{"id":138007,"date":"2025-12-02T16:25:48","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T00:25:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/12\/02\/3000-an-hour-lawyer-skirts-the-you-cant-be-your-own-clients-witness-rule\/"},"modified":"2025-12-02T16:25:48","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T00:25:48","slug":"3000-an-hour-lawyer-skirts-the-you-cant-be-your-own-clients-witness-rule","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/12\/02\/3000-an-hour-lawyer-skirts-the-you-cant-be-your-own-clients-witness-rule\/","title":{"rendered":"$3,000-An-Hour Lawyer Skirts The \u2018You Can\u2019t Be Your Own Client\u2019s Witness\u2019 Rule"},"content":{"rendered":"

Funny thing about being a lawyer and testifying on your client\u2019s behalf \u2014 the zealous advocacy baked into your job makes people a little suspicious of whatever you say on the witness stand. Despite that, we may see Alex Spiro stepping up as Elon Musk\u2019s witness against the accusations that Musk manipulated Twitter\u2019s stock prices before he was forced to buy the company. Reuters<\/a> has coverage:<\/p>\n

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Elon Musk has persuaded a judge that his longtime lawyer Alex Spiro can represent him in a shareholder lawsuit over the billionaire\u2019s 2022 Twitter acquisition even though he may be a trial witness in the case.<\/p>\n

San Francisco-based U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer in a ruling on Monday rejected the plaintiffs\u2019 objections\u2026Musk\u2019s lawyers called the effort to disqualify Spiro a \u201cHail Mary\u201d before a January 2026 trial, saying the investors waited too long to object to Spiro\u2019s role.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Can Elon have a normal trial for once<\/em>? If it isn\u2019t him making it okay for his lawyers to testify on his behalf, he\u2019s got a judge with sizeable investments in Tesla <\/a>or is trying to turn Texas into the new Delaware <\/a>if it means he gets better legal outcomes. The quirk in norms will probably a wash at the end of the day \u2014 chances are the guy getting paid $3,000 an hour will find a way to get whatever narrative he needs to on the witness stand without setting foot on it, but it goes to show the wackiness that can arise when plaintiffs don\u2019t object to lawyer-witnesses early on.<\/p>\n

Musk Wins Fight To Keep Lawyer Alex Spiro In Twitter Trial<\/a>\u00a0[Reuters]<\/p>\n

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Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord\u2122 in the Facebook group\u00a0Law School Memes for Edgy T14s . \u00a0He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who is learning to swim,\u00a0is interested in critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at\u00a0cwilliams@abovethelaw.com <\/a>and by tweet at\u00a0@WritesForRent<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The post $3,000-An-Hour Lawyer Skirts The \u2018You Can\u2019t Be Your Own Client\u2019s Witness\u2019 Rule<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAlex Spiro (Photo by Marlena Sloss\/Bloomberg via Getty Images)\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Funny thing about being a lawyer and testifying on your client\u2019s behalf \u2014 the zealous advocacy baked into your job makes people a little suspicious of whatever you say on the witness stand. Despite that, we may see Alex Spiro stepping up as Elon Musk\u2019s witness against the accusations that Musk manipulated Twitter\u2019s stock prices before he was forced to buy the company. Reuters<\/a> has coverage:<\/p>\n

\n

Elon Musk has persuaded a judge that his longtime lawyer Alex Spiro can represent him in a shareholder lawsuit over the billionaire\u2019s 2022 Twitter acquisition even though he may be a trial witness in the case.<\/p>\n

San Francisco-based U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer in a ruling on Monday rejected the plaintiffs\u2019 objections\u2026Musk\u2019s lawyers called the effort to disqualify Spiro a \u201cHail Mary\u201d before a January 2026 trial, saying the investors waited too long to object to Spiro\u2019s role.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Can Elon have a normal trial for once<\/em>? If it isn\u2019t him making it okay for his lawyers to testify on his behalf, he\u2019s got a judge with sizeable investments in Tesla <\/a>or is trying to turn Texas into the new Delaware <\/a>if it means he gets better legal outcomes. The quirk in norms will probably a wash at the end of the day \u2014 chances are the guy getting paid $3,000 an hour will find a way to get whatever narrative he needs to on the witness stand without setting foot on it, but it goes to show the wackiness that can arise when plaintiffs don\u2019t object to lawyer-witnesses early on.<\/p>\n

Musk Wins Fight To Keep Lawyer Alex Spiro In Twitter Trial<\/a>\u00a0[Reuters]<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord\u2122 in the Facebook group\u00a0Law School Memes for Edgy T14s . \u00a0He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who is learning to swim,\u00a0is interested in critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at\u00a0[email\u00a0protected] <\/a>and by tweet at\u00a0@WritesForRent<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Funny thing about being a lawyer and testifying on your client\u2019s behalf \u2014 the zealous advocacy baked into your job makes people a little suspicious of whatever you say on the witness stand. Despite that, we may see Alex Spiro stepping up as Elon Musk\u2019s witness against the accusations that Musk manipulated Twitter\u2019s stock prices […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":138008,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-138007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Chris-Williams-2025-66C8yv.jpg?fit=512%2C288&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138007"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138007\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}