So what\u2019d they do? Accord to Judge Treadwell\u2019s January order<\/a>, he had to sanction them a whopping three times for withholding evidence. I don\u2019t know what your childhood was like, but it was never a good thing when your mom got to three. Turns out that is also true of federal judges. \u201cNever has the Court thrice-sanctioned a party for withholding evidence,\u201d he wrote. \u201cAt this point, the Court is not sure\u201d what else to do about it. <\/p>\n Amongst the other discovery abuse, the judge called attention to an expert witness who dressed up a walled-off consultant\u2019s testing as \u201cmy own independent testing.\u201d Prudent lawyers, Treadwell noted, build \u201ca stout wall\u201d between their consultants and their testifying experts. Here, \u201cthere was no wall at all.\u201d<\/p>\n When that expert tried to explain away a false sworn declaration by claiming he\u2019d simply forgotten, Treadwell delivered a benchslap for the ages:<\/p>\n I see no excuse for [the expert], assisted by [counsel], sitting down, crafting that declaration to respond to these very issues, and then say something that is not true. And the excuse that \u201cI forgot\u201d is not credible and I don\u2019t believe it. \u2026 [I]f that kind of excuse was good enough at that stage of a dispute, when all eyes are on everything, \u2026 lawyers could get away with anything.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n He described the ensuing defense as a slow-motion collapse \u201ca defense in depth, collapsing to a new line of defense as each crumbled\u201d until \u201cthe retreat began to look like a rout.\u201d<\/p>\n Treadwell did not spare the Biglaw giants in his decision. Prestige, it turns out, is no defense to a discovery obligation and neither, as the judge is happy to explain, is \u201cI forgot.\u201d<\/p>\n Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of\u00a0The Jabot podcast<\/a>, and co-host of\u00a0Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email\u00a0her<\/a>\u00a0with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n The post Skadden And Kirkland Earn A $2 Million Benchslap For Hiding Evidence<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Two of the most prestigious and most expensive Biglaw firms just got caught doing the kind of thing they tell you not to in professional responsibility class. <\/p>\n Earlier this week, Judge Marc T. Treadwell of the US District Court for the Middle District of Georgia ordered <\/a>attorneys from Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom and Kirkland & Ellis to pay $2 million in sanctions for withholding evidence and discovery abuse in a False Claims Act suit that settled in the middle of trial. And that $2 million? Well, the two firms that sit at the top of the Biglaw pyramid are now bankrolling the professional-responsibility curriculum they apparently forgot to review, because it\u2019s going to fund ethics and professionalism instruction at Georgia\u2019s accredited law schools.<\/p>\n So what\u2019d they do? Accord to Judge Treadwell\u2019s January order<\/a>, he had to sanction them a whopping three times for withholding evidence. I don\u2019t know what your childhood was like, but it was never a good thing when your mom got to three. Turns out that is also true of federal judges. \u201cNever has the Court thrice-sanctioned a party for withholding evidence,\u201d he wrote. \u201cAt this point, the Court is not sure\u201d what else to do about it. <\/p>\n Amongst the other discovery abuse, the judge called attention to an expert witness who dressed up a walled-off consultant\u2019s testing as \u201cmy own independent testing.\u201d Prudent lawyers, Treadwell noted, build \u201ca stout wall\u201d between their consultants and their testifying experts. Here, \u201cthere was no wall at all.\u201d<\/p>\n When that expert tried to explain away a false sworn declaration by claiming he\u2019d simply forgotten, Treadwell delivered a benchslap for the ages:<\/p>\n I see no excuse for [the expert], assisted by [counsel], sitting down, crafting that declaration to respond to these very issues, and then say something that is not true. And the excuse that \u201cI forgot\u201d is not credible and I don\u2019t believe it. \u2026 [I]f that kind of excuse was good enough at that stage of a dispute, when all eyes are on everything, \u2026 lawyers could get away with anything.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n He described the ensuing defense as a slow-motion collapse \u201ca defense in depth, collapsing to a new line of defense as each crumbled\u201d until \u201cthe retreat began to look like a rout.\u201d<\/p>\n Treadwell did not spare the Biglaw giants in his decision. Prestige, it turns out, is no defense to a discovery obligation and neither, as the judge is happy to explain, is \u201cI forgot.\u201d<\/p>\n Two of the most prestigious and most expensive Biglaw firms just got caught doing the kind of thing they tell you not to in professional responsibility class. Earlier this week, Judge Marc T. Treadwell of the US District Court for the Middle District of Georgia ordered attorneys from Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":162299,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-162321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/IMG_5243-1-scaled-e1623338814705-620x568-pYVZVA.jpg?fit=620%2C568&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162321","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=162321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162321\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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\nKathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of\u00a0The Jabot podcast<\/a>, and co-host of\u00a0Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email\u00a0her<\/a>\u00a0with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"