Miscellaneous

Oops dept.

By Walter Olson, Ted Frank, and David Nieporent

Great moments in $800-an-hour-or-thereabouts lawyering: "As it turns out, a lawyer at Pepper Hamilton, one of two high-priced law firms negotiating the deal [for drugmaker Eli Lilly] with the government [over allegedly improper marketing of Zyprexa], mistakenly sent an e-mail containing a comprehensive and confidential document to a reporter at The New York Times. How could that have happened? The reporter, Alex Berenson, has the same last name as another lawyer who was supposed to have received the e-mail, Bradford Berenson, who works at Sidley Austin." (Pharmalot, Feb. 5). Ted also has a (more serious) take at Point of Law on the problems with federal criminal enforcement of drug marketing laws.

But note correction Thurs. 12:30 EST: in updates, Beck/Herrmann and Pharmalot say that Portfolio mag, which originally reported this story, got aspects of it wrong: the email was a short one, not a comprehensive document, and reporter Berenson had other sources of information. Pepper Hamilton has been flogged up one side of the legal blogosphere and down the other for the slip, but Beck/Herrmann says that isn't fair: the misdirected email doesn't appear to have made much difference.

Full post as published by Overlawyered on February 07, 2008 (boomark / email).