Well, he should have done it earlier:
It was a Perry Mason moment updated for the Internet age.
As Ivy League-educated pediatrician Robert P. Lindeman sat on the stand in Suffolk Superior Court this month, defending himself in a malpractice suit involving the death of a 12-year-old patient, the opposing counsel startled him with a question.
Was Lindeman Flea?
Flea, jurors in the case didn't know, was the screen name for a blogger who had written often and at length about a trial remarkably similar to the one that was going on in the courtroom that day.
In his blog, Flea had ridiculed the plaintiff's case and the plaintiff's lawyer. He had revealed the defense strategy. He had accused members of the jury of dozing.
With the jury looking on in puzzlement, Lindeman admitted that he was, in fact, Flea.
The next morning, on May 15, he agreed to pay what members of Boston's tight-knit legal community describe as a substantial settlement -- case closed.
Let this be a lesson to all us anonymous bloggers--whatever you say may show up on the front page of the New York Times--or in Lindeman's case, the Boston Globe.
Lindeman shouldn't have blogged in real time. Of course, I don't know how the rest of the trial was going, so I don't know how much of an impact his lawyers felt the blog exposure was having--and the decision to settle after being exposed may have been just timing.
But, probably not.
Let that be a lesson to you--well, to me really. I was chatting with our in house labor and employment counsel today and I said, "my goal is to make it out of here without ever having to testify." She actually laughed at me. "Good luck with that one," she said.
And for the record, in case I'm exposed, she's a fabulous lawyer and I'm thrilled to work with her. And with everyone else at my company. Except for the people I'm going to blog about in my next post.
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