LA Entertainment Lawyer Bryan Freedman's Wacky Behavior in Vin Diesel case

[Anonymous]

I have been following attorney Bryan Freedman's antics over the last few months because he is currently representing Justin Baldoni of the dcum megathread, where he achieved good PR related results early for Baldoni in getting public opinion behind him, but more recently has experienced loss after loss (his entire affirmative case got dismissed, mostly with prejudice; he failed to file an amendment for the remaining claims, etc).

Freedman is well known as an entertainment lawyer to the stars. When you go to his firm's website, it boasts in all caps: "YOU CAME HERE BECAUSE YOU HAVE A CRISIS. RELAX. WE'LL TAKE CARE OF IT." https://lftcllp.com/

Haha. Well, maybe not so much, because recently Bryan Freedman has been going through some things. He is currently representing actor Vin Diesel in a case where Diesel's former assistant has brought a harassment/assault case against Diesel, alleging that Diesel pushed her against a wall, would not release her, and essentially mast******* while holding her captive. Then after the encounter was over, he allegedly fired her. This case has been proceeding for a while and the last part of Vin Diesel's deposition was supposed to occur last week after a month of date changes and reschedulings. At the last minute, Freedman and his co-counsel from the Freedman firm, Sean Hardy, objected to and cancelled Vin Diesel's deposition, with no real explanation and leaving Hale holding the bag for costs, etc.

Upon hearing about this unexpected change, Hale asked for a meet and confer with Freedman and Hardy at another deposition they were all attending the next day, to figure out what had happened and the way forward. This is how on Tuesday, June 23rd, the day Freedman was originally scheduled to take Blake Lively's deposition, Freedman wound up coming close to but not quite assaulting opposing counsel Matthew Hale, while also cursing him out. Matthew Hale ultimately filed a declaration with the court, describing the whole encounter as follows:



I am a lawyer and this kind of language and behavior sounds totally bizarro to me. While I have seen attorneys take fim, hard line positions during depositions to protect their clients above all, I have never seen a lawyer address opposing counsel with foul language like this, or seen anything close to a fake-out punch. Freedman has several high profile cases going on right now besides Baldoni and Vin Diesel.

My understanding is that this thread should be used to comment on Friedman's behavior in the Vin Diesel case, but that it's still appropriate to comment about his behavior in the Baldoni case in the Baldoni thread.

I will post more facts about this case in the comments below because this is already too long, sorry. But, isn't this bananas behavior? The only times I have heard of a lawyer behaving this way was shortly before they got busted for fraud or other illegal behavior.

[Anonymous]

I hope OP, serious attorney, creates another dozen threads on these most important improprieties.

[Anonymous]

Other facts about the Vin Diesel case:

* The Declaration cited above by atty Matthew Hale was submitted to the LA County court on Thursday, June 26 in advance of a Friday hearing on the issue.

* This Vin Diesel case is scheduled for trial in August, and Vin Diesel was supposed to have the rest of his deposition taken last week by Hale; however Hale was informed that wouldn't be happening due to largely spurious objections by Vin Diesel and Diesel's last minute unavailability, even though hotel accommodations and prep had been arranged in advance. (The excuses included that Diesel has a medical condition, needs to have security with him at all times, and could not conduct his deposition on the 30th floor of an office building that he might need to leave on short notice and thus go down 30 floors to an underground parking garage.) In general, Freedman's firm wants to push the date of Vin Diesel's trial to November because Freedman is scheduled to be handling another (older) trial in July as well as a (older than this case) mediation. Freedman's firm has also filed a motion for summary judgement in the Vin Diesel trial and would like that decided on before trial starts.

* Hale's declaration, which requests $7K in fees and sanctions and fees from Freedman for his unprofessional behavior related to the deposition also notes, in a footnote, that "To the extent it solves any of Defendant's concerns [re release of information about Vin Diesel's "sexual history" etc], it may be prudent to appoint a discovery referee at Mr. Freedman's expense to ensure (1) professional conduct at further in person depositions and meet and confers and (2) to make decisions regarding the appropriateness of the subject matter of the questions during the deposition in real time." So Hale is calling Freedman's future behavior into question here as well and raising the question of whether he can be trusted to behave professionally in the litigation setting. No idea what the judge made of this.

* Matthew Hale has been a lawyer for 10 years, graduated from U of California law school and, before that, Harvard. He won a $5M verdict against UPS 2 years ago. He's the Assistant Director of Litigation at plaintiffs' firm Greenberg Gross and charges nearly $1K/hour in fees (exact amount is in his declaration). It is clear to me from his declaration that he's a serious attorney who is not going to risk his reputation by making up ridiculous facts in a sworn statement to the court for drama or fun.

