Judge Chhabria, who suffers no fools, caught Meta/Facebook trying to do some improper redactions (“preposterous” redactions at that), issues warning (including to counsel) that Meta may be on the road to getting sanctioned like the last time around when he popped Meta and its counsel (to the tune of nearly $1 million for discovery abuses). Sealing requests designed to “avoid negative publicity” aren’t appropriate.
I know how this happens:
Outside Counsel, to Inhouse Counsel [all of whom I love dearly]: “What should we file under seal?”
Inhouse Counsel: “Everything.”
Outside Counsel: “While I’m not 100% sure, and you may be right that we can, I don’t think we can do that.”
Inhouse Counsel: “Everything that isn’t already publicly shown on page 1 of Google or that could make us look bad. Redact quotations in parentheticals if it would disclose our legal arguments in this case. I don’t want this filing making the news and the executive team coming to me and asking why this was public.”
Outside Counsel: “Sounds good, we’ll give it a shot.”
Sometimes it works, sometimes it’ll get you a show cause order.