UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK x JANE DOE 43, Plaintiff, New York, N.Y. 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 v. JEFFREY EPSTEIN, et al, Defendants. Before: x 17 Civ. 616(JGK) November 28, 2017 3:45 p.m. HON. JOHN G. KOELTL, District Judge ## APPEARANCES PAUL G. CASSELL (via telephone) Attorney for Plaintiff POTTINGER LLC Attorneys for Plaintiff BY: STAN POTTINGER STEPTOE & , LLP Attorneys for Defendant Epstein BY: MICHAEL C. ALSTON & BIRD, LLP Attorney for Defendant BY: ALEXANDER S. LORENZO ALSO PRESENT: SHER TREMONTE, LLP Attorneys for Interested Party Haddon & , P.C. BY: KIMO S. PELUSO 4 MR. CASSELL: Good afternoon, your Honor. This is Paul Cassell, from Salt Lake City, Utah, on behalf of, Jane Doe 43. 5 THE COURT: Good afternoon. 6 7 MR. POTTINGER: Good afternoon, your Honor. Stan Pottinger, also for plaintiff 8 9 MR. PELUSO: Good afternoon, your Honor. Kimo Peluso, Sher Tremonte, for interested party Haddon, 10 THE COURT: Hold on one second, please. 11 (Pause) 12 THE COURT: Thank you. 13 Who else? 14 15 MR. LORENZO: Good afternoon, your Honor. Alex borenzo, Alston & Bird, for defendant 16 17 18 MR. : Good afternoon, your Honor. Mike from the law firm of Steptoe & , for Jeffrey Epstein and Lesley Groff. 19 THE COURT: Jeffrey Epstein and? 20 MR. : Lesley Groff, G-R-O-F-F. 21 THE COURT: All right. 22 23 24 25 You are all here because I received a letter from Mr. Peluso, on behalf of the Haddon firm, objecting essentially to the fact that I have approved alternative service on Ms. Maxwell by serving Haddon, and then I got (Case called) 4 MR. PELUSO: Yes, your Honor. Thank you. 5 6 THE COURT: You say that, as I read your papers, Ms. Maxwell can be served in London. Where in London? 7 8 9 10 MR. PELUSO: I don't know, your Honor, that she can be served in London. The point as to her London residence was that plaintiffs are aware of at least one residence where they haven't attempted service, which goes -- 11 12 THE COURT: I'm sorry? The plaintiffs are aware of what? 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 MR. PELUSO: Plaintiff's counsel is aware of at least one residence where they hadn't even attempted service. But really the broader point is they hadn't attempted service at all. And we found the plaintiff's original ex parte application to your Honor was based on the representation that Ms. Maxwell was avoiding service and that service had been attempted; and, in actuality, plaintiff's counsel never attempted service. 21 22 THE COURT: What is the address that you say they should have tried in London? 23 24 MR. PELUSO: I don't know the address offhand, your Honor, but -- 25 THE COURT: You must be able to get that. a letter memo in opposition by Mr. So what do the parties want to do at this point? Mr. Peluso? 4 MR. PELUSO: Yes, your Honor, we can provide that. Plaintiff's counsel already has that, and I believe they have conceded they already have that, from discovery that was not confidential from the other action before Judge Sweet. 5 6 THE COURT: I thought that they actually disputed that. 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 MR. PELUSO: No, your Honor. I think there was some confusion. We may have cited to the wrong document on the docket. They disputed that there was any issue as to her New York home, which in fact had been sold. She could not be served in New York. They conceded in their papers that another issue that was subject to discovery was, I believe the way they put it, a flat in London associated with Ms. Maxwell. Their point was that the events that were relevant to the flat in London happened in 2001/2002. So it was too old for them to attempt service there. I don't really follow the argument, but that was the point. They were not disputing that they are aware of a residence associated with Ms. Maxwell in London. 19 20 21 THE COURT: But so they are unaware of any address at which she could be served, then. You say that that is no longer a current address. 22 23 24 25 MR. PELUSO: No, your Honor. They said that it is not a current address. I don't know where Ms. Maxwell lives today. I'm not here to report to the court that I know an address where she can be found. What we are here today on is our 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 application that her law firm, from the prior action, should not be inserted into the middle of this by accepting service. THE COURT: I understand that, but some of your arguments appear to be supportive of an effort avoid service. I know you say that they didn't really try very hard before making the application to me. Why don't I simply extend the time to serve for another 60 days or 30 days, a reasonable time? They appear to have been making a record, even if it wasn't made before the fact, of repeatedly asking your client's firm for a way to get ahold of Ms. Maxwell, all of that unsuccessful, even though your client has recently appeared on behalf of Ms. Maxwell before Judge Sweet. Right? MR. PELUSO: That is correct, your Honor. The case itself was settled, but there have been some post-judgment issues. THE COURT: Right. You relied on the fact that the case in which your client had represented Ms. Maxwell was over; and then, lo and behold, your client shows up representing Ms. Maxwell in this district, so still has the relationship with Ms. Maxwell, enough to be able to appear in this district. MR. PELUSO: Your Honor, we have never taken the position that the Haddon firm cannot reach Ms. Maxwell. Our point was they decline to accept service, which law firms are requested to accept service on behalf of their clients all the time. Often they say yes, often they say no. I don't 4 5 THE COURT: They can't accept service if they are not specifically authorized by the client to accept service. 