Quinn’s Ethics Appeal Win Bolsters Attorney-Client Privilege

An ethics-focused Federal Circuit opinion that potentially spared former Quinn Emanuel client NortonLifeLock nearly $300 million in liability in a patent case also sent a strong cautioning message to judges.

The appeals panel’s decision Wednesday warned district judges to think twice before ordering attorneys to publicly disclose sensitive client communications as punishment when they spot legally questionable tactics, said several lawyers watching the case.

“What grabbed the court’s attention and likely caused concern” was an Eastern District of Virginia judge’s unprompted “order that required the attorney-client material be filed on the public docket,” said Andrew Radsch, a patent litigator at Munger Tolles & Olson.

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed a contempt order tied to a Quinn partner’s interactions with Marc Dacier, a former NortonLifeLock employee who was initially represented by the firm as a witness in a high-stakes patent infringement suit Columbia University brought against the company.

The appeals court wiped out a $481 million award and addressed the contempt ruling in back-to-back opinions.

The award finding carried additional significance because the district court had added $296 million in enhanced damages, citing the Quinn trial team’s “egregious” conduct in refusing to disclose communications with Dacier. The ex-NortonLifeLock employee appeared to regret his former employer’s conduct but ultimately skipped the Virginia trial.

The Quinn team isn’t out of the woods yet, Radsch said, since the appeals court opinion left the door open for an alternative form of sanctions for its allegedly improper interactions with Dacier.

But in rejecting the district judge’s contempt finding against Quinn, he added, the Federal Circuit said, “you shouldn’t be forcing parties to file presumptively privileged material on the public docket—be wary when you do that.”

The ethical dilemmas in the case emerged after Dacier ran into a Columbia professor at a conference during a long lull in the case, according to court documents. He allegedly expressed contrition about an aspect of the case—the actions of a Norton employee he once managed who was accused of taking credit for the professor’s invention.

Columbia’s lawyers learned of the alleged apology and contacted Dacier before eventually pushing to have him testify at trial, though he was then living in Saudi Arabia.

District Judge M. Hannah Lauck ultimately found Quinn Emanuel misrepresented a court ruling in one of its communications with Dacier, who was mulling whether to travel to Virginia for the trial.

That finding coincided with the court asking for disclosure of years of Quinn’s communications with Dacier. When the firm refused, it also had to drop the case entirely. Norton brought on Latham & Watkins as a replacement counsel.

“Quinn ultimately made what looks like the right decision” in refusing to comply with the disclosure order, said Tyler Maulsby, a litigator and legal ethics specialist at Frankfurt Kurnit.

“The judge’s order was just breathtaking in that she sua sponte found a conflict of interest, ruled that such a conflict existed, voided a retainer agreement and destroyed the attorney-client privilege in one fell swoop,” he said.

Maulsby added that part of the Federal Circuit’s concern with the order is it seemed to punish a client—who the attorney-client privilege is meant to protect—for actions of the lawyer.

With the type of disclosure that the district court demanded, “appellate courts cannot always ‘unring the bell,’” wrote Judge Timothy B. Dyk who authored the Federal Circuit opinion.

That put “Quinn in this sort of impossible situation where, if they agree to provide the documents, they’ve arguably turned over privileged documents of their client, and, if they don’t, they’re in contempt of a court order,” Maulsby said. “They chose option B.”

That’s not to say Quinn handled the situation perfectly, Maulsby added.

Both sides acted strategically in their interactions with Dacier in ways that seemed “a little close to the line, from what I could tell,” he said.

Sullivan & Cromwell represents Columbia.

The case is Trs. of Columbia Univ. v. Gen Digital Inc., Fed. Cir., 24-1243, 3/11/26.