A recent law.com story, “MGA Loses Effort to Stall in Fee Fight with O’Melveny” reports that a Los Angeles Superior Court Judge issued a tentative ruling (pdf) on Friday denying MGA Entertainment Inc.’s effort to stay a lawsuit that was filed by its former lawyers at O’Melveny & Myers.  O’Melveny filed a suit against MGA in July seeking $10.2 million in unpaid attorney fees.  The law firm had represented the toy company on several matters, most notably in a hard fought lawsuit against Mattel, Inc. over the ownership of the Bratz doll line (O’Melveny ultimately was replaced by Skadden Arps Slate Megher & Flom.).  MGA responded to O’Melveny’s suit with a cross-complaint that included several malpractice claims including overbilling.

MGA moved to stay the trial until after its lawsuit against Mattel, which is scheduled to be retried in January, was resolved.  It argued that there is a strong nexus between the upcoming re-trial involving the Bratz doll line and this lawsuit.  O’Melveny opposed the stay, arguing that the case is a straight-forward attorney-client fee dispute that is unlikely to be impacted by the fight between Mattel and MGA.  The court sided with O’Melveny’s reasoning and refused to pause the dispute between the law firm and its former client.  The ruling did issue a protective order requesting by MGA that prevents O’Melveny from disclosing or disseminating any information protected by attorney-client privilege.

O’Melveny is being represented by lawyers at Gibson Dunn & Crutcher and Kinsella Weitzman Iser Kump & Aldisert.

MGA is being represented by William Gwire at San Francisco-based Gwire Law Offices.