6 MR. PELUSO: Correct, your Honor. 7 8 9 10 11 THE COURT: On the other hand, if the court ordered for alternative service that they can be served and that that will be sufficient notice to the client of service, then they can accept service. In fact, they have to accept service, right? 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 MR. PELUSO: Yes. If the court orders the law firm to, then the law firm becomes a vehicle of service. And it is not the passive kind, where the court orders publication or something like leaving it where the party who is attempted to be served is known to frequent. It is actually requiring the law firm to take affirmative acts. And that is the aspect of the order that we raise a strong issue with, especially in a case like this, your Honor, where this is the second plaintiff in a series of allegations that there are dozens of others, no defendant should be put to the choice of appearing in the first case and thereby de facto having an agent for service of process for all future cases. The conscription of the law firm of the party for that purpose carries with it some important implications, and that is why we are bringing this think the court would suggest any wrongdoing with either answer. But obviously a law firm can't accept service if their client won't authorize it. 4 5 6 7 8 9 THE COURT: There would still have to be personal service, personal jurisdiction over the defendant. The only thing that service accomplishes is notifying the defendant of the existence of the lawsuit and providing the defendant with the opportunity to raise all defenses, including the lack of personal jurisdiction. The service should be fairly straightforward if it is reasonably calculated to give notice to the defendant. 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 Now, I can understand your position that the plaintiff didn't act sufficiently diligently originally to get ahold of Ms. Maxwell and went too quickly to your firm, to your client. I can understand all of that. On the other hand, the plaintiff then puts in all of this correspondence in which they beg you, your client, to accept service, and they get stonewalled. And yet, lo and behold, they appear in this district on behalf of Ms. Maxwell and appear able to contact the client in order to take positions on the client's behalf. So one wonders whether all of this is simply a procedural delay. 20 21 22 23 I realize from the papers that there have been lots of motions in the other case, and I suspect that there will be lots of motions before me, but this shouldn't be a difficult procedure in order to provide sufficient notice to Ms. Maxwell. 24 25 MR. PELUSO: Your Honor, I think that the -- what I application. What am I missing? 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 would push back against is the idea that the record they have developed shows diligence that warrants alternative service. What they have shown is they asked a law firm to accept service or provide the address information for their client. And they have put in a record now that they asked that many, many times. But that's all they did. They asked the same question many times, which lawyers are free to say no to. And I would submit that it would be an unusual extension of the CPLR provisions for alternative service to grant alternative service merely because a law firm declined to accept service and declined it several times. That is not the basis for the process that brings a party before the powers of the court. 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 THE COURT: It is not only that, but they appear to have come up against a blank wall for an address for Ms. Maxwell. All of this presumably goes away if your client simply said, Here is an address, here is a physical address, here is an e-mail address, we would prefer that you contact the client directly rather than us. But there is nothing like that. Your client would be free to provide any of that information, but there is no indication here that your client has provided either a physical or an e-mail address for Ms. Maxwell, right? 23 24 25 MR. PELUSO: I don't believe there is anything to that effect in the record before your Honor. I also don't believe there is any representation by plaintiff that they don't have an e-mail address for Ms. Maxwell. I don't know what they would say to your Honor about what information they have. But 4 we know that they have a London address that they didn't attempt service on. 5 6 THE COURT: You say it is not a good address, I thought. 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 MR. PELUSO: No. I don't know. I do not know whether she is there today. My understanding is that they had -- my understanding is that either she doesn't have a permanent physical address in the United States or I can say that my client doesn't know one for her. They don't have a way -- they don't have a mailing address for her or physical address for her. I'm not denying that the Haddon firm can get in touch with her, but I don't know what the situation is in the London address. In the cases where courts allow alternative service, normally if you have an address, you go there, you attempt service, you talk to the neighbors, before skipping all of that and going to service through a law firm that has not been authorized to accept service by their client. And I don't think we would take issue with your Honor's suggestion of extending the time for them to attempt service in another way. Our application is to get the law firm out of it. The law firm should be free to decline accepting service without that being seen as somehow stonewalling. 