A federal judge has sanctioned New York based Cleary Gottlieb for discovery abuse. You can read the opinion here. Cleary’s bad day should serve as a reminder to all litigators – advising a witness to not testify when he or she has information relevant to a pending lawsuit can land you in a bad place.
Category Archives: Disvovery
S&C Associate’s Destroyed Hard Drive May Destroy His Case
The New York Law Journal reports that former Sullivan & Cromwell asociate Aaron Charnley has apparently destroyed a personal computer hard drive that may have contained information relevant to the litigation between Charnely and the firm. Charnely has been given until February 14th to explain his actions to the Court. One word comes to mind…
Stupidity is Not an Excuse for Discovery Abuse
Many, if not most, lawyers play cutesie when responding to discovery requests, and will readily resort to tortured readings and ridiculous wordplay semantics to avoid turning over harmful (or even not so harmful) material. This is, in my view, shameful and one of the more disgraceful elements of litigation practice. This story, however, about the…
Morgan Stanley in Hot Water Over Emails. Again.
The New York Times reports today that the NASD has filed a complaint against Morgan Stanley, asserting that the bank “routinely fail[ed] to provide e-mail messages to aggrieved customers who had filed arbitration cases against the firm” over a 3 1/2 year period, and that Morgan Stanley further made “false claims that millions of e-mail…