Facebook Sues Opposing Party's Law Firms

Facebook has filed suit against a number of major law firms, including DLA Piper and Milberg LLP, that represented a party-opponent.  Re/Code has the details as well as a copy of the complaint:

Facebook and CEO Mark Zuckerberg sued a handful of lawyers who represented Paul Ceglia in a 2010 case in which Ceglia claimed he was entitled to 84 percent ownership of the social network.

Ceglia’s claim was dismissed earlier this year after Facebook and Zuckerberg alleged that Ceglia forged the documents he used as evidence of his ownership in the company. (Ceglia was actually arrested in 2012 for falsifying these records; the case is still pending.)

Monday’s lawsuit, which Facebook filed in New York County Supreme Court, claims Ceglia’s lawyers “knew or should have known that the [initial] lawsuit was a fraud.”

According to Above the LawDLA Piper's general counsel had this to say in response:

This is an entirely baseless lawsuit that has been filed as a tactic to intimidate lawyers from bringing litigation against Facebook. DLA Piper, which was not part of this case at its outset or its conclusion, was involved for 78 days. Facebook and Mr. Zuckerberg claim that they were damaged in those 78 days, yet a mere 10 months after DLA Piper withdrew from the case and while the litigation was still pending, Facebook went to market with an initial public offering that valued the company at $100 billion. Today, Facebook is worth $200 billion and Mr. Zuckerberg is among the richest people in the world. We will defend this meritless litigation aggressively and we will prevail.

Cases filed against the attorneys of party-opponents are usually met with skepticism.  Given the stakes here, the case will no doubt be closely watched by legal practitioners throughout the country.

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