It looks like Fox Rothschild is out of the porn game. You might remember that the Biglaw firm got a lot of attention for their representation of the extremely litigious porn studio, Strike 3 Holdings — they’d filed hundreds of copyright infringement cases on behalf of that client.
The cases, largely filed against John Doe downloaders as part of what’s been described as a file-and-settle strategy, were blasted by judges across the country. U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth of the District of Columbia said Strike 3 “treats this court not as a citadel of justice, but as an ATM.” In California, another judge ordered sanctions for missing deadlines in numerous copyright cases calling it “willful disobedience” of the court.
But all those porn copyright cases at Fox Rothschild were under the direction of a single partner, Lincoln Bandlow. Apparently when he left the firm early this year, he took all that attention-grabbing work with him. As reported by Law360, Fox Rothschild the amount of new copyright cases they’re filing is down, way down:
After filing 320 new copyright cases in the first quarter of 2019 — and an eye-popping 1,667 such lawsuits over the course of 2018 — attorneys from Fox Rothschild filed just a single copyright case in the second quarter, according to data compiled by Lex Machina.
Of course that means the firm is no longer the most litigious copyright firm. Though Fox Rothschild hasn’t publicly commented on Bandlow’s departure, my guess is they aren’t sad to leave such notorious cases in their rearview mirror.
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).