Lavi Soloway writes (hat tip to Above the Law) regarding the extremely un-white-shoe discrimination litigation in New York County between former Sullivan & Cromwell associate Aaron Charney and the law firm, including this astonishing bit:
Last Wednesday January 31 there was a secret settlement meeting at which Charney was offered an undisclosed sum in return for which he promised, among other things, to destroy the hard drive on his personal, home computer. The destruction of that hard drive moved to the center of the debate. Aaron Charney has been ordered to submit an affidavit to the court regarding the hard drive and the status of documents that were allegedly in his possession.
Judge Fried also ordered Aaron Charney to produce his personal, home hard drive at 9:30 a.m tomorrow morning, if, in fact, is has not been destroyed. Fried was particularly concerned that Charney seems to have destroyed the hard drive (which would presumably have contained emails he sent to him self from his Sullivan and Cromwell account with client documents and other firm related documents attached) AFTER being ordered by Judge Ramos at an earlier hearing not to do so. It appeared that Charney destroyed the hard drive becuase S&C asked him to do so as a condition of settlement.
This would be astonishing, indeed. You don’t even need the new, improved and annoying e-discovery rules in the federal courts, nor do you need to be a litigator, to know what a bad, bad idea that was.
Both parties may have a lot of explaining to do. Sweeter it does not get!
UPDATE: S&C promises plenty of explaining. They’ve got your explaining right here. ($5 Million?!)
UPDATE: Settled.
Moniker actively advertised (advertises?) as a place where you could do illicit things. They sought out that type of business. I’ve had to deal with them on the other side of the table, but they did actually remove some websites when I shouted loudly enough for a client.