Copyright Law

Practice tip: Additional thought on settlement strategy... ask for settlement conference

By Ty Rogers and Ray Beckerman

On January 20th I posted a practice tip on settlement strategy in the "post-announcement" phase, suggesting that (a) as to clients who have not yet been identified to the RIAA we should advise the clients that some "John Doe" cases have been dropped without the RIAA obtaining the sought after discovery, and (b) all settlement offers by defendants should be put in writing so that they get delivered unimbellished to the decisionmaker(s).

It occurred to me that there is a third point which should be made, which is that -- as to clients who are strongly interested in settling -- if you are in the midst of litigation you should ask the Court for a settlement conference.

In Maverick Recording v. Goldshteyn, the Magistrate Judge ordered the plaintiffs to appear for a settlement conference and to produce the "principals" of the companies at the conference (although he later accepted Matthew Oppenheim as the "principal" of all five of the plaintiffs).

December 27, 2006, Order Scheduling Settlement Conference*

* Document published online at Internet Law & Regulation

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Full post as published by Recording Industry vs The People on February 04, 2009 (boomark / email).