Judge Garaufis Placated By Kirkland & Ellis And Facebook

Judge Garaufis "likes" the gaggle of lawyers that appeared before him.

Facebook_like_thumbIn our reader poll, 96 percent of you agreed with my view that Judge Nicholas Garaufis (E.D.N.Y.) acted inappropriately when he harshly reprimanded a third-year associate at a status conference for Kirkland & Ellis’s failure to send a partner to cover the hearing. [FN1]

And maybe that 96 percent includes Judge Garaufis himself? From a report by Nate Raymond of Reuters:

The judge on Tuesday apologized to the extent his comments may have sounded like criticism of the associate, but said he was concerned about whether Facebook’s lawyers at Kirkland & Ellis LLP were taking the matter seriously.

“We heard you loud and clear, and we apologize,” Craig Primis, a partner at Kirkland & Ellis, told Garaufis.

Craig Primis is a longtime Kirkland partner who came up for the hearing from D.C. — and he wasn’t even the person who traveled the farthest for the hearing. As noted by Christine Simmons of Law.com, Facebook had no less than five lawyers in court today for this status conference — including deputy general counsel Paul Grewal, who came all the way from California for the proceedings.

(Bringing Grewal is, as I said on Twitter, pretty perfect. When he was a magistrate judge before joining Facebook, he was a strong advocate for giving young lawyers the opportunity to speak in open court.)

This (expensive) gaggle of lawyers — Primis, Grewal, K&E partners Shireen Barday and K. Winn Allen, and Aulden Burcher-DuPont, the associate who got the original tongue-lashing — placated Judge Garaufis:

“Any inference that might have been achieved through the media that I was ever upset at Mr. Burcher is totally unfounded, and for that I apologize, if that’s the impression that was given,” Garaufis said Tuesday.

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We reached out to Facebook for comment. A spokesperson confirmed the presence of Grewal and Primis at the hearing and said that oral arguments are set for January 19.

So all’s well that ends well. Kirkland and Facebook apologized to Judge Garaufis, Judge Garaufis apologized to them, and Facebook reassured the judge that it takes very seriously its obligation to make sure its platform is not used to incite terrorism (the subject matter of the underlying lawsuit).

This is an outcome that everyone can “like.”

[FN1] Kirkland does things differently — see, e.g., how early it makes non-share “partners” — and that’s true of promotion as well. A source pointed out to us that even though he’s a 2013 law school graduate, Aulden Burcher-DuPont is actually a “fourth-year” associate in K&E-speak, because promotions happen in September at Kirkland. (He’s not a first-year associate, as erroneously reported in various places, even if he’s in his first year at Kirkland; he lateraled to K&E after two years at Mayer Brown.)

This source, who has worked with Burcher-DuPont, added that he is a superb young lawyer and did not deserve the treatment he received last week.

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UPDATE (9/28/2016, 1:30 p.m.): Neither Kirkland nor Facebook has said a bad word about Judge Garaufis, but not everyone who appears before him shows such restraint. Over at the Robing Room, he has an average rating of 3.8 (out of 10).

Facebook tells U.S. judge it takes terroristic threats seriously [Reuters]
Federal Judge, Facebook and Kirkland Make Amends in Court [Law.com]

Earlier: Was This Judge’s Reprimand Of Kirkland & Ellis Justified?
Federal Judge Reams Junior Associate Because Biglaw Firm Refused To Send A Partner To Court


David Lat is the founder and managing editor of Above the Law and the author of Supreme Ambitions: A Novel. You can connect with David on Twitter (@DavidLat), LinkedIn, and Facebook, and you can reach him by email at dlat@abovethelaw.com.