Now Comes the Judge: Sidley Partner Hit for Sarcasm and Missing Mantra
Warning to Chicago lawyers: Judge Diane Gordon Cannon of the Cook County Circuit Court does not like sarcasm in your briefs. And if you represent the petitioner, your brief should begin with the mantra, “now comes petitioner.”
Sidley Austin partner Richard O’Brien and associate Linda Friedlieb learned that lesson the hard way, when Cannon said their Oct. 5 brief on behalf of Northwestern University journalism students was “dripping with sarcasm” and “reprehensible,” the National Law Journal reports.
The Chicago Sun-Times also noted the judge’s ire. “If you think you can come into a court of law and treat it as an editorial, a sandbox or a bar, you’re wrong,” Cannon said.
The journalism students uncovered evidence that could exonerate convicted murderer Anthony McKinney, but prosecutors claim one of the students paid a witness who said McKinney wasn’t at the crime scene. The payment was in the form of $60 given to a cabdriver, who gave $40 in change to the witness; the student contends there was not supposed to be a refund.
Prosecutors are now seeking the students’ video footage, notes and even grades related to their investigation. O’Brien and Friedlieb have filed a motion to quash the subpoena based on an Illinois reporters privilege law.
Before prosecutors arrived at the hearing, Cannon, a former prosecutor, demanded to know who wrote the Sidley brief and asserted that no attorney name was on it, an apparent error since the lawyer names were on the last page, according to the National Law Journal account. She said the brief was an editorial not fit for court. An imprisoned pro se litigant had written a more appropriate brief, submitted to the court earlier that day, Cannon said.
After the hearing, O’Brien said, “We stand by our advocacy,” and said the brief (PDF) was similar to thousands he has filed in his 30-year career, according to the NLJ account. He took a more apologetic tack at a later press conference.
“I’m very sorry. I apologized to the judge,” O’Brien said. “I’m sure I can work with Judge Cannon.”
Additional coverage:
Above the Law: “The Sidley Brief in the McKinney Matter: Did It Cross the Line?”
