oct 12, 2012 - WASHINGTON BUSINESS JOURNAL ELAINE CHARLSON BREDEHOFT Defense lawyer removed in DynCorp’s theft suit

Description:

The Falls Church defense contractor asked a judge to bar a lawyer from representing a former DynCorp employee accused of stealing trade secrets. The judge agreed, throwing Elaine Charlson Bredehoft, a partner in Charlson Bredehoft Cohen Brown & Sakata PC, off of the case.

Why?

It depends on whom you ask. In the ruling, the judge did not make any formal finding of fact, deciding only that enough conflicts had emerged to require another lawyer.
DynCorp accused Bredehoft of directing a staffer to destroy the only proof showing who had accessed the trade secrets that her client, Jane Flowers, is accused of taking shortly before being fired in January 2011.

Also, DynCorp said it planned to call Bredehoft as a witness in the case, undermining her role as an advocate.

“The destruction of evidence is a serious deal,” said DynCorp attorney Stephen Robinson, a partner at McGuire Woods LLC. “Obviously it goes to the integrity of the judicial system.”

But Bredehoft said DynCorp and Robinson wanted her removed from the case because they are afraid to face her in court again, calling the allegations of evidence destruction “scorched earth litigation.”

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