What are clients really thinking when they hire outside counsel? For the law firms representing Sony Pictures Entertainment, there are some answers in the searchable online database of hacked Sony emails that has been created by the collective WikiLeaks. Our sibling publication The Am Law Daily combed through emails from late 2013 to late 2014, looking for information about Sony’s interactions with its outside lawyers. Among other things, the emails show which firms were considered for certain assignments and whom they beat out for the work.
Stolen late last year by hackers that the U.S. government asserts are linked to North Korea, the emails remain a controversial subject. WikiLeaks calls the archive newsworthy and says the information belongs in the public domain. Sony takes a different view. In a letter sent to news outlets, including The American Lawyer, Sony counsel Boies, Schiller & Flexner wrote, “Despite its purported commitment to free speech, WikiLeak’s conduct rewards a totalitarian regime seeking to silence dissident speech, and imposes disincentives on entities such as SPE who depend on trade secrets, confidential information and protection of intellectual property to exercise their First Amendment rights every day.” In a statement, Sony said, “The cyberattack on Sony Pictures was a malicious criminal act, and we strongly condemn the indexing of stolen employee and other private and privileged information on WikiLeaks.” A company spokesman declined to comment on specific emails.
