William v. Morrison & Foerster LLP
- Jacquelyn Corley
- 3:18-cv-02542
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 3
In William v. Morrison & Foerster LLP, Magistrate Judge Corley denied the parties’ sealing motion and ordered narrower filing steps.
The plaintiffs, Morrison & Foerster LLP, and the parties’ counsel were affected by the denial of the sealing motion, the required exchange of declarations, and the filing deadlines.
What happened
In William v. Morrison & Foerster LLP, the parties asked to seal a joint discovery letter brief and all its exhibits because they involved attorney-client privilege, work-product protection, and sensitive information.
The court denied the consent motion because it was not narrowly limited to information that could properly be sealed. The court ordered the defendant to give plaintiffs’ counsel two declarations submitted for private court review, allowed plaintiffs to file a short supplement, and required the parties to publicly file the documents or submit a renewed, narrower sealing motion within seven days.
Magistrate Judge Jacquelyn Corley issued the order on August 20, 2020, and stated that it disposed of the motion listed as Docket No. 137.
The detailed version
- William v. Morrison & Foerster LLP · No. 3:18-cv-02542
- Jacquelyn Corley
- Aug. 20, 2020
Background
The court considered the parties’ joint discovery letter brief concerning a privilege dispute. The parties also filed a consent administrative motion to seal the letter brief and all of its exhibits. They argued that sealing was appropriate because the dispute involved the attorney-client privilege, the work-product doctrine, and highly sensitive information.
Sealing standard
The court explained that judicial records generally carry a strong presumption of public access. Documents more than tangentially related to the merits of a case may be sealed only for compelling reasons; documents only tangentially related to the merits may be sealed upon a showing of good cause. Under Civil Local Rule 79-5, a sealing request must be limited to material that is privileged, protectable as a trade secret, or otherwise legally entitled to protection. The request must also be narrowly tailored, with redactions preferred when possible.
The court recognized that attorney-client privilege and work-product protection can sometimes justify sealing. But a claim of privilege does not automatically make the entire discovery dispute, the related briefing, or all documents confidential. The parties had not limited their request to information that was properly sealable.
Ruling
The court denied the consent administrative motion to seal because it was not narrowly tailored to properly sealable information.
The court also found it unclear why two declarations submitted by the defendant for private court review had not been attached to the public discovery letter brief and why they should not be filed publicly. The court ordered the defendant to provide those two declarations to plaintiffs’ counsel by August 24, 2020. After reviewing them, plaintiffs could file a supplement to their portion of the joint discovery letter brief, limited to two pages excluding attachments, by August 28, 2020.
Within seven days of the order, the parties were required either to publicly file the documents covered by their sealing motion or to file a renewed, narrowly tailored sealing motion complying with Civil Local Rule 79-5(b). The order stated that it disposed of Docket No. 137.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.