25 THE COURT: If I gave them another 30 days to make the 4 5 6 7 record, why at the end of 30 days would I not authorize service on Haddon as, if no other address comes up, either a physical address or e-mail address, Haddon has shown an ability to contact the plaintiff and, quite recently, to appear on behalf of the plaintiff in the court. That would then appear to be reasonably calculated to give notice to Ms. Maxwell. Why wouldn't that be right? 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 MR. PELUSO: That would certainly be a stronger application, your Honor, or service may be successful in other ways. But the notion of Haddon going along with service on the current record and potentially becoming the agent for service of process for this client for this district in however many cases they are going to bring is not something that makes sense for the law firm to accept without bringing this application for the court to reconsider the ruling. 16 17 18 THE COURT: Okay. You have certainly diligently opposed the ruling, so let me listen to the plaintiff presumably. 19 MR. PELUSO: Thank you, your Honor. 20 21 MR. CASSELL: Yes. Thank you, your Honor. This is Paul Cassell on behalf of 22 23 24 I know you have had a chance to review our pleadings, so let me just highlight a few things that I think are important here. 25 First, it is important to understand that this 4 posture that the motion comes to you on is a motion for reconsideration, and so it is the burden of Haddon to show some reason to change the outcome that is in play right now. 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 We made two procedural points in our opposition, neither of which have been responded to. The first is that the court lacks standing to hear from Haddon as to why there is some defect in the service on defendant Maxwell. They don't have an interest, they haven't alleged any injury, certainly not a particularized injury of the kind that would be sufficient to create Article III standing, and so the motion to reconsider should be denied for that reason alone. 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 A second concern is timeliness. Ordinarily we wouldn't make a point out of a few days, but I think your Honor has the sense of what's going on here. This appears to be a delay tactic designed to keep this case from getting off the ground, and not because there is some meritorious concern, but simply because there are procedural objections that could be raised for proceduralism's sake. 20 21 22 23 24 25 We would call to your Honor's attention that you granted our motion for alternative service on September 29. We in fact served Haddon on October 9, and yet the opposition or the motion for reconsideration, I guess I should say, was not timely filed. It came in on October 30, and here we are, you know, four weeks later, or something, litigating. 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 It is simply not timely, and the court should deny it for that procedural reason as well. But let me turn to the merits, and I think your Honor has already made many of the points that I would want to make. We have -- it wasn't simply a matter of developing a record. We were trying to avoid embroiling the court in any service issues which, as you know from the e-mails, we were told by Haddon Maxwell is not permanently settled. That's a direct quote. "I do not believe she has a permanent residence." Those were the representations that we were given. And so we ran into, as I think your Honor pointed out, a brick wall or blank slate. We didn't know how to proceed. Now we have heard from the other side there should have been a bunch of due diligence or prior attempts to serve. In our original motion to the court, we cited this court's decision in Securities and Exchange Commission v. HGI that says: Look, a plaintiff has to show a practicability of service, but there is no requirement of proof of due diligence or actual prior attempts to serve a party. That's a quote from a 1999 decision of this court. So I didn't hear anything this afternoon that suggested there was a lack of impracticability, which of course was the basis for the court granting our motion. The only thing we have heard about is that we should have gone hither and yon through London trying to serve Ms. Maxwell there. 4 5 6 Interestingly, though, you will recall that the Haddon firm filed their letter motion and they cited a newspaper article that said Ms. Maxwell is a British socialite. Well, that same article -- again, this is what the other side was filing -- says that she has been based in the United States since 1999. 