Pattis case a cautionary tale on privacy
When a judge ordered Alex Jones’ high-profile New Haven attorney Norm Pattis be suspended from practicing law in Connecticut for six months for improperly sharing protected medical records of Sandy Hook families, it sent a message to the judicial system.
But for those who don’t make a living in the court system, just how serious is Pattis’ discipline — particularly for a defense attorney who until now has had a clean 30-year record?
“It is not a career-ender, but it is certainly something any lawyer would want to avoid,” said Mark Dubois, a former state chief disciplinary counsel and a former assistant clinical professor of law at the University of Connecticut School of Law, who has been friends with Pattis for years.
If six months’ suspension sounds serious, perhaps it’s meant to sound serious, Dubois said on Friday, after Pattis announced his plans to appeal the discipline imposed by state Superior Court Judge Barbara Bellis, and recommended by Brian Staines, the state’s chief disciplinary counsel.
“This case is going to be taught in law schools not because it is concerning Norm Pattis but because of the whole challenge of handling electronic information in the digital age,” said Dubois, who’s practiced law for 45 years.
Dubois, who represented Pattis in a grievance brought by the same judge Bellis, and who argued in a law journal article that the discipline case against Pattis should be dropped, is referring to a chain of events between defamation award trials in Texas and Connecticut where protected sensitive medical records of Sandy Hook families were sent from Pattis’ office to Jones’ attorneys in Texas before ending up in the hands of a lawyer representing parents of a slain Sandy Hook boy who Jones defamed.
“Norm set up the dominoes, but he didn’t push them down,” Dubois said. “The judge shouldn’t have imposed any discipline — it was just a series of inadvertencies.”
Since the leak of protected Sandy Hook medical records made national news in August, verdicts have been entered against Jones in Texas and Connecticut of nearly $1.5 billion for the Sandy Hook families involved in the litigation, plunging Jones into personal bankruptcy.
Jones, who called the slaying of 26 first graders and educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School “staged,” “synthetic,” “manufactured,” “a giant hoax,” and “completely fake with actors,” is appealing those verdicts.
Meanwhile the aftershocks of the jury trials in Texas and Connecticut are reverberating for Pattis, who told Hearst Connecticut Media that he’s been brought to a crossroads by representing Jones.
What’s at stake
Beyond the personal stakes for Pattis and the legal fate of two of his highest profile clients — the bankrupted Infowars founder Jones, and one of the accused ringleaders in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot who’s on trial in Washington, D.C., — are larger stakes for how lawyers handle sensitive evidence in the digital age.
“There is a bigger issue about these medical records that may be playing a role here now that we have so much electronic discovery,” said Alexandra Lahav, a professor of law at Cornell Law School and an expert in complex litigation. “There’s a lot of concern about preserving confidential information and how lawyers handle it once it is in the cloud.”
In a 49-page decision, Bellis said as much.
“The court flatly rejects (Pattis’) arguments in his brief that any non-compliance with the protective order was an inadvertent mistake or a misinterpretation of the protective order,” Bellis wrote. “The court finds by clear and convincing evidence that (Pattis) knowingly disobeyed the protective order by failing to keep the records in a safe and secure manner and by releasing the protected records to … unauthorized recipients.”
Lahav suggested Bellis’ message was more a cautionary tale than punishment for Pattis.
“This is a message to the broader legal community … and it’s happening in the context of this highprofile case,” Lahav said. “Lawyers have a duty to the system because the system can’t function if lawyers engage in misconduct.”
At the same time, parts of Bellis ruling were clearly meant for Pattis.
“The court declines to credit as a mitigating factor good reputation or character, despite the witnesses who testified on (Pattis’) behalf, given the court’s own observations regarding (Pattis’) character during the course of this proceeding,” Bellis said.
Bellis went on to say that Pattis’ role in falsely representing that Jones had signed a document when Jones had not signed it, and Pattis’ refusal to answer questions on the witness stand in August about his role in the leak, citing his rights under the Fifth Amendment 25 times, were strikes against Pattis.
Lahav observed that if Bellis was looking for contrition from Pattis, Bellis didn’t find it.
“There are always ways a lawyer can demonstrate the steps he’s taken to prevent this from happening again,” Lahav said. “Even if he loses the appeal he could say, ‘These are the internal safeguards that I’ve put in place, this is how I fixed it, and I take this very seriously.’ ”
Pattis in his defense on Friday asked Bellis to hold off suspending him if not for the sake of his own appeal, then for the sake of his clients.
“(Pattis) possesses not only crucial knowledge of the underlying case(s) but also the trust of his clients,” Pattis’ motion reads. “These defendants would be harmed if (Pattis) were unable to prosecute their appeal and they were forced to hire new counsel and bring them effectively up to speed sufficiently to adequately litigate their appellate rights in a timely manner, thus depriving them of due process of law.”