Those calling the old phone number for the late Johnnie Cochran’s law firm were greeted last week by an attendant saying they had reached the “Cochran Law Group.”

But that firm, only months old, is in fact a newly created competitor to the Cochran Firm that was founded by the famed civil rights attorney known for his defense of O.J. Simpson.

Both practices are run by Cochran’s former partners, who have been locked in an ongoing dispute over money and control in the wake of his death in 2005. The dispute worsened last year, and has since spawned two lawsuits, forced the original Cochran Firm’s nine-attorney L.A. office into receivership and led one partner to change the locks on the office doors in an attempt to keep his antagonists out.

In December, Randy McMurray, the former managing partner of the original Cochran Firm’s L.A. office, launched the Cochran Law Group just blocks away from the old office on Wilshire Boulevard, taking the Cochran Firm’s old phone number, some copying machines and a contract attorney.

That move spurred the latest round of litigation between the former partners, a trademark infringement claim by the Cochran Firm. In a late February ruling, a judge ordered McMurray to drop “Cochran” from his new firm’s name by March 29. He was still using it as of last week and said he might appeal the ruling. He also still plans to play up his past association with Cochran the attorney in his firm’s marketing.

“The public perception of who Johnnie Cochran was and the people who worked with Johnnie Cochran is still very, very high, and until that name is tarnished it still brings in business,” McMurray said. “Some of the things that are being done with the old firm are tarnishing that legacy.”

Brian T. Dunn, who took over as managing partner when McMurray left the Cochran Firm, said McMurray had gone “completely rogue.”

“He’s not doing business with anyone who ever did business with Johnnie. He just essentially sued me and started another law firm in another area of the city,” Dunn said. “The Cochran Firm is alive and well.”

Disagreements

Cochran opened the Law Offices of Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. at Highland Avenue and Wilshire Boulevard near the Miracle Mile in 1981, building a reputation as a flamboyant and passionate civil rights attorney representing victims of police misconduct. In the late 1990s, after his successful defense of Simpson against murder charges made him a national star, he struck a deal with a group of lawyers in Dothan, Ala., to form a national firm that would essentially franchise the Cochran name to practices throughout the country.

Under the direction of the Alabama office, the number of firms operating under the Cochran name has grown to at least 26 across the country, according to the firm’s website, up from more than a dozen in 2005. While the Alabama office oversaw the growth and had operational control of the practice, the L.A. office where Cochran was based retained a degree of autonomy.

But after his death in 2005 from brain cancer, there were disagreements within the local office over what kind of cases to take and how to divide money. It wasn’t long before some of the office’s most prominent attorneys left.

There were also disagreements between the L.A. and Alabama offices.

That came to a head when the national firm opened a criminal defense office in Santa Monica, and came under criticism for taking on sexual molestation and rape cases, which Cochran generally avoided.

McMurray became managing partner of the original Cochran office in 2006. The next year, he restructured ownership of the office by forming a partnership where he had a 67 percent stake and Dunn a 33 percent stake.

The disputes with the national office continued under McMurray, particularly over fees. He said the firm’s national management wanted a share of as much as 20 percent of the local office’s average $5 million in annual revenue after costs and referral fees were taken out, which he did not want to pay.

Breakup

McMurray and Dunn brought in a third partner in 2010, but soon began fighting over control of the office. Each accused the other of attempting to freeze him out. McMurray accused Dunn of blocking his access to email, while McMurray changed the locks to the office doors in February 2012. The national firm managers soured on McMurray and supported Dunn in the dispute.

McMurray left last spring, but not before filing an ugly suit in Los Angeles Superior Court against Dunn, accusing him of breaching their partnership agreement and even paying employees for sex. Dunn, meanwhile, accused McMurray of mismanagement, including using the firm’s money for his wedding expenses. Both have denied the allegations.

The lawsuit prompted the office to be placed into receivership. For more than six months, the two sides continued to share office space while a court-appointed receiver divided the assets.

“It was a complete disaster,” Dunn said. “Nobody got stabbed, but it was not a comfortable situation.”

In December, McMurray moved to offices a few blocks away on Wilshire with assets granted him by the receiver – including some office equipment and the old phone number – and began operating as Cochran Law Group.

It can be difficult for law firms to get their names registered as trademarks, but the Cochran Firm was able to prove its name had meaning just beyond being a surname, said Diane M. Lambillotte, an attorney at Arent Fox LLP who reviewed the February Superior Court order that directed McMurray to drop the Cochran name. She reviewed the case for the Business Journal and is not involved in the dispute.

“I think what makes this case unique is that Johnnie Cochran and his firm are so prominent and were so well-known, and the court mentions that in this order,” she said.

The two sides are still fighting in Superior Court over money from the former partnership.

Both firms claim to be carrying the torch for Cochran, touting their civil rights work, and both are hurling invectives at the other. McMurray, a former president of the Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles, said the Cochran Firm has been too eager to sell off the Cochran name for money. Dunn said McMurray has estranged himself from Cochran’s former business associates.

Meanwhile, Cochran’s personal office at the location near the Miracle Mile remains exactly as it was left the day that he died in 2005, preserved as a kind of memorial. The only object that is changed out is the calendar.

“I think we’ve done a great job of preserving his legacy,” Dunn said. “We have continually won trials, continually gotten good results. We’re taking cases nobody is taking and winning them. We’re representing people who don’t have a voice.”