Elon Musk’s companies create robot cars (that unexpectedly blow up) and spaceships (that unexpectedly blow up), but now his attorneys are proposing a time machine to get out of — part of — a sanctions motion filed last week.
Feel free to guess what comes next.
Most of the coverage surrounding the sanctions motion (including Above the Law’s) focused on Musk’s disastrous deposition, defended by Quinn Emanuel’s Alex Spiro despite not being admitted in Texas — either outright or pro hac vice. Spiro, who told the New Yorker last year that his photographic memory is the source of his legal prowess, apparently failed to turn that memory toward the Texas rules as the transcript is littered with warnings from plaintiff Benjamin Brody’s attorney, Mark Bankston of Farrar & Ball, that Spiro kept breaching local rules.
But aside from the deposition, the sanctions motion also noted that Spiro is the sole signatory on the motion to dismiss the case without being admitted. That’s generally frowned upon as the unauthorized practice of law in most jurisdictions. It’s also a bizarre unforced error since Musk has local counsel in this case. Specifically, Quinn Emanuel’s John Bash, the former US Attorney who Rod Rosenstein notably ordered to push ahead with Trump’s child kidnapping plot who could’ve signed the motion way back in January and avoided this whole ethical kerfuffle.
But the past is the past… OR IS IT?
Bash, a Scalia and Kavanaugh clerk, takes the originalist penchant for rewriting history to new heights with this “Motion for a Mulligan,” asking the court to ignore Spiro’s signature and just assume Bash had signed it all along. On the one hand, you can argue that it’s Quinn Emanuel either way, so no harm no foul, right? On the other hand, it’s Quinn Emanuel either way so the firm should be held to an even higher standard since this is the most avoidable cock up ever.
Can Musk’s lawyers just wave their hands and pretend those past legal documents just don’t exist? Wait… it feels like we’ve done all this before. Remember Musk joking about buying Twitter and waiving due diligence and then trying to back out by saying the agreement he signed shouldn’t count?
How did that work out?
Earlier: Is Elon Musk About To Get Quinn Emanuel Sanctioned?
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.
