When Oracle Corp. executive vice president and general counsel Dorian Daley informed her outside counsel in the Oracle v. Google copyright infringement suit that she wanted her company’s chief Java architect to participate in a critical meeting with the solicitor general of the United States, the lawyer, a highly respected and successful appellate attorney, balked.

“I told her I didn’t think it was a good idea,” the attorney, Josh Rosenkranz of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, recalls.