According to James Grimaldi’s column in Monday’s Washington Post, lawyers at the prominent firm Jones Day are accused of making unauthorized accesses to the password-protected web site of an opposing expert witness. Grimaldi writes,
W. Kelly Stewart, of Jones Day’s Dallas office, testified last month that he entered Egilman’s site after Jones Day attempted and failed to purchase access online. Then, after getting the pass code from co-counsel Behr, who had guessed it, Stewart entered the Web site, Stewart testified. The material gathered was used to discredit Egilman as an expert witness in a high-profile trial.
It remains to be seen whether a court will consider the conduct illegal. Computer law specialist Marc J. Zwillinger of Kirkland & Ellis said guessing a password, getting in and getting information is a technical violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
[link credit: GrepLaw]
