Jump to full article: Law.com, 2007-09-05
Author: Claire Duffett Law Technology News
Intro: Senior counsel Sharon Eubanks, a 22-year veteran attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice, quit her job on the cusp of the most significant legal victory of her career. She left in December 2005, just eight months before a judge would decide the huge tobacco case she had devoted six years to prosecuting.
She was not the only lawyer to leave a Justice post abruptly, citing interference from politicians in the Bush administration. Echoes of Eubanks' allegations reverberated in this year's scandal involving accusations that Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez and his top deputies fired nine U.S. attorneys for failing to follow the administration's political line. Gonzales has apologized for the manner in which the attorneys were fired, but insists that "nothing improper occurred," according to CNN.
Eubanks' decision to leave such a high-profile case could not have been easy. She led the largest civil racketeering and conspiracy case in U.S. history: United States of America v. Philip Morris Inc. et al. (Civil No. 99-CV-02496).
The massive litigation included three years of discovery and trial preparations. Both parties processed millions of documents and generated thousands of exhibits, including complex animations. . . .
Animation was a critical component of Justice's presentation. For the five months leading up to trial, Eubanks, Brody, and several of their expert witnesses worked to create exhibits on smoking, basic respiration and other matters with Denver-based trial exhibits company Z-Axis, led by CEO Alan Triebitz.
Perhaps the most compelling of the animations was the depiction of a smoker. . . .
Defense attorney Dan Webb says the courtroom technology helped keep a 116-day trial fresh and interesting. "Very little time was spent during the course of [trial] where a witness wasn't being examined about an exhibit or demonstrative, being confronted with prior testimony, or being asked to pay attention to a diagram or easel as the examining attorney wrote on it."
Justice and tobacco companies shared most of the courtroom equipment and split the cost, explains Jamey Johnson, senior managing director, FTI Consulting Inc., who oversaw the trial technology for the defense. The total shared equipment cost for the duration of trial was approximately $70,000, according to another trial participant who asked not to be named..
The litigation services division of CACI International Inc. managed the Justice Department's courtroom technology. . . .
Today, Eubanks, 51, lives just outside Washington, D.C., in McLean, Va. Of course, she's working on a book about her experience at the Department of Justice.
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