With a February trial date looming, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP has asked a Connecticut state judge's permission to stop representing the former president of a company behind the popular "Josh Cellars" wine brand, claiming unpaid legal bills and an alleged breakdown of the attorney-client relationship require its withdrawal.

According to a motion filed in the Stamford-Norwalk Judicial District on Thursday, Thomas Steffanci is already represented by local counsel from Robinson & Cole LLP and by another attorney, Robert Weiner.

Gibson Dunn said Steffanci hired Weiner in August and told the firm he "would be involved in all material decision-making … going forward."

"Because there is sufficient time for Steffanci to locate replacement lead counsel and transition the representation to that counsel, there is no cognizable prejudice to Steffanci," Gibson Dunn argued.

Judge Sheila A. Ozalis on Thursday allowed current local counsel Gregory Bennici of Robinson & Cole to be excused from signing Gibson Dunn's withdrawal bid. In a motion filed that same day, Bennici said he had no specific knowledge of any issues between Steffanci and Gibson Dunn and did not wish to sign the latter's motion.

Steffanci, the onetime president of Stamford-based alcoholic beverage company W. J. Deutsch & Sons Ltd., filed the lawsuit in March 2020.

Represented at the time by a firm that was until recently known as Hurwitz Sagarin Slossberg & Knuff LLC, Steffanci said he secured a 20% ownership interest in a related entity, DFG Trademarks V LLC, to reward his work while the company acquired the Josh Cellars wine brand.

Steffanci accused DFG Trademark Holdings LLC and DFG Trademarks V of breaching a contract to pay increased royalties of $4 million as the popular Josh Cellars brand's sales increased.

He also accused W. J. Deutsch CEO Peter Deutsch, company Chairman William Deutsch and DFG Trademark Holdings of breach of fiduciary duty for allegedly boxing him out of the $4 million in royalties.

The complaint alleged breaches of contract and fiduciary duty, statutory theft and violations of New York State labor law based on Steffanci's employment in the Empire State. It also sought an accounting and a declaratory judgment.

A Sept. 10, 2020, amended complaint added a retaliation count under New York labor law.

Both sides moved for summary judgment April 14. In a partially redacted memorandum, the W. J. Deutsch-related parties accused Steffanci of misconstruing the distribution process laid out in DFG V's operating agreement.

They said Steffanci's distributions, by design, were offset by bonuses. The defendants also said the ex-president was not misled about how the process worked, as he had alleged.

Steffanci spent years "pursuing this baseless lawsuit … in an effort to extract millions of dollars of royalty payments he is not owed," the W. J. Deutsch entities asserted.

Those "amounts that would be in addition to the many millions of dollars" Steffanci earned as president of W. J. Deutsch & Sons, they added.

Steffanci's employment ended when his contract expired, the defendants said.

DFG Trademark Holdings LLC and W. J. Deutsch & Sons Ltd. filed a separate Stamford-Norwalk Judicial District lawsuit against Steffanci on April 8, 2025, claiming the ex-president revealed confidential information at a November 2024 industry financial symposium. That case has since been removed to Connecticut federal court.

Steffanci also sued DFG Trademark Holdings LLC in a New York State court in early July, claiming his contract wasn't renewed because the companies wanted to avoid paying him a buyout or dividend.

Judge Ozalis in June ordered Gibson Dunn to pay defense counsel at ArentFox Schiff LLP and Ivey Barnum & O'Mara LLC a combined sum of nearly $112,000 in sanctions over an aborted deposition of an expert witness.

Hurwitz Sagarin withdrew from the case in February as the sanctions issue unfolded, saying it played no role in the aborted deposition.

Summary judgment motions filed earlier this year remain outstanding.

A trial was scheduled to begin in early December, but it has since been postponed. Jury selection is now set for Feb. 10, with evidence to be presented starting Feb. 24.

Law360 made requests for comment to both sides, but neither immediately responded Monday.

Steffanci is represented by Zainab Ahmad and C. Terrell Ussing of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP, Gregory J. Bennici of Robinson & Cole LLP, and Robert Weiner.

The W. J. Deutsch entities and individual defendants are represented by Michael F. Dearington, Howard Graff, Bernice K. Leber, Glenn C. Colton, Heather Zimmer, Sabrina Singer and James Pizzo of ArentFox Schiff LLP, and Stephen G. Walko and Andrea C. Sisca of Ivey Barnum & O'Mara LLC.

The Connecticut state court case is Thomas Steffanci v. DFG Trademarks V LLC et al., case number FST-CV20-6045998-S, on the complex litigation docket of the Stamford-Norwalk Judicial District of Connecticut Superior Court.

The federal case is DFG Trademark Holdings LLC et al. v. Steffanci, case number 3:25-cv-00689, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut.

The New York case is Thomas Steffanci v. DFG Trademark Holdings LLC et al., case number 654073/2025, in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, County of New York.