Legal News

The McAfee Discovery Mess: Pity the Contract Lawyer

By Dan Slater

In the highly-stratified world of BigLaw, not too many envy the contract attorney — that paid-by-the-hour document reviewer who often goes without health benefits, windowed offices or invites to firm cocktail parties.

This morning, after reading the Recorder’s second-day story on the McAfee disclosure gaffe, we can’t help but pity the poor contract lawyer. As Dan Levine reports, two critical e-mails in the stock option case against former McAfee GC Kent Roberts weren’t turned over because contract lawyers at Howrey had marked them “not relevant.”

Robert Gooding Jr., the Howrey partner who headed the firm’s internal investigation into backdating at McAfee, told U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel that the contract lawyers’ work was supposed to be reviewed by more senior lawyers, but in this case, the problem wasn’t spotted.

On Wednesday, Judge Patel had said “heads will have to roll” over the disclosure gaffe. But yesterday, according to the Recorder, she merely ordered Howrey to supply declarations detailing how the computer discover system worked, putting off inquiries about the lawyers’ identities. “OK, nobody’s head rolled,” Patel said.

Gooding said he was sorry. “In a document production this size, these things do happen,” he said, adding that the error was “not deliberate in any way, shape or form.”

But the Cooley Godward defense lawyers, who filed a motion to dismiss shortly after the hearing, were incredulous. “It is fanciful for [Howrey] to get up and say it is inadvertent,” Cooley partner Stephen Neal said in court. “This is one of the most irresponsible searches in history.”

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on September 19, 2008 (boomark / email).