Bingham Busted by Its Own Website

Almost every big law firm uses its website to tout its commitment to diversity and its global reach. For Bingham McCutchen, it may have cost the firm a bid for sanctions.

A Bingham employment law team including partner Wendy Lazerson and associates Jacqueline Bronson and Kristen Pezone was set to take a deposition in the wrongful termination case of Kim v. Poonsang Microtec Corp. on April 17. The day before the deposition, plaintiff's attorney Frank Mayo of Los Altos served additional discovery, including some documents that were in Korean.

Bingham's team insisted on postponing the deposition, saying they could not get the Korean documents translated in time. Mayo objected, saying his client had already flown up from Southern California. Things turned nasty and both sides moved for sanctions.

In a tentative order filed Thursday (see Page 31 of this .pdf) , Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Socrates "Pete" Manoukian rejected both sides' request for sanctions.

"This court finds it difficult to believe that no one in the office of [Bingham] is able to speak Korean, given that the Bingham web[site] has many referrals to its commitment to diversity and its ability to service, among others, Korean clients," Manoukian wrote.

In a footnote, Manoukian cited two press releases on the Bingham site, "Former Domestic Servant Wins Appeal in Case Against Korean Consular Official," and "Bingham California Team Scores Victory for Seoul Semiconductor."

Manoukian also noted that Bingham claimed it had needed 17.1 hours at $465 an hour to respond to Mayo's motion for sanctions. "The court finds this excessive, given the relatively straightforward issues in this matter," Manoukian wrote.

Mayo didn't get off easy either. Manoukian wrote that he had demanded $750 in return for agreeing to drop his sanctions motion and reschedule the depo. Manoukian called that "unreasonable" and potentially sanction-able.

"While the reaction of defense counsel and its employees bordered on the melodramatic," he concluded, "the conduct of counsel for plaintiff was similarly so."

—  Scott Graham

Comments

[Caliboy]

The judges conclusion seems odd to me. Just because Bingham worked on those two cases, doesn't necessarily mean it has lots of staff competent to do a good Korean-English translation on site. I would think that most firms often rely on outside consultants to do that work and may not always be available on short notice.

Also both cases that the judge cited were in U.S. court. The domestic servant case involved the participation of a Korean-American non-profit which may have helped with interviews and translations and the other case involved a large corporation which likely has its own translators.

Seems more like a political dig against diversity efforts by Judge Manoukian.