Legal Ethics
Lawyers May Reveal Work Product in Document Dustup
Posted Oct 1, 2007, 05:24 am CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss
Qualcomm’s outside lawyers can reveal work-product information to help explain why the company failed to turn over hundreds of thousands of discovery documents.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Major of San Diego ruled Friday that the lawyers may reveal work product but not information protected by the attorney-client privilege, the Recorder reports. Heller Ehrman and Day Casebeer Madrid & Batchelder will explain themselves in declarations due in court on Wednesday.
Major said she will consider sanctions against the company for failing to waive the privilege if the lawyers are not able to explain the error. The law firms are responding to an order to show cause why they should not be sanctioned for withholding documents in a patent dispute with Broadcom Corp.