Should law firm keep secret an email requesting legal help? Settled case raises issue
Baker Botts recently settled a suit that raises questions about a law firm’s obligations to keep confidential an unsolicited email requesting legal help with a possible whistleblower claim and suggesting the information could help the law firm’s clients.
Kent Langerlan, an environmental investigator for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, settled his suit against Baker Botts in November, report the Houston Chronicle, Law 360 and Texas Lawyer (sub. req.).
Langerlan had claimed he was fired from his job because Baker Botts forwarded his email to the commission, allegedly to curry favor with its corporate clients who are regulated by the commission.
The settlement amount was not disclosed, but Langerlan’s lawyer, Josh Davis of Houston, told Texas Lawyer the amount was more than twice Langerlan’s lost wages for the six months he was out of work after his firing. Baker Botts says the settlement amount was small, and it was “indicative of the merits” of the case.
Langerlan had sent his April 2014 email to an employment lawyer at Baker Botts and asked about legal help for his girlfriend, an enforcement coordinator who had been fired by the environmental commission. Langerlan and the girlfriend both believed she was fired for her tough stance with polluters.
In the email, Langerlan said he had information that would discredit the environmental commission’s enforcement of pollution rules and regulations. He added that the information would help Baker Botts, saying it could “lead you to directly affect clients that Baker Botts represent who have received TCEQ enforcement action,” according to the original complaint.
The suit said Langerlan contacted the lawyer, Shira Yoshor, by typing her email address into his email, rather than clicking on a link online. As a result, he never saw a disclosure statement warning potential clients that unsolicited communications are not privileged.
Yoshor notified Langerlan she would not represent him and blind copied Baker Botts partner Matthew Kuryla, who forwarded the email to the commission, according to an amended complaint.
Baker Botts had contended it had no duty of confidentiality to Langerlan and his girlfriend, and if it did have such a duty, Kuryla was entitled to reveal the email because he believed Langerlan was proposing a criminal conspiracy that could be revealed under the crime-fraud exception to attorney-client privilege.
Baker Botts claimed Langerlan was proposing an “illicit exchange of information” in which Langerlan would give the law firm confidential information to benefit its clients, and the law firm would represent Langerlan’s girlfriend in an employment suit.
Baker Botts gave Texas Lawyer this statement about the settlement: “The lawsuit settled at mediation for a small amount indicative of the merits of the case. Out of respect for the confidentiality of the mediation process we will not provide additional comment.”
