For a guy who has made millions off Lady Justice, last week Mark S. Gold sure got abused by the chick holding the scales.
Gold made world headlines when he filed an ill-advised lawsuit against a downtown Miami strip joint, claiming it took advantage of his extreme drunkenness by charging him more than $18,000. (Note to aspiring PR professionals: Any lawsuit that hinges on how inebriated you were while watching women take off their clothes is not bound to burnish your image.)
Less noticed by the international press was another lawsuit filed last week, this time by a former business partner claiming Gold bilked the company out of more than $2 million.
Someone get this guy a good lawyer!
Gold, a University of Miami School of Law alum, founded the Ticket Clinic in 1987 and smartly tailored his practice toward booming DUI cases. With his firm's name emblazoned on a yellow road sign, he blasted the airwaves and mailboxes with ads.
He made serious cash off the idea. In 2003, he paid $1.95 million for a five-bedroom waterfront pad on Rivo Alto Island; his law firm now has 17 offices from Dade to Palm Beach. But all of that revenue doesn't necessarily bring good sense — especially at a 24-hour strip club.
In a suit filed April 20 against downtown club Gold Rush, Gold says he was served so many drinks he was "rendered intoxicated" and "had a complete loss of judgment [and] rational thought."
Sounds like a fun night.
Another suit — this one against Gold — followed two days later. Kiss Leads, Inc., an Aventura company that sends clients to attorneys for a fee, says Gold agreed to a business partnership before punking out. (Gold didn't return multiple calls to his office for comment.)
Kiss says Gold agreed to start a partnership on a national directory and that the Ticket Clinic would pay $25 per referred client. Beginning in 2009, the company says, Gold took more than 170,000 calls referred by Kiss and let the company develop a TV ad campaign.
But last October, Kiss says, he walked away, started his own phone referral business, and left the company with $2.46 million in unpaid bills.
Think how many lap dances that could buy.
