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Why federal judge fined Alston & Bird $10K for conducting jury research on LinkedIn
October 30, 2025, 11:58 am CDT
Because LinkedIn sends users notice when someone views their profile, a federal judge has fined Alston & Bird, $10,000, regarding a jury consultant investigator using the platform while conducting voir dire. (Image from Shutterstock)
U.S. District Judge William H. Orrick has fined Alston & Bird $10,000 for violating his standing order that bars lawyers from researching potential jurors by looking at their LinkedIn pages.
The reason for the order: LinkedIn sends notifications to users when someone has viewed their profile, and Orrick considers that to be a prohibited juror contact before trial.
Orrick, a judge in the Northern District of California, imposed the fine in an Oct. 28 order, Law360 reports.
“To my mind, information that a person discloses in a publicly available manner is fair game for lawyers preparing for voir dire,” Orrick wrote. “Lawyers have an ethical duty not to contact prospective jurors, however, so they must be careful not to inadvertently use an investigative technique that notifies a juror that their information is being reviewed.”
When Alston & Bird hired a jury consultant in a patent infringement case against its client GoPro, the law firm failed to tell the consultant about the standing order. The consultant hired an investigator who used LinkedIn for research as well as other publicly available information.
When a lawyer at Alston & Bird realized the standing order had been violated, she “did the responsible thing,” Orrick said. She notified Orrick and shared the information she received with opposing counsel. She did not give the information to the lawyer at her law firm conducting voir dire.
Orrick let the trial proceed but fined Alston & Bird, saying he remains convinced that his standing order is appropriate.
GoPro was ordered to pay $8.2 million in damages in the infringement suit filed by Contour IP Holding, Law360 reports. The amount is far less than the $174 million sought by Contour.
A spokesperson for Alston & Bird did not immediately respond to the ABA Journal’s request for comment.
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