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 Now, it is true that we are aware of a client who in 2001 was in a flat in London that appeared to be connected with Ms. Maxwell and was sexually abused, but that was 16 years ago. And I guess what the other side is suggesting is that we should go through the Hague Convention, follow procedures there, chase after this flat, and see if somehow that changes things. We cited in our papers that we provided to your Honor last week a previous decision from this court saying, look, going through the Hague Convention just takes so long and creates such significant expense of impracticable. that that in and of itself can be a showing 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 So there isn't extending things for 30 London and spend what I any reason, I would submit, or 60 days to make us chase think would be thousands of for through dollars, if not tens of thousands of dollars, on foreign process service. Again, we would be willing to spend time and money and the court's time and energy if there was some substantive concern here, but this is all designed, as your Honor pointed out, to make sure that Ms. Maxwell knows about the lawsuit. Well, I think she was just a few doors down from where your Honor is 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 sitting right now with attorneys actually litigating an issue relating to confidentiality of documents in this lawsuit. So that provides, I would think, ample basis for the court to conclude that she already knows about the lawsuit. All we are trying to do is to simply effect service here, get the case moving forward, and then she can raise whatever concerns she wants. We submit that there has been no showing sufficient to justify the court reconsidering its earlier ruling on all these things. 11 12 13 THE COURT: Mr. Cassell, a couple of things. You say that she was just a few doors down. Her lawyers were here. Any reason to believe that she was here? 14 15 16 17 18 MR. CASSELL: No. I'm sorry if I said she was. She was there through counsel, and we would submit that that is effectively constructively appearing before your Honor, because the litigation in front of Judge Sweet involved confidentiality connected to this particular case. 19 THE COURT: Yes, but that is stretching it just a bit. 20 21 22 23 The other item is that it appeared -- and you can correct me if I am wrong -- that all of the e-mail correspondence about service was something that occurred after the Haddon firm was served, or was it before? 24 25 MR. CASSELL: It is both before and after. It was back as far as February of this year that we were trying to 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 work through the firm. We followed up again in March. If I have the chronology right, we followed up again in May. And then just as recently as November 7, we realize your Honor's time is valuable, we said, Look, we don't want to burden the court with this issue, if you can just give us something to follow up on. We sent that e-mail on November 7 and, to my knowledge, here we are three weeks later and have not received any response from the Haddon firm. So we have tried to do what we could to make contact through the Haddon firm. 11 12 13 14 THE COURT: My problem here, Mr. Cassell, is simply not wanting to have the possibility of an error in service at the outset of the case when the error, it would seem to me, could be easily corrected if, in fact, there were error. 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 The motion for reconsideration says, in essence, Judge, you didn't have a sufficient record before to you say that service was really impracticable. The plaintiff has attempted to come forward now with all of this subsequent information, none of which really was before you at the time. I plainly have the ability, irrespective of the standing of Haddon or the timeliness of the application, to reconsider my own order and to extend the time for service in a way that assures that there can't be any error. 24 25 Now, Haddon has gone quite far, and you have gone quite far in showing the impracticability of service on 4 Ms. Maxwell and indeed the stonewalling of efforts to find an address or an e-mail address for Ms. Maxwell, but none of that was in the record before me at the time that I authorized service on Haddon as an alternative means of service. 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Now, if Ms. Maxwell chooses to start the litigation this way before me, not a good way to begin litigation, but so be it. Motions over effective service are seldom made because so easily cured, and at the end of the day, the effect of motions like this is simply to chip away at parties' credibility. If any parties wishes to start this way, so be it. 12 13 14 15 16 I want to make sure that everything I do in the case is right. I am somewhat persuaded by the argument that the showing of impracticability at the outset left something to be desired in view of everything that has been presented to me since then. 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 You are welcome to respond to all of that. My inclination is simply to extend the time to serve on Ms. Maxwell until January 5, at which time the plaintiff can indicate that service has been made or apply for alternative service. If there is an application for alternative service, any response should be filed quickly, by January 12, and I will decide it on those papers. 24 25 Haddon has already protectively sought an extension of time to move or answer for 60 days, so when does 4 5 6 THE COURT: No reason that I shouldn't -- I assume that these procedural matters will be disposed of soon after January 12, so -- 7 8 MR. CASSELL: Your Honor, could I be heard just briefly on the time frame that you are contemplating there? 9 THE COURT: By all means. 10 11 12 13 14 15 MR. CASSELL: I am not an expert in the Hague Convention but I am informed by others that a 60- to 90-day timeline is the minimum amount of time for service through the Hague Convention. The timeline that you are setting up might work if we were chasing after someone in Manhattan, but we are chasing after someone in a foreign country. 