Depp settles suit with former attorney

Actor Johnny Depp has settled a lawsuit with his former attorney Jake Bloom, according to documents filed Thursday at Los Angeles County Superior Court.

The "Pirates of the Caribbean" star sued Bloom, the founding partner of Bloom Hergott Diemer Rosenthal LLP, in 2017 for allegedly defrauding him out of approximately $30 million dollars through an informal contract commonly known as "a handshake deal."

Bloom argued in a reply to Depp's complaint filed last year his oral pact with Depp was enforceable because it wasn't a contingency agreement, in which lawyers work on particular assignments based on tailored assessment claims. Instead, Bloom Hergott provided "a wide array of entertainment related services" on a non-contingent basis, making a written agreement unnecessary, Bloom said.

But the firm's standing in the case took a serious blow in August 2018, when Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Terry A. Green ruled in Depp's favor on a motion for judgment declaring the handshake deal unenforceable. While attorneys at the time of the ruling speculated it might bring about the end of such informal agreements in Hollywood, the practice is still common.

Green said Bloom's argument failed because of California Business and Professions Code 6147, requiring attorneys on contingency to provide a duplicate copy of the contract signed by representatives for both parties detailing rates and costs, among other things.

Neither Bryan J. Freedman of Freedman + Taitelman LLP nor Benjamin G. Chew of Brown Rudnick LLP, respectively counsel to Bloom Hergott and Depp, responded to requests for comment.

-- Steven Crighton