DLA Piper Drops Paul Ceglia As Client Against Facebook
This is the third time that a law firm representing Paul Ceglia's claim to half of Facebook has dropped him as a client, and his newest attorney has a checkered past.
Facebook’s legal team never has a dull moment, especially when it comes to defending against bogus lawsuits. Today’s bit of entertainment: The attorneys who had lent credibility to Paul Ceglia’s suit claiming half ownership of the social network have dropped him as a client.
Ceglia has retained San Diego sole practitioner Jeffery Lake, according to court papers filed in Buffalo — we’ve embedded a copy of the filing beneath this post.
This is actually the third time Ceglia’s had to find new representation after attorneys dropped his case — the former New York attorney Dennis Vaco had represented Ceglia after Terrence Connors withdrew from the case.
And the latest law firm to “fire” Ceglia, DLA Piper, apparently did so when a particular filing was due — he was supposed to file another brief related to Facebook’s motion for expedited discovery, ahead of this Thursday’s oral hearing on the matter.
While we don’t know why this law firm nor any of the others dropped the case, the timing of the current change implies that something was very wrong with whatever the plaintiff supplied the attorneys to comply with the deadline.
Meanwhile, Ceglia’s current attorney, Jeffrey Lake, has an interesting history. He currently represents almost 200 different medical marijuana providers in litigation with government entities. And prior clients in loan modification lawsuits have complained about the attorney’s representation.
That latter bit of information seems to jibe with Ceglia’s reputation as a forgerer and fraudster, something that Facebook’s legal team plans to emphasize in its case.
Readers, what do you think about the latest turn of events for Paul Ceglia?
