Nevada Bar Investigating Righthaven Lawyers
from the keep-digging dept
It seems things keep getting worse and worse for Righthaven. With its lawsuits losing big time, and the underpinning of many of its lawsuits being dropped as a sham, it appears that the Nevada state bar is now investigating the company and its lawyers, after some grievances have been filed against the copyright trolling operation. People at the Nevada state bar have admitted that there are "two or possibly three" grievances being investigated. Steve Green has the details:Court records suggest the State Bar in reviewing the Righthaven litigation is focusing on two broad areas:Both of those may end badly for Righthaven and its lawyers, especially the latter. The fact that Righthaven failed to reveal that Stephens Media was a 50% beneficial party to any legal results is a huge omission that I can't see the state bar brushing off as a minor infraction. It's still rather stunning that the company didn't realize that such information would eventually come out.
-- Whether Righthaven and its attorneys have engaged in champerty and barratry – generally defined as the improper incitement and prosecution of lawsuits by parties with no real interest in the outcome – and that hope to profit by such lawsuits.
Attorneys for one of the Righthaven defendants, Thomas DiBiase, for instance, have charged: "DiBiase asserts that the purported copyright assignment from Stephens Media to Righthaven is a sham and that Righthaven is engaged in champerty and barratry by filing litigation on copyrights that it does not own."
-- Whether Righthaven and its attorneys have made misrepresentations to the court. If true, that would appear to be a violation of the Nevada Supreme Court’s Rules of Professional Conduct.
These rules say, in part, "It is professional misconduct for a lawyer" to "engage in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation." The rules also say, "A lawyer shall not knowingly make a false statement of fact or law to a tribunal or fail to correct a false statement of material fact or law previously made to the tribunal by the lawyer."
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Filed Under: nevada, state bar
Companies: righthaven
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Huge surprise?
And generally they can and do.
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Careful, Nintendo will sue you for copyright infringement!
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Righthaven is in for a world of hurt though...
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An attorney is only allowed to say the words "champerty" and "barratry" in open court if he's wearing a monocle, a top hat, and a handle-bar mustache. A female attorney is never allowed to say such words in open court.
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Re: Saying “champerty” and “barratry”
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Now if only the Colorado Bar would do likewise
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Queue the AC apologists in...
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I hate to stick up for Gibson...
Nevertheless, I think that these reports of the bar investigating him are overblown. Anyone can report any lawyer to the Bar, and upon filing such a report, the Bar is deemed to be "investigating" the matter. That does not mean that the Bar was concerned, nor that the Bar decided to open an investigation. It only means that someone was pissed off enough to send a letter to the Bar.
There are lots of good reasons to criticize Righthaven, and lots of good examples of its problems. Although the crowd here may cheer at the statement that "the Bar is investigating," they should understand that it is not much to cheer about, and I predict that little (if anything) will come of it.
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Re: I hate to stick up for Gibson...
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From last year.
It was a non-issue I cleared up.
Do you know if the site will be shut down?
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I disagree. Gibson probably will not be censured due to his lack of standing, because he can easily claim ignorance.
The second point, however, is very significant. Gibson withheld Stephens' interest in the case (denying they were a profiting party), and appears to have done so deliberately. That sort of thing is taken very, very seriously.
I'd be (pleasantly) surprised if he was disbarred, but I'm betting they'll at least levy a hefty fine against him.
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Lawyers and ethics?
The most recent stripping I've heard about would be Jack Thompson and even then, his outlandish behavior took quite some time to cause Florida to take away his license to practice law.
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Always Darkest Before The Dawn
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Righthaven, bar discipline
I don't know the rules in Nevada, but here, the fact that someone has filed a grievance complaint against a lawyer with the State Bar is private, and the complainant is not allowed to publicize the filing, until after the Grievance Committee has investigated, held a hearing, and made its decision. You are not supposed to use either the Bar grievance or criminal processes to gain an advantage in a civil case.
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Re: Righthaven, bar discipline
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Re: Righthaven, bar discipline
It may have been that way in Nevada originally, but now for matters filed after Mar 1, 2007, that information can now be disclosed right after the Screening Panel has decided to approve a Formal Complaint (discipline process flowchart pdf), and before any hearing or final decision takes place.
http://www.nvbar.org/node/96
Is the discipline process public or confidential?
Proceedings before a Screening Panel are confidential. For matters filed after March 1, 2007 (when the Supreme Court changed the rule), matters become public when a formal complaint is filed or the matter is concluded.
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