According to court documents obtained by In Touch, Tom, 42, informed the court on Tuesday, January 7, that he hired an attorney named Colin Hardacre who has a firm in Calabasas, California.
The move comes weeks after Tom split from his lawyer Varand Gourjian, from the law firm Gourjian Law Group. Varand and his partner Tara Karamians had been working on the case for several months.
Tom told the court he would be representing himself in the case after cutting ties with Varand. He also sent a notice to Raquel, 30, and his codefendant and ex-girlfriend, Ariana Madix, of his decision.
Tom had a third lawyer named Matt Geragos working on the case, but they parted ways last year.
As In Touch previously reported, the legal drama started when Raquel sued Tom and Ariana, 39, for invasion of privacy and various other claims. Tom and Ariana were in a long-term relationship when Ariana discovered explicit videos of Raquel on Tom's phone.
Raquel and Tom had been having an affair. Raquel accused Tom of secretly recording sexual FaceTime calls they had. Raquel claims Ariana found the videos and she believed Ariana had shared the tapes with others.
Ariana and Tom denied all allegations of wrongdoing in the case. Ariana's motion to dismiss all claims against her was dismissed. She quickly filed an appeal of the decision. The appeal is pending.
As part of her defense, Ariana claimed that she never shared the explicit videos with anyone. She said she saw them on Tom's phone in a private bathroom stall. "I did not send the videos to anyone else. Nor did I share, display or show the videos to anyone else," Ariana said.
"To be clear, I only saw the video of [Raquel] ... in places secluded from others," Ariana added.
Raquel scoffed at Ariana's claims she did nothing to harm her.
She said, "It is not just that [Ariana] had discovered the recordings and confronted me about their contents. If that were all that happened, [Ariana] would not have been named in this lawsuit. But that is not all that happened."
Raquel added, "[Ariana's] implication that my mental health struggles were brief in duration or minor could not be further from the truth. I was in a state of extreme distress as a result of the events described in the lawsuit, and I entered treatment in an extremely dark and scary place mentally. My symptoms included severe emotional distress, physical manifestations of such distress, anxiety, shock, embarrassment, loss of self-esteem, disgrace, humiliation, powerless, sleeplessness, nightmares and loss of enjoyment of life."
As In Touch previously reported, Vanderpump Rules producers decided to recast the show for season 12, leaving Tom and Ariana without a spot.
In addition, Tom and his friend and VPR costar Tom Schwartz recently announced they were closing their bar Schwartz & Sandy's after two years. "With a heavy heart, we've made the difficult decision to close Schwartz & Sandy's at the end of December," Sandoval said.
"This hasn't been an easy choice for my partners and me, but other priorities and commitments have taken hold. While this business venture has been an incredible stepping stone in my life, one I will always cherish, I look forward to exciting new endeavors."