Tom Berner – No sooner was the world learning of the tragic death of sporting legend Kobe Bryant when the LA Times ask the question no-one was requesting to be answered: ‘What happened to Kobe Bryant’s sex assault case?
Bryant’s death in a helicopter crash created headlines everywhere. What happened in mid 2003 did something similar when the Lakers star was charged over an alleged rape of a desk clerk working in the Rocky Mountains town of Edwards, Colo.
The trial moved slowly with a not guilty plea and a weakened resolve from the accuser who added the libel attorney Lin Wood to her team. Wood advised that a trial may not end well for her and after a mock trial prior to jury selection did not go well for her.
In addition, there was the repeated publication of her name and the emailing to media outlets of a closed hearing relating to DNA evidence.
The case took 14 months before it was resolved with the accuser deciding not to proceed and the prosecution of Bryant was stopped.A civil suit brought by the accuser in August 2004 was settled out of court on March 2, 2005.
Kobe Bryant had retained one of Colorado’s leading criminal and white collar attorneys in Hal Haddon of Haddon Morgan Forman.
As LawFuel reported in 2006 “It was as though they (the charges) had never been lodged – everything swept away but the messy recriminations and the second-guessing that are likely to haunt the district attorney’s offices in Eagle County, Colo., for years to come.”
But the Kobe Bryant headlines today are immeasurably more sad.
Recent Posts on LawFuel
- What Does the KPMG Scandal Means for Law Firms and Internal Investigations
- Kennedy’s Report 12th Year of Growth As The Firm Moves Towards Its $1 Billion Target
- The OpenAI Defense: Inside the Wachtell Trial Team That Just Beat Elon MuskWhile Elon Musk’s legal team tried to transform a federal courtroom in Oakland, California into an existential debate about the fate of human civilization and a “stolen charity,” Sam Altman’s defenders quietly built a procedural guillotine. A unanimous nine-member federal advisory jury took less than two hours to reject all of Musk’s claims against OpenAI, CEO Sam Altman, and President Greg Brockman, which presumably was both surprising and disappointing for the multi-billionaire. U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers immediately adopted the verdict from the bench, dismissing the case in full. The same statute-of-limitations finding wiped out Musk’s aiding-and-abetting claim against Microsoft, an early backer of OpenAI’s for-profit arm. Log in to the the lawyer profiles . . .
- The $8 Billion Fight That Shows Why Litigation Is Still the City’s Ultimate Blood SportA monster battle is unfolding in the sprawling claim against audit powerhouse PwC, born from the spectacular implosion of Chinese property behemoth China Evergrande, the most indebted property group in the world. Senior silks like Richard Handyside KC, the Fountain Court Chambers’ Head, are facing off against those from 3 Verulam Buildings (3VB) where Adrian Beltrami KC represents the liquidators as they battle over allegations of negligence and misrepresentation in the $8.4 billion battle. The numbers are eye-watering, even by City standards. Evergrande’s liquidators (led by Alvarez & Marsal’s Edward Middleton and Tiffany Wong) are pursuing 57 billion yuan (roughly $8.4 billion) in damages from PwC International, PwC Hong Kong, and PwC’s mainland China arm. They allege serious audit negligence and misrepresentation in the years leading up to Evergrande’s historic collapse, a King-sized property failure in a long list of major property failures. Log in to read more . . .
- Paul Weiss Loses Two More Litigation Partners As Rivals Keep Picking Off Its Bench
- Panel Games: Revolut’s New Legal Model is a Quarterly Hunger Games for Big LawIf you’re a partner at a Magic Circle firm currently leaning back in your Herman Miller chair, comforted by the warmth of a three-year panel appointment, you might want to sit up. The fintech disruptor that refuses to play by the rules is, predictably, about to break yours. Revolut, the neobank recently valued at a staggering $45 billion following a secondary share sale (with some internal projections whispering closer to $75 billion), is officially binning the traditional legal panel model. In its place comes “Revolut Partners,” a system designed to treat law firms less like venerable institutions and more like high-performance software vendors. Log in to read more . .
- The Happiest Lawyers In America Work At These Firms — And The Race For #1 Is Now A Photo FinishVault’s 2026-2027 rankings reveal O’Melveny still leads on satisfaction by a hair, Morgan Lewis took the overall crown, and Ropes & Gray jumped 36 spots. Vault just dropped its 2026-2027 Best Law Firms to Work For rankings, and for anyone watching BigLaw’s talent map, the satisfaction data is the most useful slice on the platter. It tells you, in cold associate-survey numbers, where lawyers are actually happy versus merely well-paid — and right now those two things are diverging at the top end of the market in interesting ways. Log in to see who won the industry record . .
- How a Box of Hong Kong Cupcakes Triggered a $36m Law Partner MeltdownQuick question: “If a star rainmaker built ‘their’ office, do they get to secretly take it with them – or does the partnership own everything they touch?” When the Australian Financial Review recently devoted a major feature to “the $36 million box of Hong Kong cupcakes”, it wasn’t really about baked goods – it was about how a high‑performing litigation boutique managed to blow itself up in plain sight. Log in to see what happened . . .
