RBC Wealth Management has hired a 23-year Smith Barney veteran to lead the expansion of its branch in Pasadena, California, according to Financial Planning.

Meanwhille, Smith Barney has sued four ex-representatives seeking the return of reps’ client data, a news report said.

In the RBC move, Michael Healy, who joined Smith Barney in 1985 and started a branch office in Pasadena in 1992, made the switch to RBC earlier this month.

RBC’s Pasadena office currently has five financial advisors, including Mr Healy, but is looking to expand in months ahead.

The move comes at a time when a number of senior managers and brokers have been leaving Smith Barney, the business that has been spun off by its parent, Citi, as part of a joint venture with Morgan Stanley, announced a few weeks ago.

Smith Barney, facing a rising number of broker departures from its branches, this month hit four ex-reps and a rival broker-dealer with a lawsuit seeking the return of the reps’ client information, according to Investment News.

Such lawsuits, which seek temporary restraining orders against advisors, were commonplace in the brokerage industry before major wirehouse firms in 2004 reached an agreement that allowed reps and advisors to take a limited amount of client information when switching firms.

Smith Barney was one of the original signers of the agreement, known as the “protocol for recruiting brokers,” which has sharply curtailed the number of such lawsuits against brokers, industry sources say.

The lawsuit comes as Smith Barney is seeing its brokerage force shrink. In the fourth quarter of 2008 alone, the broker’s parent, Citi, lost 970 representatives and advisors from its wealth management groups, of which Smith Barney is the largest.