* The other lawyer from Freedman's firm, Sean Hardy, also filed a declaration on June 26 to support their motion to delay the trial. Hardy's declaration is just a normal atty declaration about all the attachments, and provides no personal account (as Hale's does) of the altercation between Hale and Freedman. Hardy says nothing defending Freedman's behavior or discussing any of this.

* On Friday, June 27, Judge Daniel Crowley held a hearing on Defendant's motion to continue the trial until November, and Plaintiff's motion to compel the deposition. Freedman and Hardy (from Freedman's firm) and Hale attended and presented oral arguments. The court's order is terse but Crowley ruled that both of these matters were to be continued before him next week, on Tuesday, at the same time, 8:30 am. "The Court advises counsel to come with a list of things that are needed from each other. The Court further orders the parties to meet and confer in the interim."

I pulled several docs from the LA county website to gather the information noted above. They are available on the following website if you want to take a peek, these docs include:

* Judge Crowley's Friday order;
* Matthew Hale's Motion to Compel Vin Diesel's Deposition and to collect sanctions/fees from Freedman;
* Matthew Hale's Declaration in connection with same (I excerpted some of the exhibits here b/c it was too long to post);
* Sean Hardy's Motion to Continue to Trial Date and Hardy's declaration re same.

Filings available here: https://vindieselcasefilings.tiiny.site

[Anonymous]

Try Reddit, you might find more takers there

[Anonymous]

Freedman is an amoral attack dog. He "gets good results" by bullying others and spreading vicious lies. Not a person you should look up to, OP. Some lawyers are irretrievably scum, even though they win some cases and become rich and notorious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Freedman is an amoral attack dog. He "gets good results" by bullying others and spreading vicious lies. Not a person you should look up to, OP. Some lawyers are irretrievably scum, even though they win some cases and become rich and notorious.

I'm OP and I agree with this 100 percent, honestly. I have worked with and against some attorneys that remind me of Freedman (who focus more on putting sly personal insults in their pleadings than making their pleadings legally sufficient, and who seem to have personal vendettas against the attorneys who oppose them in a case) and these have been some of the worst experiences of my career.

Freedman seems like he is really good at bullying other attorneys to settle their cases, but that he is sort of terrible at writing legally sufficient pleadings that can survive challenges like motions to dismiss as opposed to pleadings that just tease people with salacious details that don't actually make out viable legal claims.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have been following attorney Bryan Freedman's antics over the last few months because he is currently representing Justin Baldoni of the dcum megathread, where he achieved good PR related results early for Baldoni in getting public opinion behind him, but more recently has experienced loss after loss (his entire affirmative case got dismissed, mostly with prejudice; he failed to file an amendment for the remaining claims, etc).

Freedman is well known as an entertainment lawyer to the stars. When you go to his firm's website, it boasts in all caps: "YOU CAME HERE BECAUSE YOU HAVE A CRISIS. RELAX. WE'LL TAKE CARE OF IT." https://lftcllp.com/

Haha. Well, maybe not so much, because recently Bryan Freedman has been going through some things. He is currently representing actor Vin Diesel in a case where Diesel's former assistant has brought a harassment/assault case against Diesel, alleging that Diesel pushed her against a wall, would not release her, and essentially mast******* while holding her captive. Then after the encounter was over, he allegedly fired her. This case has been proceeding for a while and the last part of Vin Diesel's deposition was supposed to occur last week after a month of date changes and reschedulings. At the last minute, Freedman and his co-counsel from the Freedman firm, Sean Hardy, objected to and cancelled Vin Diesel's deposition, with no real explanation and leaving Hale holding the bag for costs, etc.

Upon hearing about this unexpected change, Hale asked for a meet and confer with Freedman and Hardy at another deposition they were all attending the next day, to figure out what had happened and the way forward. This is how on Tuesday, June 23rd, the day Freedman was originally scheduled to take Blake Lively's deposition, Freedman wound up coming close to but not quite assaulting opposing counsel Matthew Hale, while also cursing him out. Matthew Hale ultimately filed a declaration with the court, describing the whole encounter as follows:



I am a lawyer and this kind of language and behavior sounds totally bizarro to me. While I have seen attorneys take fim, hard line positions during depositions to protect their clients above all, I have never seen a lawyer address opposing counsel with foul language like this, or seen anything close to a fake-out punch. Freedman has several high profile cases going on right now besides Baldoni and Vin Diesel.

