Insurance folks tired of hearing about personal injury law firms going after those “greedy insurance companies” might want a ringside seat for this one. Two high-profile Boston-area personal injury law firms are going after each other over allegations of trade secret theft, breach of loyalty, conspiracy, unfair competition and more.
One firm is accusing the other of stealing its business model that has been the key to its nationwide success. The other insists that it didn’t steal anything, and it would never do business the way the accuser does.
In one corner is Sokolove Law, which back in the 1980s was among the first law firms to advertise on television and use a toll-free phone number. The firm has represented thousands of clients all across the country and recovered more than $10 billion over decades. Sokolove now consists of 64 employees and more than 140 co-counsel firms.
“This case is about the wholesale theft of a business model,” Sokolove asserts in his opening salvo filed on August 13. Sokolove maintains that his competitor Jason Stone Injury Lawyers built its recent success “not on innovation or hard work, but on trade secrets and proprietary information” stolen from Sokolove.
In the other corner are Jason Stone Injury Lawyers and Keith Glover, a former Sokolove employee who went to work for Stone in 2017 and who, Sokolove alleges, took with him the “secret sauce” behind Sokolove’s success when he left Sokolove in 2015.
Jason Stone asserts that his business model is nothing like Sokolove’s which Stone argues is more a telemarketing and lead generating firm than a traditional law firm like his. Stone alleges that Sokolove’s lawsuit is part of an unfair campaign Sokolove has been waging against his firm.
Former Employee
Sokolove posits that the so-called scheme was orchestrated by Glover, a former mattress salesman who Sokolove says he trained to become a six-figure legal operations professional. Glover “repaid this trust” by allegedly copying Sokolove’s entire digital operations playbook and delivering it to Stone when he became Stone’s director of operations eight years ago, according to Sokolove’s lawsuit.
Sokolove has built its business to accommodate other firms around the country that seek it as co-counsel to benefit from its marketing, case intake, client service and claim management processes. Sokolove made its name locally in auto accidents and nationally in mesothelioma cases, but its portfolio today also includes many other types of personal injury cases.
Sokolove operates a remote call center with more than 100 agents who are continually trained in new case types such as birth injury, disability denial, firefighting foam, lung cancer, nursing home abuse, dangerous drugs, workplace injury, and other marketing campaigns. For training, Sokolove uses a combination of intake scripts, PowerPoint presentations, quizzes, and links to internal documents. Sokolove has four private, internal-use Google sites to support its business.
Internal Documents
Sokolove alleges that despite having signed employee confidentiality, non-solicitation, and non-competition agreements, Glover copied the case manager website containing documents on internal procedures such as client intake; training for call center employees; corporate presentations; and formulas used to measure performance and organize and report data.
According to Sokolove, Glover also stole branding materials, including document templates used in more than 50 marketing campaigns. Sokolove maintains Glover admitted to taking this information but claimed that the materials were mere “templates” of no value.
Glover’s alleged theft and unlawful use of Sokolove’s confidential information have “diminished the value of the stolen information” and enabled the Stone law firm to “develop and maintain business at the expense of Sokolove,” the lawsuit maintains.
Stone’s Countersuit
Stone has countersued, accusing Sokolove of unfair and deceptive practices and questioning whether Sokolove’s business model and practices meet professional standards.
Stone represents clients who have suffered personal injuries caused by vehicle collisions, nursing home abuse and injuries, and slip-and-fall incidents. Stone claims to employ 13 lawyers around the state. Sokolove, however, contends Stone has grown from approximately 20 people across two offices, to approximately 54 people across six offices since 2017 when Glover joined.
According to Stone, Glover had Sokolove’s permission to access the files on his personal computer when he left Sokolove 10 years ago. Stone also maintains that it has not used any of Sokolove’s trade secrets in in its operations.
Stone further contends that the two firms had a confidentiality agreement in early 2025 under which Stone agreed to show Sokolove how different Stone’s business model is and that Stone was not using any of Sokolove’s information. Stone claims Sokolove used that agreement as a pretext to gain information for his lawsuit against Stone.
Stone maintains that Sokolove has not been able to show any specific trade secret or confidential information Stone has supposedly used but Sokolove has cost Stone business by disparaging the firm to potential clients by claiming Stone operates as Sokolove does.
How Firms Differ
Stone outlines how he thinks the two firms differ in their business models. Unlike Sokolove, Stone says it does not operate a call center or conduct a referral program as a primary focus of the firm.
“Sokolove Law is embroiled in a complex web of telemarketing and marketing companies that focus on drawing in potential clients with representations about its large national practice while, the entire time, planning to refer the leads it generates out to various small firms in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and around the country that otherwise the client could not have been expected to choose,” is how Stone describes Sokolove’s business model.
“As a result, Sokolove Law’s business model depends largely on a telemarketing call center staff, rather than practicing attorneys, who perform this routine bait-and-switch,” Stone claims.
Stone maintains Sokolove has only one lawyer who practices law in Massachusetts and that Sokolove is associated with several entities including Consumer Acquisition Solutions, Digital Strategery and Nursing Home Abuse Center as part of its marketing operations.
Stone also points to how their revenue sources allegedly vary. According to Stone, unlike Sokolove, more than 97% of Stone’s revenue comes from the representation of clients rather than referring them out. Stone generates less than 3% of its revenue from referring clients to other firms. On the other hand, Sokolove generates all or nearly all its revenue from its lead generation efforts, Stone says in the complaint.
According to the suit, there are other ways Stone differs from Sokolove: Stone and its lawyers regularly appear in court and supervise their cases for clients, while Sokolove lawyers rarely do; Stone focuses largely on personal injuries caused by vehicle collisions, nursing home injuries, and slip-and-fall cases—areas where he two compete directly, while Sokolove is known largely for mesothelioma and other mass tort matters; and Stone focuses on local or regional advertising, while Sokolove uses primarily, though not entirely, national advertising.
Unfair Competition
Stone argues that Sokolove’s business model represents unfair competition by misrepresenting the “nature, quality, and source of actual and potential legal services” and that it diverts personal injury clients away from Stone as its most serious competitor in state in the areas where the two firms compete.
Stone alleges that with its presence in the state growing, since early 2025, Sokolove has “engaged in overt threats” about Stone’s marketing practices, disparaging Stone by falsely stating that Stone engages in the same model of telemarketing as Sokolove.
As a result of Sokolove’s alleged unfair competition, Stone claims to have lost millions of dollars in market share that it would not have lost had Sokolove made honest disclosures to potential clients about its business model. “Naturally, potential clients who are adequately informed would not hire a telemarketing firm when they are looking for a lawyer or law firm,” Stone argues.
The firms seek injunctions and damages.
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