They all quit on the same day — and allegedly took the loan pipeline with them
Lower, LLC is accusing a rival lender of poaching over 30 employees and stealing its customers in a sweeping federal lawsuit.
The Maryland-based mortgage lender filed suit against Atlantic Coast Mortgage, LLC on March 17, 2026, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio. The case, which has not yet reached any final determination, alleges a coordinated campaign by a direct competitor to hollow out Lower's operations and walk away with its business.
According to the filing, twenty-six Lower employees walked out on February 9, 2026, all on the same day, without warning. Every single one allegedly went straight to ACM. They were not just junior staff. The group reportedly included salespeople, loan officers at various levels, loan processors, branch managers, divisional managers, operations managers, and the person at the very top of production — Lower's Chief Production Officer, Nicholas Gallagher.
Lower alleges Gallagher, who was based in Westerville, Ohio, was the driving force behind the exodus. While still on Lower's payroll, the filing claims, he recruited colleagues to join ACM and handed over proprietary company information — including data from Lower's loan pipeline, borrower names and contact details tied to pending applications, and referral partners who had been working with Lower.
The fallout allegedly went beyond personnel. According to the suit, former Lower employees now working for ACM reached out to borrowers using confidential customer information they had access to at Lower. The goal, the filing claims, was to convince those borrowers to pull their in-process loan applications from Lower and move them to ACM.
Lower says most of the employees who left had signed agreements barring them from soliciting the company's staff, customers, or referral sources for at least a year after leaving. Those agreements also covered indirect solicitation — meaning, as the suit frames it, ACM could not do through the employees what the employees themselves were barred from doing. Lower says it notified ACM of these agreements in writing on February 10, the day after the first wave of resignations.
That warning apparently did not stop the bleeding. Five more Lower employees quit on March 4 and joined ACM the same day, bringing the total to thirty-one.
Lower, which operates more than eighty retail branches alongside a digital origination platform, claims that in some cases, entire branches were gutted. The company argues ACM would have had no way to identify and recruit those specific employees without inside help and access to confidential personnel information. The suit also alleges that Gallagher and others funneled active business leads to ACM while still working at Lower.
Lower is seeking injunctive relief, damages, disgorgement of any profits ACM earned from the alleged conduct, and a full accounting. A jury trial has been demanded. No final determination has been made in the case.
