Tomorrow the actual trial starts in "US v Elizabeth Holmes." There will be the opening arguments.
The Wall Street Journal, which originally broke the story questioning the finger-prick technology, provides us with a guide as to who's who in that courtroom. Here you can get up to speed with the cast of characters.
But defense lawyers tend to be a gossipy bunch so their focus probably will be primarily on David Boies, co-founder of Boies Schiller.
He had been on the board of directors of Theranos, the enterprise Elizabeth Holmes founded. He also represented it. Instead of collecting a fee he agreed to equity. Sometimes brilliant lawyers can be awfully dumb about life stuff.
Well, Boies is on the list of possible witnesses to testify.
But even before he could be sworn in fallout might have started because of that Theranos association.
Today, Bloomberg Law reported that Heather King a former partner at Boies Schiller who became Theranos General Counsel and then returned to be a partner at Boies Schiller has left that partner position at Boies Schiller. She is said to be going to an in-house job. King too is on the list of possible witnesses to testify. Here is the analysis of that development on Law and More.
It was Alan Dershowitz who contended in his book "Guilt by Accusation" that Boies might have been involved in a conflict of interest by being both on the board and being the legal counsel for Theranos. That could come up in cross examination. And it could be embarrassing.
What else could further erode the David Boies brand (that tarnishing began with how he represented Harvey Weinstein) are the emails which he and Holmes exchanged. Her legal team at Williams & Connolly requested they be kept confidential. No, they didn't win that motion. The court ruled that Holmes had not been a client of Boies Schiller. Theranos had been the client. Therefore, the email was not privileged.
That's the back story.
Meanwhile, the lousy reality for so many law firms with news to get out on their wins and vaccination policies and lateral hires is that the media outlets are preoccupied with "US v Holmes."
The trial could go into mid-December. Instead of hoping the media will run with their announcements they likely will have to rely on DIY.
For those who never bothered to get a hang of how to get attention on social networks, they could really be in a pickle. They haven't built up a following on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. As for their websites most lack the dazzle of Wilson Sonsini's. They are old-lady prime and proper. Corporatese tone and language. Like, boring.
Just as COVID has been a game-changer for myriad aspects of the business of law, "US v Holmes" can disrupt the marketing communications and public relations of old-line law firms.
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