Samsung attorney argued in court without proper license to practice
According to the case's official minutes, Estrich, a law professor at the University of Southern California and Fox News commentator, was part of Tuesday's hearing regarding evidence spoliation despite lacking a notice of appearance and more importantly not being admitted to the Northern District of California bar.
Presiding Judge Lucy Koh, in a previous order, said "ALL TRIAL LAWYERS must make appearances in this case and must be admitted in this District" (emphasis in order). While Estrich said she presented the so-called "me too" motion in good faith, the Court may still decide to sanction Samsung for the oversight.
Judge Paul Grewal first questioned the attorney on the matter, with Estrich subsequently confessing the court records were correct and takes full blame, saying that she thought she had already been admitted to the district since 1986. In actuality, Estrich is only licensed to practice in the Central District of California, notes Florian Mueller of FOSS Patents, which generally comprises the greater Los Angeles area. To remedy the situation, the attorney "immediately applied for and [has] been admitted to practice before the District Court of the Northern District of California."
In her statement, Estrich wants "the Court not [to] hold these inadvertent omissions on [her] part against the merits of [her] client's case."
As far as her appearance on Tuesday is concerned, Estrich said her current law firm Quinn Emanuel asked her to argue the evidence spoliation claims on Saturday due to increased pressure on the team's other members. The adverse inference jury instruction claims Samsung is being held to evidence spoliation standards over the company's automatic e-mail deletion protocols, a system it argues is similar to e-mail deletion steps taken by Apple.
Susan Estrich's notice of appearance on Thursday. | Source: Apple v. Samsung court documents
Samsung has been criticized for certain missteps including a recent "leak" of excluded trial documents to the press. John Quinn, the party's lead counsel, claimed the dissemination of the sensitive material was both legal and ethical.
105 Comments
I couldn't help but chuckle a little bit. If Samsung wins this case, I'll be very surprised. Not much going right so far...
Could this potentially be grounds for a mistrial or make appeals easier for Samsung since their lawyer breached the law?
Sounds like Samsung has the 3 Stooges for attorneys. Just end the trial now and give Apple what they want.
This is like the Marx Brothers representing the Three Stooges... I mean, Mongolians would call this a 'California Cluster F**k'
"Honest officer, I thought I had a license to drive this car here, I'll just go get one."
One rule for the average Joe, why should there be another one for lawyers?