Opposing lawyers in a three-year-old lawsuit were ordered by the court to go stuff themselves — at a good restaurant.
Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Pendleton Gaines mandated the meal in a minute entry filed July 21.
He had in mind a meeting of the minds. So he ordered the lawyers to sit down, eat and hash out a lot of pre-trial issues.
“During lunch,” Judge Gaines wrote, “counsel will confer regarding disputes identified in plaintiff’s motion to strike defendant’s discovery motion and defendant’s motion to quash, for protective order and for commission authorizing out-of-state depositions.”
Which begs the question: What’s for dessert?
Judge Gaines does not say. But his order cited literary references to the benefits of lunch and good conversation.
“John Dryden referred to ‘Sweet discourse, the banquet of the mind,’” Judge Gaines wrote.
The discourse in question, while professional, has not always been sweet. The case goes back to October 2003, when Physicians Choice of Arizona sued Mickey Miller, a former employee, in an intellectual-property dispute.
Both sides claim ownership in skin-treatment patents, said Glenn Ostlund, the defendant’s attorney. Since the suit was filed, some 120 entries have been logged in the court’s calendar, representing motions, memos, court orders and myriad other legal actions. That’s a lot of lawyer time and a lot of money, and the judge was apparently willing to try something new to get both sides off the dime.
Something of a novelty, the minute entry — a public record — has been making the rounds on the Internet.
David Selden, attorney for Physicians Choice, said people in Idaho have sent him copies.
The idea for the lunch came first came from Mr. Selden himself.
He filed a motion to compel lunch, he said, after Mr. Ostlund declined earlier invitations.
In a phone message and an interview, Mr. Selden said he believed that some issues could best be resolved face-to-face. E-mails and voicemails don’t have the spontaneity to provide the needed give-and-take, he suggested.
“So I invited the other attorneys to meet with me… over lunch, and had extended that invitation to them on several occasions,” Mr. Selden said.
In a phone interview, Mr. Ostlund said he had no objection to lunch — in principle.
But he said he had been waiting for Mr. Selden to produce documents relevant to the case.
He said he told Mr. Selden and his associates: “I’d be glad to have lunch with them whenever we had something to talk about.”
Mr. Selden said both sides had documents the other side wanted to see.
Even as he agreed to lunch, however, Mr. Ostlund got a mild rebuke from the court for suggesting Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse.
“Everyone knows that Ruth’s Chris, while open for dinner, is not open for lunch,” Judge Gaines said in a footnote.
Well, not everybody.
“I didn’t know that, and it’s just down the street from our office,” Mr. Ostlund said.
Mr. Selden said he didn’t know that either.
But the judge, who knows his eateries, listed a number of upscale restaurants where lawyers might sit down to lunch and make nice. He offered up Christopher’s, Vincent’s, Morton’s, Donovan’s, Bistro 24 — and other places where a client’s money is no object.
“Counsel may select their own venue or, if unable to agree, shall select from this list in order,” Judge Gaines wrote.
Then he added: “Each side will pay for own share of the food and drink.”
In a footnote, he added: “Alcoholic beverages may be consumed, but at the personal expense of the consumer.”
Mr. Gaines set an Aug. 18 deadline for said lunch.
“The time shall be noon during a normal business day,” he said.
As it turns out, by the time Mr. Gaines filed his minute entry, the lawyers had seen the writing on the docket. By then, they had already lunched, Mr. Ostlund said.
Mr. Selden had the food catered into the conference room of his law firm, Stinson Morrison Hecker.
“It was a very nice lunch,” Mr. Ostlund said.
“It was a restaurant-quality meal,” Mr. Selden added.
Mr. Selden picked up the tab, which covered meals for up to seven lawyers — two partners and five associates. He couldn’t say if the firm would pass the cost onto the client, Physicians Choice.
“Normally, we do not bill meals to a client.” But, he added, it was a working lunch.
Mr. Ostlund agreed it was productive. They reached an understanding on some discovery matters, though others remain outstanding.
More lunches might be in order.