Q: IF I TOLD YOU THAT THERE WERE LARGE MEDIA ORGANIZATIONS WHO HAD THESE
DOCUMENTS BEFORE YOU...AND DIDN'T PUBLISH THEM...WHAT WOULD YOUR COMMENT
BE?
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Attorney who represented the University of California in their May 1995 case against Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corporation.
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Patti: I understand from reading stories about it in the newspapers that
there has been some fear of tangling with the tobacco companies, when there may
be legal liability involved. All I can say is that at the university we felt
we really didn't have a choice--that it was part of our mission to get this
kind of information out and to make it available, and I think it is regrettable
if media organizations don't feel the same way.
Q: WHAT WAS THE TENOR OF THE COURT CASE. HOW DID YOU FEEL ABOUT ARGUING
THIS CASE?
Patti: The argument itself, I think it became fairly clear that the
court was much more sympathetic to our position than to Brown &
Williamson's. And so I felt confident in the argument that the right result
would come out of it. I felt our arguments were better, and ultimately that
proved to be the case.
Q: GIVE ME SOME SENSE OF HOW YOU FELT WHEN YOU WERE ARGUING AGAINST A FORMER
FEDERAL COURT JUDGE...
Patti: That's right.
Q: ...WITH A PHALANX OF LEGAL HELP. GIVE ME SOME SENSE OF HOW YOU FELT
GOING INTO THAT COURTROOM.
Patti: Well, I felt pretty good about it actually. It's the kind of
case, and the kind of issue, that lawyers love to have, and especially lawyers
that are representing an institution like the University of California. It's
the reason that you have a job like this. So I felt great in the argument. It
was one of the most enjoyable things that I've been able to do as a lawyer.
Q: SO YOU VIEW IT AS ONE OF YOUR GREAT MOMENTS SO FAR?
Patti: Well, I guess so. It was certainly the thing that I've done
that has had the most press attention. I've never been in court with the cameras
on me before, and that was exciting. It was just a lot of fun.
Q: AND WHEN THE VERDICT CAME DOWN?
Patti: That was very rewarding, because the judge really saw the case
the way that we saw it. It was clear that he thought that this was an
important first amendment issue, that these documents were very important and
had extreme significance for scholarly research and public policy, and it was,
it felt good to see that the judge had really understood the issues and decided
the case the right way.
Q: WHAT ABOUT THE FACT THAT THERE WAS A LAWSUIT GOING ON, OSTENSIBLY, WORTH
15 BILLION DOLLARS? DID THAT PLAY ANY PART IN THE BACKGROUND?
Patti: It really did. And maybe we were naive, but we didn't think
about that. We were really just thinking about, should we be attempting to
publish these documents or not? And we made the decision that we should, and
perhaps naively, we didn't think about the consequences and we just went
forward.
Q: SO THE FACT THAT YOU DID STAND UP TO THEM, CAN YOU GIVE ME YOUR FINAL
ASSESSMENT ON IT?
Patti: Well, I think that it demonstrated that the tobacco companies had
as much to lose from this kind of litigation as the people that they sue. The
fact that the university refused to give in and litigated this case really made
the lawsuit backfire against Brown & Williamson because it brought a lot
of attention to these documents. As a result of that attention, the university
put the documents on the internet, and they were more available than they would
have been, in all probability, had Brown & Williamson never brought the
lawsuit.
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