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 A related point is the issue of cost. This is going to cost tens of thousands -- I'm sorry, thousands of dollars, if not tens of thousands of dollars, to attempt to do this and, as you know, lacks resources here. So I think your Honor was making a point that this is not a good way to start the litigation for Ms. Maxwell. I submit that they will be returning to their offices high-fiving because they have required someone who lacks resources to spend thousands and thousands of dollars simply attempting to effect service in a situation where, as of last week, they had lawyers in the that expire? MR. CASSELL: That expires, I believe, within -- after 21 days after this particular motion has been resolved. 4 5 6 7 8 9 And related to that, Haddon obviously has contact information for Ms. Maxwell. They could be directed by your Honor to provide all the contact information that they have to us in an effort to minimize those costs. So those sorts of things, we would submit, should be considered by your Honor in looking at the motion to reconsider. 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 We realize that we did not make as extensive a record as we could have in initial pleading, but I do think that our initial pleading said that it was implausible, here is why. We didn't burden the court with all of the e-mails and other things at that time. So if the question is whether the record was sufficiently developed, then I would submit it's much more developed today and you could simply deny the motion to reconsider based on the record that you have today; or if your Honor would feel more comfortable in terms of avoiding any error, you could give us the opportunity to re-serve Haddon now in light of the new record that we have developed, and you could grant the alternative service motion based on the record as it exists this afternoon. 23 THE COURT: Mr. Peluso. 24 25 MR. PELUSO: Yeah. Your Honor, I don't want to advise plaintiff on how to proceed, but I would suggest that they Southern District of New York actually litigating an issue related to the very issues that we are talking about. So we would ask that those factors be considered. 4 5 6 7 8 examine the Hague Convention, they examine Article 10, they examine those countries that have opted in to Article 10 and determine whether service on a UK address can be accomplished by registered mail before making representations that this process will cost their client thousands of dollars and take 60 to 90 days. And if they look into those things and want to make those representations, they can. I suspect if they look into those things, they will not. 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 I also just have to take issue with the suggestion that we had stonewalled them by refusing to provide an e-mail address. There was electronic discovery in the earlier case. They certainly have e-mails belonging to Ms. Maxwell. I don't think we heard any representation to the contrary. I don't know what those e-mail addresses are. I suspect plaintiff's counsel knows a lot more about Ms. Maxwell's e-mails than we do. No one is suggesting from my client any relief that will add months to this process or cost thousands of dollars to Ms. Maxwell by any means. 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 THE COURT: Mr. Cassell, Mr. Peluso suggests, first, that there is an easier way of service under the Hague Convention in Great Britain, but that of course depends upon having an address in Great Britain. He suggests that you actually probably in discovery, which I believe you are able to access with the recent order of Judge Sweet, have access to electronic communications that were copied to Ms. Maxwell. 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Finally, what you were suggesting record of what could could be given to me month or before with have been given to me now can all be raised a renewed application of supplementing the at the outset or at the end of the for alternative service if in fact this matter has not been resolved before then. If in fact you are right that all of this information shows that it is impractical to serve Ms. Maxwell, then presumably there are alternative means of notice to Ms. Maxwell. Among those would possibly be Haddon service by an e-mail address. and 11 12 13 14 15 Finally, I decide every motion in an effort to be right. It is the parties who have to deal with whether I am right or not. All I have to do is to decide every motion in the best way that I can and leave to all of you whatever the consequences of that are. 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 It would be not the best way to start off the case for a plaintiff to say, well, we may not have made the showing to you that we could have or should have made, but blow through it, Judge, live with it. I don't do that. I try to decide every case in the best way that I can. And it seems to me clear that you won't have to spend thousands of dollars in order to effect service, but you do have to have made the diligent inquiries to attempt service before going to the alternative method of service. What that involves, I don't know at the moment, but that is really up to the parties. MR. CASSELL: Your Honor, perhaps could I ask one 4 5 question of opposing counsel? Because I think this might be one way of cutting through all this. Let me just tell you what the one question would be. Isn't it true that Ms. Maxwell already has notice of this lawsuit? 