Biglaw Firm Apologizes For Embarrassing Redaction Error

Oopsie!

onSeptember 16, 2019 at 3:15 PMSeptember 16, 2019 at 2:34 PM

This technical weakness in the redaction process was caused by the method of redaction, which involved Microsoft Word and printing to Adobe Acrobat, rather than the redaction software our law firm has in place that is specifically designed to avoid such issues. The failure to use this software was inadvertent oversight….

We very much regret that this incident occurred and can assure the court that it will not happen again.

— Jones Day partner James Wooley, in an apology letter written to Judge Pamela Meade Sargent of the Western District of Virginia, after the firm was ordered to explain how it exposed secret grand jury information in a court filing lest its attorneys face sanctions. Though Wooley claimed the original filing looked redacted on its face, a reporter was able to simply copy and paste the text of the blacked-out boxes into a new document to read what was supposed to be redacted.

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Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.