>...there are perfectly valid ethical questions about Thiel's involvement and motivations in this whole debacle.

Your post basically reads like a law school ethics question/answer. You did a great job issue spotting. Law being one of the most highly regulated industries there are rules on point, so I can answer some of your questions.

Here is how the Florida Rule of Professional Conduct reads "Rule 4-5.4(d): Exercise of Independent Professional Judgment. A lawyer shall not permit a person who recommends, employs, or pays the lawyer to render legal services for another to direct or regulate the lawyer's professional judgment in rendering such legal services."

In other words, under the rules Bollea is the Client. As such has full decision making power with the attorney-client relationship. Not only would funny business result in the disbarment of the lawyer, there are also a lot of practicalities to law that prevent the undue influence on the lawyer.

For example if Bollea wants to settle its not like Thiel could direct the firm to trial for a chance at a bigger judgment over Bollea's wishes, there would be record and it would be grounds for a malpractice claim and disbarment. Lawyer's can't even withhold settlement offers from clients, without there being a record, and again grounds for malpractice and disbarment. Your issue about dropping the claim against the interest of Bollea's ability to collect is interesting, but again if it can be shown Bollea suffered damage (lost ability to collect full judgment through insurance) because the lawyers breached their duty to the client that is grounds for malpractice.

Right, I'm not saying "this is cut and dried -wrong-" but that it does raise what I feel are valid questions about the influences, both conscious and subconscious that surround this whole situation.

Like you say, Thiel could not direct the firm to change strategy, but on the other hand (and I realize that this may come across as an accusation where one isn't intended), no doubt Thiel is talking to the law firm, and directing multiple people to this particular firm, and given that he has been vocal about his goals, it's also possible that such things creep in to decision making processes.

Bollea and Thiel's interests may also be perfectly aligned.

>but that it does raise what I feel are valid questions..

I totally agree, and the Bars that regulate lawyers agree. Not just valid, but serious enough issues for the Bars to create Rules to try to guide lawyers when confronted with these exact scenarios. Notwithstanding the Rules and severe punishments, they can still be broken, and as you suggest violations can be intentional and unintentional only clouding these ethical issues.

Just don't under estimate how archaic the Bars Rules are in practice. For example, the power of Admonishment wherein lawyers are dragged in front of groups of their peers to be publicly ridiculed, a record of the event is made and distributed among the community. Even if not disbarred, punishment is not only humiliating but can potentially ruin a career anyhow.

>Bollea and Thiel's interests may also be perfectly aligned.

I haven't confirmed, but I think the gist is that separate and apart from the firm's representation of Bollea, the firm represents Thiel in various unrelated legal matters. If true, coincidentally we know that at minimum Bollea and Thiel don't have adverse interests[1]. Moreover, before a firm represents a client (Bollea) they must perform a conflict check against all existing clients, which coincidentally would have included the payer, Thiel.

Funny enough I don't think such a conflict check is required of someone who pays the lawyer for another (Thiel if he wasn't a client of the firm) and such a rule would seem to make sense. Though it would be burdensome in the instance of crowdsourcing lawsuits which will probably begin to become more of a thing. It would also be a strange analysis in the criminal justice context where the tax payer is paying the judge, the prosecutor and the defense (in the instance of public defender cases), or even insurance cases where opposing parties are both insured by the same company (e.g. my insurance company is representing me and paying for my litigation, and they are also representing and paying the opposing litigation...a conflict).

[1] FL Rule: https://www.floridabar.org/divexe/rrtfb.nsf/FV/2E30A65D3638C...

What if Thiel simply pays Bollea not to settle?

FTA: "He would not say whether he had compensated any of the people, including Mr. Bollea, which could raise questions in an appeal."

It's Bollea's rights that would be violated, so he's the one to decide such. I highly doubt he will given the circumstances.

That's why I can't take seriously anyone other than him suggesting such.

Other people get to 'decide' at appeal time: I were the judge / on a jury on a case were the complainant was tactically dropping charges with the aim of bankrupting the other party rather than seeking justice, I'd probably decide against them. I find using the justice system in pursuit of revenge at the cost of actual justice rather perverse.

You are misunderstanding the system, I think. If Bollea can win the case, and that judgment would bankrupt Gawker, then under our legal system Bollea has the right to bankrupt them. He also has the right to settle with them if he finds an offer they make advantageous. But that is completely up to him.

Whatever he chooses, for whatever reasons he chooses, is justice. By definition. To be honest, if anything is a perversion of justice, it's a settlement. Because a settlement prevents a verdict from ever being reached and the legal 'truth' of the situation from ever being found.

> I find using the justice system in pursuit of revenge at the cost of actual justice rather perverse.

Its major function, crudely, is to prevent Hulk Hogan from visiting Nick Denton in character.

It isn't to prevent the pursuit of revenge. It is to prevent violence and vendetta by having a neutral third party arbitrate. The pursuit of revenge for wrongs committed is the notion and motivation behind the elaborate social institution we call justice.

No, the only person with a cause of action here is Bolea himself. Until and unless he asserts that something happened which violated his rights, the entire argument is bogus.

He is the only one who can decide that his lawyer somehow wronged him here. The question is simply not before the court. They decide the arguments presented to them, they can't simply invent one to decide. And Bolea is the only person who can make such an argument here.

