orrison & Foerster may have put some distance between itself and the MoFo attorneys representing John Walker Lindh - but it's a pretty short distance.
MoFo acknowledged last month that the lawyers defending Lindh, the U.S. citizen caught fighting with the Taliban in Afghanistan, were doing so in their own name rather than as representatives of the firm.
Saying the firm was following common procedure, James Brosnahan, Lindh's lead attorney and a MoFo partner, downplayed the firm's decision to distance itself from his representation.
Brosnahan took on the high-profile case in late November or early December, soon after Lindh was captured in Afghanistan. Brosnahan said he got a call one Sunday afternoon from Frank Lindh, the father of John Walker Lindh, in which Lindh asked Brosnahan to represent his son.
Brosnahan said he did not know Frank Lindh personally, but that Lindh, an in-house attorney for PG&E Co., was part of an opposing counsel team in one of his previous cases.
MoFo Chairman Keith Wetmore said excluding the firm's name from the case was done for security reasons. "There is concern that a high-profile case like this would inflame the worst kind of passion," Wetmore said last month.
However, anyone tracking down Lindh's attorneys will wind up at MoFo's door.
In a court filing last week requesting that Lindh be released prior to trial, the attorneys list their names without the usual firm identification. But they include their address - 425 Market St. - which just happens to be MoFo's San Francisco headquarters.
And the floor number is included, too. So no one has to wander the building looking for the firm behind the lawyers.
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