
Apple betrayed by its own law firm - mxfh
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/06/apple-betrayed-by-its-own-law-firm/
======
rayiner
> And how many other big-firm lawyers are entwined with "start-ups" that are
> actually holding companies, created to attack the very corporations they are
> supposed to be defending?

Considering you can't even by stock at a large firm without clearing it, I'm
going to guess: almost nobody.

There is no way mlb knew about the nature of this business. Firms survive on
reputation. Nobody hires a firm with a bad reputation for keeping client
confidences. Why would the other partners risk their income so this guy's wife
could make a buck? It makes no sense, especially considering how much money
there is in representing apple as a repeat customer.

~~~
unreal37
He notified the lead counsel at his employer before and after suing Apple. So
the question is, why did he still work there until recently?

~~~
DannyBee
The article does not say this. It says "He had told Morgan Lewis' general
counsel at the time about the lawsuit"

It doesn't cite a source. The rest around it is in quotes, so it's not clear
if this is the article author's interpretation of what John McAleese's said,
or the article author's personal view. If it's the former, you have to be very
very careful, because they are all lawyers.

The literal wording is "He had told Morgan Lewis' general counsel at the time
about the lawsuit". It does not say "He had told Morgan Lewis' general counsel
at the time of _his involvement_ in the lawsuit".

He could have emailed the general counsel saying "Hey, it looks like apple got
sued again. I bet we'll make some money from them on this!"

etc

------
DanLivesHere
I've only read the linked-to article once, but this doesn't seem nearly as bad
as it sounds (minus the patent trolling aspect).

Here's how I think it happened -- and, for sake of clarity, I worked at a
large-ish law firm, have a bunch of friends who worked in the huge ones, and
even know a partner at the named firm.

1) Lawyer and his wife start (with others) a company. Company invents
something (kind of) and lawyer, being a lawyer, files for a patent.

2) Someone else comes along and creates something kind of/sort of like what
they did. They have a patent so they look at suing the other company.

3) Lawyer works at a law firm which represents the target company. The law
firm has 1,300 lawyers and two dozen offices around the world. He tells his
firm's general counsel about the issue, likely to set up "chinese walls" as to
not run afoul of any ethical obligations. Note that he's kind of stuck
otherwise -- his company is going to be adverse to the law firm's client, and
he's stuck in the middle.

4) When the firm's client hears about this, they freak the eff out and demand
that the attorney in question be fired. He's fired.

------
jacquesm
This guy should be disbarred, he and his wife should end up paying Apple
damages to cover all the costs in all lawsuits that this company was involved
in. Good luck getting any of that to happen.

As for the schadenfreude in this thread: I don't like Apple much, they've done
a lot of bad things in the last couple of years but I see absolutely no reason
to wish any of this on them.

~~~
jonknee
That seems pretty harsh considering the attorney in question didn't work on
anything remotely related to Apple (or even patents). There are 1,300
attorneys at his firm, I'm sure you could find a conflict with nearly any
investment.

Now if he were billing to Apple's account while also running the lawsuits that
he was defending, that would be something worth discussion. Alas, he was not.

------
jacques_chester
My reading is that what appears, on the allegations, to be a breach of
fiduciary duty by various lawyers and firms will give Apple some more space
for tactical manoeuvering. They can use it to delay or restart various aspects
of the case.

But it won't necessarily break the patent in question. Eventually it'll come
to trial.

(IANAL, TINLA)

~~~
invisible
It very well may be that this what you said and to make the McAleeses incur
more litigation costs. Sadly, the only way to fight these "troll patent
companies" (as Jennifer McAleese states) is to wrap the cases up in endless
movements, discovery, witnesses, etc. so that some minor detail comes to light
eventually.

------
chris_wot
Sounds like this lawyer is going to find it hard to find work. Ever again.

~~~
DannyBee
You are confused. He is an environmental litigator. He will wait 5 months, and
then be a partner somewhere else, at worst, on a different coast. No one will
care.

At most, he'll be censured.

But he's from their philadelphia office, so my guess is PA will do nothing.

If he's licensed in Maryland, he may face real problems (Maryland takes this
kind of thing very seriously in a way most states do not).

------
ajtaylor
I predict this is going to be as much fun to watch as the Prenda Law case!

~~~
InternalRun
I certainly hope so...

------
itg
Seems like it was one lawyer, which the firm then kicked out.

~~~
ajtaylor
But more interestingly, it appears that the law firm may have known about the
activities of this lawyer and not done anything about it.

~~~
DannyBee
You have to remember these guys are lawyers, and so they represent what
happened in whatever the best light to them is.

IE when you read "He says he informed the firms general counsel about it", you
may think this means "he emailed the firm's general counsel with details about
a pending lawsuit he had against one of the clients". It may in fact mean "he
texted the general counsel's broken cell phone at 3am while drunk, saying that
he was suing someone that mattered, with half the words misspelled"

This was an environmental litigator. One who should be disbarred for this but
won't be.

------
Steko
tldr of various reactions to the troll looking for partners:

Google: did not answer

Nokia: sounded super interested

~~~
hkmurakami
They say that litigation is often a last ditch effort by companies that know
that they are in trouble in the long run. Google and Nokia's respective
behaviors certainly reflect their current predicaments accurately.

~~~
chris_wot
Or they want to know who they are dealing with, and are reeling them in to
find out more about who might sue _them_ next.

------
ChuckMcM
That is pretty egregious. I wonder if there is going to be a great "cleansing"
and anyone not completely spotless in the big firms will find themselves on
the outs.

Something strange about how long it persisted though. I've worked with one of
the big firms as an expert, Quinn Emmanuel, and they were very very strict
about communications. I presumed this was standard practice.

------
sidcool
Can this act be called unethical? This is bad. Using law for profit is like
pimping.

------
yekko
If only we devs can learn how to do this, we'd actually could become rich.

~~~
smsm42
You're experiencing observation bias. Crime sometimes does pay, but in many
cases it does not, and these cases are usually aren't reported as widely
because they are routine and uninteresting. If you try to abuse your position
for personal profit, you might get rich, but most probable outcome would be
you initially get somewhat rich and then ruin the rest of your life. And you
only have one. Do you think it's worth it?

~~~
yekko
This is not a crime.

~~~
smsm42
It is not (always) a legal crime, but it is a breach of trust comparable to
crime and would have similar consequences.

------
mtgx
This is certainly a bad thing that shouldn't happen to any company, but at the
same time I can't help but think this is some kind of _poetic justice_ Apple
is receiving for all the "patent trolling" they've done over the past few
years with some very bogus claims. Maybe karma is real. When you breed a
certain kind of culture in the industry or in your company, this is what you
get out of it.

~~~
enraged_camel
I find your comment to be incredibly immature, in a very sad way. There are so
many interesting things to discuss about this case, and yet you couldn't find
anything to say other than "haha, I love how they are being given a taste of
their own medicine!!!"

edit: bring on the downvotes. The HN crowd certainly loves brainless
cheerleading.

~~~
jjtheblunt
I second your opinion.

