A few days ago I reported that a federal judge imposed sanctions on Alan Dershowitz and other lawyers for Kari Lake (former Arizona gubernatorial candidate) for violations of Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. See here and here.
Today, Above the Law has a follow up on the story.
The original order stated in part that
Plaintiffs either failed to conduct the reasonable factual and legal inquiry required under Rule 11, or they conducted such an inquiry and filed this lawsuit anyway. Either way, no reasonable attorney, “after conducting an objectively reasonable inquiry into the facts and law, would have found the complaint to be well-founded.”
In response to Dershowitz's request to let him off the hook, the judge stated that,
Whether Mr. Dershowitz signed, or intended to sign, those filings as “counsel” or “attorney” or “of counsel,” he signed them. And he effectively conceded that he authorized his signature on these filings without investigating whether they were legally and factually sound. If there was any doubt this brought him within the ambit of Rule 11, the evidence detailed above demonstrates that all parties involved understood the value of his signature. It was an agreed-upon part of his retention. It led opposing counsel and the public to believe he represented Plaintiffs in this matter—a notion furthered by Plaintiff Lake and Mr. Lindell themselves. Mr. Dershowitz did not do anything to dispel this notion until after the Maricopa County Defendants moved for sanctions. Further, he participated in at least one telephonic conference with opposing counsel; . . .
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