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Boies Schiller sanctioned almost $15K for…
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Boies Schiller sanctioned almost $15K for ‘uniquely eye-opening breakdown in civility’
By Debra Cassens Weiss
August 11, 2025, 10:14 am CDT
Boies Schiller Flexner should pay $14,866 for disobeying court docket orders to cooperate with an opposing counsel on joint case filings, a federal decide in San Francisco dominated final week. (Picture from Shutterstock)
Boies Schiller Flexner should pay $14,866 for disobeying court docket orders to cooperate with an opposing counsel on joint case filings, a federal decide in San Francisco dominated final week.
The movement for sanctions by litigation opponent Levi Strauss & Co. “stems from a uniquely eye-opening breakdown in civility and professionalism, requiring this federal court docket to imagine the position of a dissatisfied faculty principal,” mentioned U.S. District Decide Trina L. Thompson of the Northern District of California in an Aug. 7 order.
Thompson mentioned Boies Schiller’s conduct has led her “to think about instituting a brand new standing order on civility and professionalism to make sure such conduct doesn’t occur once more.”
Boies Schiller represented plaintiff Julia Bois, who claimed that Levi Strauss & Co. denied her a promotion due to her being pregnant, Law360 reviews in its protection of Thompson’s order. Federal jurors dominated towards Bois in Might.
Thompson imposed sanctions on Boies Schiller for failing to satisfy and check with its opponent on jury directions and a verdict kind and for submitting its pretrial assertion and proposed assertion of the case. The actions constituted “deliberate disobedience” of court docket orders, Thompson concluded.
Thompson didn’t discover, nevertheless, that the conduct was for the aim of harassing Boies Schiller’s opponent or that the conduct was frivolous or for an improper goal.
Boies Schiller argued that it submitted its filings as a result of it couldn’t attain an settlement with Levi Strauss & Co. attorneys from Paul Hastings.
Boies Schiller’s argument “is unpersuasive,” Thompson mentioned. “The events are lots able to submitting joint filings that distill their disagreements for the court docket to deal with.”
Thompson criticized Boies Schiller for its response to the sanctions movement, which “spends 10 pages excruciatingly detailing each communication exchanged between the events’ counsel and finger-pointing away all duty of [its] violations onto the defendant.”
“The first takeaway from this dissertation,” Thompson mentioned, is that Boies Schiller concedes that its unilateral filings violated court docket orders however argues that every violation is in actual fact the fault of Levi Strauss attorneys.
“Alarmingly,” Thompson mentioned, Boies Schiller frames the “violations as zealous advocacy.”
The 2 Boies Schiller companions on the case, Joshua Schiller and Benjamin Margulis, didn’t instantly reply to an ABA Journal e-mail searching for remark. Nor did they instantly reply to a message left with the legislation agency.
Paul Hastings associate Cameron W. Fox, who represented Levi Strauss & Co., didn’t instantly reply to the Journal’s e-mail request for remark.
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