Attorneys' Letters Show Protocol for Email Discovery Was Violated

Magistrate Judge James Francis (United States District Court, Southern District New York) ordered the protocol defining the process by which email discovery relating to the defendants could proceed. Two key directives of the protocol were that "plaintiffs shall bear all the costs associated with the production" of the emails and "should any defendant elect to review its database prior to production, it shall do so at its own expense."

The following five letters dated between October 29, 2002 and December 10, 2002, were concealed by plaintiffs' own attorneys until discovered in the year 2013. These letters show that the defendants' law firms Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP and Loeb & Loeb LLP were allowed by plaintiff Rowe's attorneys, Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal, to deal directly with EED (Electronic Evidence Discovery) and be the first to obtain and review the email evidence for which Mr. Rowe paid $200,000. This allowed the defendants to delete damaging evidence that supported Mr. Rowe's case against the defendants. Allowing defendants attorneys to deal directly with EED and review the emails first was in complete violation of Judge Francis's order and constitutes fraud upon the court.

Read Letters