Per ESPN, UM has retained Williams & Connolly

B1G will probably not announce JH suspension until late Friday. I hope they have a judge ready order a stay and JH can coach on Saturday!

Let me see your war face!  

- - Gunnery Sergeant Hartman

Go Blue.   

They are a top national firm and are very politically connected.  They represented Clinton and Vernon Jordan back in the impeachment/Lewinsky matter.  

As someone that doesn't know law firms, can someone explain how good they are in football terms?

what kind of $ are in the big ten coffers? do they really want to spend millions to defend a ridiculous onerous suspension/penalty?

we all know UM has plenty of loot

The fact that we retained lawyers now makes it pretty clear that they're trying to take us down badly in so.e way and we already know this.

The B-10 Commish, Petitti better wake up and tell the rest of these cry-baby ADs and President that there will be a lot of discovery that will have to be disclosed. In other words, the juice isn't worth the squeeze (as Sam Webb would say).

Thanks to Santa Ono for being resolute and 100% behind Harbaugh on this messy matter.

If life gives you lemons.... if they somehow enforce Harbaugh banned for the OSU game, the team is so cohesive and will win anyway, partly for him...and how sweet would THAT be...

Trading Places was settled w $1. 
I think we would have taken a $1 fine earlier, but now there needs to be remorse from pettiti and acknowledgment of others wrongdoing. 

If there's ever a time to spend big money and resources to fight this stuff in courts, it is now. The whole sport is in the middle of a huge transition, and quite frankly it's a bit of a Wild West scenario out there.

Glad UM got the message:  “If you’re summoned to a fight, bring 1987 Mike Tyson.”

Was hoping for Salitieri, Poore, Nash, De Brutus & Short, but this will do I guess. 

BIG10:

As long as we are talking about legal representation:

The Chief Legal Officer and General Counsel of the Big 10 has been in that position for less than 2 years and spent the previous 15 years at the University of Oklahoma.

Prior to that, he worked with a national firm for a bit (Morgan & Lewis).

I assume the Big 10 has a major national firm representing it in this and other matters.  The legal armies involved in this are likely fairly evenly stacked.  

Having gone through a deposition myself in a case, I can personally tell you:

A) it is no fun...

B) you are amazed at the amount of emails / text messages / reports you compile over a period if time

C) that you have to explain in great detail the meaning of an email sent to person X (who would also then be subject to a deposition) 3 years ago and provide context to it.

Now, we are talking about a huge highly respected law firm with a deep pocket client, the depths they could go into from the discovery portion would be astounding....

If we had a dead-loser case, the B1G wouldn't be hesitating to take action or be asking us to self-enforce.  I think the B1G is afraid to defend itself if we push back.

I agree the case would be likely to be fought in a federal court but we would be the most likely party to initiate the litigation and I think we would be best off filing the case in Washtenaw County Circuit Court where the judge is likely to be local.

This is what is known as “bet the company” litigation.  One is looking for a firm with an impeccable reputation, deep resources in terms lawyers and back office support persons and nationally recognized expertise in the practice area.  (No learning curve is permitted.). This firm seems to fit the bill.  

Can they preemptively retain the local office of the best national firms in Ohio, Jersey and Indiana so the other schools don’t have access? 

Fight em tooth and nail!!

Rich organizations hire expensive lawyers. Expensive lawyers become expensive lawyers by working for rich organizations who want to pay them. I wouldn’t read anything more into this. 

Exactly who I would have hired. If you want a wartime consigliere, W&C is it.

Your move, Tony. Shall we play a game?

On a somewhat unrelated note, did anyone see Pete Finebaum’s ridiculous rant on First Take? What an absolute tool. Just two weeks ago he was defending Harbaugh, and now he’s acting like Michigan put poison in the opponents Gatorade. Is this real life? 
 

Harbaugh should sue that asshat for defamation while they are at it. I like to shy away from conspiracies, but there’s no way someone at eSECpn didn’t tell him to change his opinions on it and generate more moral outrage. Pathetic 

Is this lawfirm also good at getting out of conference contracts?