6 7 THE COURT: Well, Haddon can answer if they want. 8 9 10 MR. PELUSO: I honestly don't know, your Honor. I suspect someone at Haddon can answer that. I could find out, but I don't think that is service, your Honor. 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 MR. CASSELL: That's the whole purpose of why we are here, your Honor. And, frankly, I think that is one of the reasons why Haddon is not appearing in front of you today, but has hired sort of a surrogate, if you will, so there is a plausible deniability, or whatever the phrase would be. Perhaps one way to proceed would be to ask Haddon that question through counsel that's here today and if they respond that, yes, Ms. Maxwell does indeed have notice of the lawsuit, at that point I would assume that that amply protects any record or shows that all of these hearings and motions and so forth are much ado about nothing, and we could then move with service through Haddon, since it accomplished the goal that it was designed to accomplish. 24 25 THE COURT: That is not right, actually. The fact that the defendant has notice, if you will, of the lawsuit 4 5 doesn't substitute for service of the summons and complaint. True that alternative service is meant to provide notice - and, again, the parties can correct me if I am wrong -- but it doesn't simply dispose of the requirement for service of the summons and complaint. 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 MR. CASSELL: But our limited point, your Honor appreciate the clarification there, but our limited point was that the alternative service motion is designed to provide notice reasonably calculated under all of the circumstances to apprise interested parties of the pendency of the action. And if that apprisal function has already been accomplished, to even have to spend one additional dollar or one additional month tracking things down through London is energy and time and money being expended for no purpose whatsoever, particularly where -- I agree that the summons and so forth should be provided to Ms. Maxwell, but no one is disputing that that will take more than a few seconds on a keyboard for Haddon to forward it along to their client. 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 THE COURT: Okay. Well, where I was was I will extend the time for service on Ms. Maxwell until January 5, at which point the plaintiff can either file proof of service or an application for alternative service. And just so that there is no question, the application for alternative service, whatever you believe is most appropriate for alternative service should also be filed, because they have appeared for a limited purpose on Haddon Any response can be filed by January 12. 4 5 The time to move or answer is 30 days after service in response to the court's decision on service. That will not lose us much time. 6 7 Any other deadlines or procedural tasks that I should deal with in this order? 8 9 MR. Your Honor, Mike for Jeffrey Epstein and Lesley Groff. 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 We are scheduled to file a supplemental motion to dismiss within seven days of the issuance of a confidentiality or protective order in this case. We have a draft of it that we will be circulating to the parties hopefully tomorrow or the day after. I guess the only question from a scheduling perspective is whether it makes sense to stay motion practice on the balance of the case until after the service issue is resolved. We are content to go either way, subject to the court's pleasure on the issue, but I just point that out. That could result in motion practice happening sequentially rather than simultaneously. 21 22 23 THE COURT: Mr. Cassell, do you want the rest of the defendants to answer or move to dismiss without waiting for Ms. Maxwell? 24 MR. CASSELL: Yes, your Honor. 25 THE COURT: I thought that would be the response, 4 Okay. 5 6 7 8 9 10 MR. CASSELL: Mr. Pottinger may want to step in on this, but we would like to file a single response to all of the supplemental and various motions to dismiss coming in from the various defendants, so we would ask for an opportunity to respond with one single response 14 days after all of the new information comes in from the various defendants. 11 THE COURT: I assume for everyone but Ms. Maxwell. 12 MR. CASSELL: Yes, your Honor. 13 14 15 THE COURT: It seems reasonable to me. Consolidated response by the plaintiff 14 days after the supplemental papers by the defendants. 16 And then the reply? 17 18 19 20 MR. : Your Honor, we respectfully request 14 days after we receive the response for the reply brief. And I say that without knowing how that lands in terms of holidays, towards the end of December. 21 22 23 24 25 Could I suggest this? Rather than set dates right now for the response and the reply, I can tell you, on behalf of the clients I represent -- and I suspect it is true for the other defendants -- that we won't object to a briefing schedule that consolidates the motions other than Maxwell's, but perhaps MR. : That's fine, your Honor. THE COURT: -- that motion schedule stands. 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 we could meet and confer on that issue and submit a proposed schedule to the court once we have a protective order issued from the court. THE COURT: That's fine by me. Mr. Cassell? MR. CASSELL: That sounds like an excellent approach. We agree. me. THE COURT: Okay. So submit the proposed schedule to Anything else? All right. Good afternoon all. MR. CASSELL: Thank you, your Honor. THE COURT: Sure. MR. PELUSO: Thank you, your Honor. MR. : Thank you, your Honor. 000