My understanding is that this thread should be used to comment on Friedman's behavior in the Vin Diesel case, but that it's still appropriate to comment about his behavior in the Baldoni case in the Baldoni thread.

I will post more facts about this case in the comments below because this is already too long, sorry. But, isn't this bananas behavior? The only times I have heard of a lawyer behaving this way was shortly before they got busted for fraud or other illegal behavior.

I think your last sentence likely describes what is going on.

[Anonymous]

Bryan Freedman has an 8:30am (California time) hearing in this Vin Diesel case tomorrow where the judge may decide whether Freedman needs to pay sanctions for his behavior and/or whether freedman needs to pay for a discovery referee to ensure that all his future deposition and meet and confer behavior is professional. Freedman has a lot going on this week so I’m sure this impromptu hearing was not convenient.

I wonder how Vin Diesel feels about Freedman’s representation since Dieswl’s name has been in the press a lot recently, publicizing his harassment charge, due purely to the actions of his defense counsel.

[Anonymous]

It sounds like Freeman is on drugs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have been following attorney Bryan Freedman's antics over the last few months because he is currently representing Justin Baldoni of the dcum megathread, where he achieved good PR related results early for Baldoni in getting public opinion behind him, but more recently has experienced loss after loss (his entire affirmative case got dismissed, mostly with prejudice; he failed to file an amendment for the remaining claims, etc).

Freedman is well known as an entertainment lawyer to the stars. When you go to his firm's website, it boasts in all caps: "YOU CAME HERE BECAUSE YOU HAVE A CRISIS. RELAX. WE'LL TAKE CARE OF IT." https://lftcllp.com/

Haha. Well, maybe not so much, because recently Bryan Freedman has been going through some things. He is currently representing actor Vin Diesel in a case where Diesel's former assistant has brought a harassment/assault case against Diesel, alleging that Diesel pushed her against a wall, would not release her, and essentially mast******* while holding her captive. Then after the encounter was over, he allegedly fired her. This case has been proceeding for a while and the last part of Vin Diesel's deposition was supposed to occur last week after a month of date changes and reschedulings. At the last minute, Freedman and his co-counsel from the Freedman firm, Sean Hardy, objected to and cancelled Vin Diesel's deposition, with no real explanation and leaving Hale holding the bag for costs, etc.

Upon hearing about this unexpected change, Hale asked for a meet and confer with Freedman and Hardy at another deposition they were all attending the next day, to figure out what had happened and the way forward. This is how on Tuesday, June 23rd, the day Freedman was originally scheduled to take Blake Lively's deposition, Freedman wound up coming close to but not quite assaulting opposing counsel Matthew Hale, while also cursing him out. Matthew Hale ultimately filed a declaration with the court, describing the whole encounter as follows:



I am a lawyer and this kind of language and behavior sounds totally bizarro to me. While I have seen attorneys take fim, hard line positions during depositions to protect their clients above all, I have never seen a lawyer address opposing counsel with foul language like this, or seen anything close to a fake-out punch. Freedman has several high profile cases going on right now besides Baldoni and Vin Diesel.

My understanding is that this thread should be used to comment on Friedman's behavior in the Vin Diesel case, but that it's still appropriate to comment about his behavior in the Baldoni case in the Baldoni thread.

I will post more facts about this case in the comments below because this is already too long, sorry. But, isn't this bananas behavior? The only times I have heard of a lawyer behaving this way was shortly before they got busted for fraud or other illegal behavior.

You sound like you are working for Ryan and Blake and attempting to manipulate. Try again.

[Anonymous]

If anyone is wondering why many people think Freeman is not a good person, this is worth reading: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/bryan-freedman-lawyer-sexual-assault-settlement-1234638354/

[Anonymous]

I think he has done a great job for Justin. Now Ryan go to sleep and stop trying to get people from DC to support you. We won’t.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think he has done a great job for Justin. Now Ryan go to sleep and stop trying to get people from DC to support you. We won’t.

You can take off the tinfoil. Not everything is a conspiracy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think he has done a great job for Justin. Now Ryan go to sleep and stop trying to get people from DC to support you. We won’t.

He had f’d up the case. He is a bad lawyer.

[Anonymous]

I’m OP and the last time I posted in here was hours ago about the hearing.

Good job sounding bitter and paranoid, though and ordering people around like they are your minions, ha. Everyone please bow to the Queen Karen of DCUM!

I don’t understand why people still support Freedman. His legal filings don’t win cases and he is all bluster with nothing to back it up. He is good at bullying opponents into settling, but otherwise he seems ineffective and frankly erratic and like a PP said, maybe like he is abusing some substance. I hope he gets some comeuppance tomorrow.