 2022 and investing closely in her growth.
However LaPolt claims Comer was typically “hostile, bullying and belligerent” with colleagues and purchasers. This habits allegedly escalated in 2024, when LaPolt acquired quite a few complaints about Comer’s habits, and the lawyer needed to be faraway from the workforce of a outstanding recording artist.
Comer additionally supposedly acquired LaPolt Regulation fired from a significant catalog sale deal final June by sending improper direct communications to the unnamed consumer’s musical collaborator, inflicting the agency to lose out on a multimillion-dollar fee. Then, in August, LaPolt says she found that Comer had botched the sync licensing clearances for a canopy that one other unnamed consumer had launched the earlier yr.
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LaPolt says she nonetheless didn’t fireplace Comer after these many points however as an alternative assigned a senior associate to supervise Comer and decreased her bonus compensation within the course of — main Comer to resign in October out of “pleasure, ego and an overblown sense of her personal significance,” the lawsuit alleges.
Comer then struck out on her personal and opened Comer Tradition. Within the course of, LaPolt claims that Comer, a Black girl, has been falsely telling purchasers and different trade professionals that she was subjected to racism at LaPolt Regulation.
“She has attacked Ms. LaPolt exactly the place she knew it might damage most, by fabricating claims of racial discrimination towards a lifelong advocate for variety and equality,” reads the lawsuit, which notes that LaPolt has labored extensively with the Black Music Motion Coalition and is the mom to 2 Black youngsters.
Comer has additionally allegedly threatened to carry a $1.5 million racial discrimination and wrongful termination lawsuit towards LaPolt Regulation. Based on LaPolt, Comer despatched her a draft criticism final month that “disclosed a number of confidential consumer issues” in “blatant disregard” of attorney-client privilege necessities.
Now, LaPolt is suing Comer to implement confidentiality and non-disparagement clauses from her outdated employment contract, in addition to for breach of fiduciary obligation, commerce secret misappropriation, unfair competitors and defamation. LaPolt is in search of monetary damages for the hurt that Comer has supposedly inflicted on her popularity.
A rep for Comer didn’t return a request for touch upon the lawsuit on Friday (Jan. 2).
