My parents came to visit this week and my father told me this cool story, which I will share with you. He’s a lawyer at a firm in DC called Robbins Russell currently working on a large and complex bankruptcy case. Specifically, his firm represents a group of creditors suing some other creditors on behalf of the company going bankrupt.1 So that’s the scene. On to the story.
So my dad, Alan, is sitting in court while his law partner, Larry2, debates about some documents. My dad’s firm would like access to some documents the debtors had, so they asked for them. The debtors refused, telling the judge that by turning over the documents, they would be waiving the lawyer-client privilege3 that applied to those documents. They did not want to have to reveal the documents to the parties in their other lawsuit.
BOOOM!!!4 Enter the iPhone.
My pops recalled that recently, this exact issue had been handled. He pulled out his new iPhone 3G and Googled. It was November at the time, and he pulled up a law that President Bush had signed into law in September. Rule 502 of the federal rules of evidence specifies that a judge can rule that disclosure is not a waiver of the privilege. Here’s a pseudo-dialogue5 that summarizes the rest, as my father told it to me:
Alan: “Larry, check this out man”
Gary: “Whoa. Cool. Hey Judge, check this out”
Judge: “That applies, let me check my rule book….hmm, doesn’t seem to be here. What’s the story?”
Alan: “Bush just signed it into law. Two months ago. Check subsection D”
Judge: “Billy [his law clerk], go check this out”
…two minutes pass…
Billy: “Judge, he’s right. Here’s a photocopy”
Judge: “Well then. The documents are to be turned over”
So that’s how my dad’s iPhone saved the day. Pretty cool huh?
Notes
1. That’s not really important to my story, I just wanted to prove to my pops that I was listening carefully to his story.
2. That’s not really his name. In fact, I don’t even know which partner it was. Who cares, you don’t know him.
3. The lawyer-client privilege is, apparently, a United States legal notion that permits the client to refuse to disclose to a 3rd person any communications with his lawyer whether oral or written, which protects the client and lawyer from a number of self-explanatory issues.
4. Sorry for startling you. You looked like you were snoozing a little there. I sympathize. Law can be pretty boring.
5. A pseudo-dialogue is a trademarked term6 that I made up. It is a dialogue that didn’t really happen but that allows the story to proceed more naturally. Basically it lets me avoid “then Billy said that Tommy had told Susan about Becky’s statement to Jimbo”.
6. It’s not really trademarked.
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