Beteiligungsgesellschaftgate continues. Jacob Gershman has tracked down Sigram Schindler, and revealed some details about his professional relationship with Foley Larder. According to his declaration, Schindler writes briefs, and only allows his lawyers to “correct grammatical and spelling errors and to reword phrases into proper English.” But, he does not allow them to make substantive changes. Why was this declaration filed? Because his lawyers modified a section of the brief while hew as on a plane, and filed it without his consent.
6. Although I rely on legal counsel, in actuality, I was the primary author the ‘453 Reply Brief. In fact, footnote 4 of the ‘453 Reply Brief recognized my “significant contributions to this Brief.” Legal counsel was supposed to revise the material I prepared, to correct grammatical and spelling errors and to reword phrases into proper English, as I am a native-German speaker. I was responsible for all of the content and was to review all content before filing, to retain complete control of the ‘453 Patent Reply Brief.
7. Concerning Section II.C.3 of the ‘453 Reply Brief, legal counsel completely revised and omitted certain legal arguments from the draft I prepared. I was unavailable to review legal counsel’s revisions to Section II.C.3 prior to the filing of the ‘453 Reply Brief. The reason for this was that I was on an airplane headed back to Berlin, Germany. Accordingly, Section II.C.3 of the ‘453 Reply Brief, as filed, does not contain all of the legal arguments that I drafted.
8. I will now describe what happened the day the brief was filed. I was at Foley & Lardner LLP’s offices in DC starting at about noon on February 20, the same day that the ‘453 Reply Brief had to be filed. I then left around 2:30 pm to be able to catch my airplane. I felt a physical need to return back to Germany, as I was concerned about my health. There must have been some misunderstanding or miscommunication or mistake between legal counsel and me. I had intended Section II.C.3 of the ‘453 Reply Brief to not be revised unless there was a necessary reason to do so, but it was. Section II.C.3 was revised before filing. While I was traveling in the airplane, legal counsel had no way to contact me.
Accordingly, I had no way to approve the final version of the ‘453 Reply Brief before filing. The next day, when I reviewed a copy of the ‘453 Reply Brief, I was very surprised and upset to see changes to that section.
Schindler admits that he wrote sections of the brief himself:
6. Although I rely on legal counsel, in actuality, I was the primary author the ‘453 Reply Brief. In fact, footnote 4 of the ‘453 Reply Brief recognized my “significant contributions to this Brief.” Legal counsel was supposed to revise the material I prepared, to correct grammatical and spelling errors and to reword phrases into proper English, as I am a native-German speaker. I was responsible for all of the content and was to review all content before filing, to retain complete control of the ‘453 Patent Reply Brief.
10. Similarly, for the companion Appeal concerning the ‘902 Patent, I had drafted Sections IV-VI; Footnote 1 of the ‘902 Brief reflects this. For the ‘902 Brief, I had instructed legal counsel to prepare certain sections, while I retained control over Sections IV-VI. However, for the ‘902 Brief, I had the opportunity to review the final version of that brief before filing.
This was the same footnote that got him in trouble at the Supreme Court.
Schindler told Gershman:
“I’m shy to comment on the whole thing,” Mr. Schindler told Law Blog when reached by phone Thursday. Speaking about his case more broadly, he said his case underscores the patent system’s struggle to keep up with technological advancements that require “more intellectual precision” and command of mathematics.
I can’t imagine this declaration will help Shipley’s case, if he files briefs that his client does not allow him to edit.