I Know Nothing About Bar/Bri!

Regular readers may recall that I’ve occasionally blogged about the Bar/Bri antitrust lawsuits. See, e.g., here and here and here and here. (And, FWIW, there’s now another one: Park v. Thomson Corp. in the SDNY). I was also quoted in an article on the lawsuit. And, a dozen years ago, I was a Bar/Bri customer.

That pretty much describes my total universe of interactions with Bar/Bri in my lifetime. So you can imagine my surprise when I got a call from the law firm of Shearman and Sterling, an old-line NY firm that is one of the biggest, most prestigious and most expensive law firms in the country. They also happen to defend Bar/Bri. They informed me that my name had appeared on a Rule 26 supplemental disclosure filed by the plaintiff, flagging me as a party that may have potentially discoverable evidence. They were calling to try to figure out why I was on the list.

I’m trying to figure out the same thing! I think it’s a little odd to show up on a witness list like this without being contacted first. And I REALLY don’t want to be a witness in this case. So now I’m in the awkward position of scrambling to proclaim my incompetence. All I did was blog a few posts and give a reporter some quotes; that doesn’t actually mean that I know anything!

More generally, this incident suggests a new hazard of blogging about pending lawsuits–litigants may try to drag the blogger into the suit as a witness. Good to know…