Clerkships, Federal Judges, Legal Ethics

Law Clerk Busted Getting Chummy With Lawyer Appearing Before The Court

Clerks behaving badly.

By  
on

Several weeks ago, we reported the troubling tale of Marina Fernandez, a clerk for Judge Reggie Walton of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (District2 if you will). In the relatively high-profile civil rape case of Detroit Tigers pitcher Alfredo Simon, lawyers for the plaintiff say that Fernandez was sending text messages to Simon’s attorney, Benjamin Voce-Gardner of Zuckerman Spaeder (the firm where her father is also a partner), who she befriended over an unrelated legal matter where he represented her pro bono.

Texts like:

You’re going to owe me a beer, FYI

and

Yes, as of 3:34 today, you owe me a beer (or wine!)

For the record, 3:34 was the precise moment that Judge Walton handed down a key evidentiary decision in Simon’s favor. So these messages were… unwise.

Litigators being litigators, plaintiff’s attorneys fired off a bunch of discovery requests and tried to get Judge Walton kicked off the case. Judge Walton was having none of the disqualification motion, at least pending the resolution of the motion to quash, which he referred to another judge, specifically Judge Ellen Huvelle. Judge Huvelle squashed a number of the ridiculously overbroad requests, but made clear that she wasn’t going to let the issue go without surveying the key exchanges in camera:

Sponsored

That said, serious issues involving the conduct of a judicial law clerk have come to light, and plaintiff is understandably concerned that Ms. Fernandez may have participated in a more extensive back-and-forth with defense counsel about the above-captioned case during her tenure as a law clerk. We already know of one such example: in its Letter to the Court, defense counsel refers to a text message sent by Ms. Fernandez to her father (a partner at Zuckerman Spaeder) as “similarly worded” to the improper messages sent to Mr. Voce-Gardner, but has not produced the actual text message to either plaintiff or the Court…

Given the incomplete state of the record and the need to assure itself that the relevant facts are known, the Court will order Ms. Fernandez and Mr. Voce-Gardner to submit to the Court for in camera review all documents reflecting or referring to communications between Ms. Fernandez and any member of Zuckerman Spaeder relating to Doe v. Cabrera.

So a lesson for all the clerks out there: don’t leak information about cases to one side. Leak them to Above the Law, obviously.

(Check out the full opinion on the next page…)

Clerk’s Texts and Law Firm Ties Prompt Move to Disqualify Judge [National Law Journal]

Earlier: Morning Docket: 09.04.15

Sponsored

1 2Next »

Topics

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,