Will Qualcomm Sue Its Lawyers?
When a federal magistrate sanctioned six lawyers Monday for discovery violations in their representation of Qualcomm Inc., she wrote a footnote that suggested their law firms could face a malpractice suit.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Major referred the lawyers to the State Bar of California for possible discipline and even outlined the ethics rules they may have violated. The lawyers, five from Day Casebeer Madrid & Batchelder and one from Heller Ehrman, at the very least were willfully ignorant of Qualcomm discovery violations, Major said.
She also ordered Qualcomm to pay its opponent’s legal fees of $8.5 million for withholding tens of thousands of e-mails in a patent infringement suit.
The lawyers may have violated rules barring lawyers from suppressing evidence and misleading a judge or a jury, she wrote. She did not impose a monetary fine, though, in part because the firms may end up paying anyway.
“It is possible that Qualcomm will seek contribution from its retained attorneys after it pays Broadcom’s attorneys’ fees and costs and, in light of that significant monetary sanction, an additional fine is unlikely to affect counsel’s future behavior,” Major wrote in the footnote.
But Qualcomm may be reluctant to sue because the lawyers would be allowed to break attorney-client privilege to defend themselves, the Recorder reports today. Indeed a spokesman for one of the sanctioned lawyers, Stanley Young of Heller Ehrman, told the Recorder in an article yesterday that his client was not able to tell his whole story because of attorney-client privilege.
DLA Piper partner William Boggs, who serves as Qualcomm’s corporate counsel, told the Recorder the company has not decided on whether to sue. “The company is continuing to analyze all of its options, including further appeal and potential malpractice actions, and has not made any decision on these matters as yet,” he said.