Also, it's going to be hard to argue that his lawyers bungled things when he won a huge pile of money.

"Also, it's going to be hard to argue that his lawyers bungled things when he won a huge pile of money."

And then made a decision that meant that in all likelihood he will see either none of, or a tiny fraction of that money, when he could have seen nearly all or all of it by virtue of a liability insurance pay out.

That depends on the bankruptcy court. Maybe he has enough money and is happier this way? Like I said, anyone other than Bolea arguing this is full of crap. He's the only one who gets to decide what is or is not in his interests.

Until and unless Bolea says otherwise, the uninformed speculation to the contrary is simply absurd.

These are reasonable questions but there is no evidence that Terry Bollea was an unwilling participant. Obviously Thiel wasn't in it for the money but (higher potential) compensation was not necessarily the main motivation for Bollea either. He's already a wealthy man by most standards and probably more concerned about his (Terry) honor and causing his character (Hulk) to lose face because if that hurts the macho public image he's deliberately developed then he loses both future income and public presence.

Some people will find the idea of Bollea having a moral code or honour to be facetious but I'd like to remind them that people have very different definitions of what that means.

No, and that's a fair point, these are only the questions that come to my mind when reading this, certainly not "something that happened".

By all intents, though, Bollea is (at least to his own words) "near bankruptcy", due to divorce. So it seems odd that he'd also - after being awarded a large sum - which is all he'd sought before - _then_ decide to drop the claim which offered him his only real chance at seeing any noticeable part of that award.

Certainly there is more to life than money, though, as you point out, moral codes and honor.

I also am curious as to whether he would have gotten the award he did if the jury felt that it would bankrupt Gawker, rather than cause an insurance liability payout - that seems a little bit unusual.

This is an admittedly contrived example, so bear with me - there are some analogies, and some discrepancies, and this is the best I can do:

I am driving negligently. Setting aside any criminal charges that may cause me to face, I come careening through and have an "accident". Subsequent to that, your property is destroyed, perhaps as part of a chain reaction, me coming through the fence. Perhaps as a result, you're injured. You lose your livelihood, you lose your house.

You sue me, for damages related around this whole messy incident. Medical costs. Lost livelihood. The loss on your house when foreclosed, damages etc.

The jury says hey, you're absolutely right, he was negligent and we're going to award (say) $2M in damages.

Here I am, I'm a careless and reckless driver. But I do have good insurance. It has a whole bunch of third party, property, and liability coverage. So it sucks for everyone, but you have the ability to be "made whole" (as far as is reasonably possible). I on the other hand am out of business. The vehicle I drove was my truck I used for my own business. My fault, consequences of my actions, etc, etc. I'm probably done for.

Then you decide, at the last minute of the court case, to drop any claim of damages explicitly about the accident. "Nope, we don't want to pursue the damages claim directly related to the accident itself. We are still going to pursue all claims related to any of the fallout, the loss of house, livelihood, but the accident itself, we're waiving that".

This has the curious effect of 1) meaning my insurance company says "Well, sorry, pal, we no longer have an interest. You're not being sued over damages due to your accident, you're on your own", and 2) which you realized, also realistically means you have near zero chance of collecting any of the moneys awarded, because this is putting me out of business.

I would certainly be asking questions of you there, were I the judge: are you aware of the consequences of this decision? what motivated the change, certainly at this point in proceedings, and I'd be asking the jury how that would affect the award, because in most cases there is going to be -some- (not the only) element of the likelihood of payment of the award.

Using your metaphor.

So the judge could use discretion such that all the damages related to the fallout be paid. Otherwise it's a bit like being somebody in debtor's prison to pay their debts. This means the side affect of killing Gawker should be taken into account by the judge.

There are at least three confounding issues though. The first is that this guy who crashed into your house has repeatedly done the same thing to other people's houses. He's a habitual drunk who shouts mean things while shaking his fist at other cars as he drives. Public menace. Maybe having him off the road entirely isn't such a bad solution. He can catch the bus or get a new line of work and pay off his debts gradually.

The second is that this guy has other coworkers that could lend him money to pay the damages. He's not homeless just yet. The question is whether his support network exists for doing so. (i.e. Gawker could just about scrape by, it's not dead yet)

The third is that the man could just declare bankruptcy. Then all his assets are gone but he won't owe the remainder for covering the problem he caused. A new start is underrated. (i.e. Gawker cannot pay what it does not possess, I assume here Gawker is a LLC of some type) A harsh punishment by the judge but we have to send a message to these drunks driving crazily on our roads.

Great post. However, most of the people I've seen come out against Thiel have not taken this argument. They've painted it as a billionaire shutting down a news outlet and silencing free speech. Which is very far from the truth.

Since you cannot put the genie back in to the bottle, but you can 'get revenge' by ending the business, I can see how it would be both logical and in the clients best interest to point that out.

Which also happens to align with the overall interests of the lawyer's patron.

At no point have I said that Thiel acted unethically, either. I think it's natural, and valid, to ask questions, or discuss why someone might act in a way that on the surface appears deleterious to their own interests, particularly when there is someone behind the curtains who does have a different, or tangential interest.