Qualcomm Lawyers Permitted to Disclose Confidential Information

A US federal judge has ruled that six lawyers who had been criticized for their actions when defending Qualcomm during a patent lawsuit with Broadcomm will be allowed to defend themselves in their appeal.

At the beginning of the year, U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Major decided to refer the six lawyers to the State Bar of California for possible disciplinary action after Qualcomm did not hand over some 46,000 documents during the lawsuit - which was won by Broadcom last year.

Qualcomm was later ordered to pay more than $8.5 million to cover Broadcom's legal fees in the case, and Qualcomm's general counsel resigned.

Qualcomm had tried to argue that the communications between the company and its lawyers were protected by attorney-client privilege - but the judge reversed an earlier ruling given by himself, and will allow the lawyers to proceed - citing declarations by employees which had included criticisms of the services and advice of its outside lawyers in the Broadcom lawsuit.

The introduction of those declarations "changes the factual basis which supported the court's earlier order," the judge wrote in a six-page opinion.

The six worked at Heller Ehrman and Day Casebeer Madrid & Batchelder.

Posted to the site on 10th March 2008