The first time I came across David Boies was when he represented the DoJ in the
Microsoft Anti-Trust Trial before Judge Jackson.
I recall reading, with something close to glee, his ability to make various
Microsoft witnesses squirm in agony on the stand, and his ability to catch them
out time and time again. I started to think that he was an exceptional courtroom
lawyer. Having listened to the wonderful court reports from mirror_slap and
others, I have started to develop a different view.
Reading the transcripts it seems as though Boies achieves his success by
badgering witnesses, by harassing them mentally, and by ambush. As you point out
here, just because BSF claim something, it doesn't mean that it is so.
But it is, nevertheless, interesting. It tells me that Oracle are wrong and
Google should prevail. This conclusion is drawn with zero legal knowledge and no
authority to make such a judgment, save one insight: if BSF were confident of
their case, they would simply present it, carefully, clearly, methodically, and
let the facts speak for themselves. The truth is, this is a specious case. It
may not be true, but limited experience also suggests that if you want to start
an offensive (in both senses of the word) court case against another party, but
you suspect that your case is slim-to-non-existent, then hire BSF. They will not
only take cases that others may politely decline, they will invent ways to
re-present and re-interpret, and re-define and re-categorize until
"up" means "down", "night" means "day"
and "true" means "false".
I feel uncomfortable for being so judgmental, but this just seems so totally
wrong... [Not that Oracle are pressing a case - that's self-evidently wrong, but
wrong in that Oracle could get respectable lawyers to sign on for this]. [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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