Lachlan Murdoch
Lachlan Murdoch (Image: AP)

Fox Corp CEO Lachlan Murdoch’s top lawyer, Viet Dinh, did not have a licence to practise law in California until June, despite taking the role at Fox four years ago, US news website Semafor reports.

This could potentially make otherwise privileged conversations Dinh may have had with top Fox executives fair game in the discovery process for voting machine companies Smartmatic and Dominion, which are suing Fox for defamation for a total of US$4.3 billion.

Conversations between lawyers and their clients typically remain confidential and privileged. But if Dinh was not licensed to practice law in California, his conversations may not be considered privileged and therefore open to discovery by lawyers acting for Smartmatic and Dominion.

Semafor co-founder Ben Smith wrote: “Viet Dinh, who earned $12 million last year as the Murdoch son’s effective second-in-command, became the company’s chief legal officer in September of 2018. He lives in Los Angeles, where the company is based. But records at the California state bar indicate that he only became licensed to practise law in the state this June.

“Dinh is a prominent Republican legal figure best known for writing the Patriot Act as a Bush administration lawyer, and he’s licensed to practise law in Washington, DC. His status with the California bar was first raised internally at Fox in 2018, a person familiar with conversations at the time said. The person recalled that Dinh dismissed the concern.

“More recently, however, he has scrambled to quietly fix his licensing issue, which could open up otherwise privileged, and potentially sensitive or embarrassing, communications with Murdoch to discovery because they don’t qualify for attorney-client privilege.

“’It is a pretty big screw-up for a major corporation and a big ticket guy,’ said Shawn Martin, a law professor at the University of San Diego who has served on the state bar’s committee on professional responsibility and conduct.

“Martin said that Dinh is unlikely to face personal sanctions, but that there could be consequences for defamation cases facing the company: ‘This will be another layer that plaintiffs can use to say those communications aren’t privileged.’

“Fox is facing two major federal defamation lawsuits: Dominion Voting Systems is suing for US$1.6 billion in damages, while the voting tech company Smartmatic is suing for US$2.7 billion.

“‘This news potentially opens the door to his communications with Fox executives,’ said the lawyer representing Smartmatic, J Erik Connolly, after Semafor brought the public records to his attention. ‘That is something Smartmatic will be asking for as we move forward with discovery.’

” … A Fox News spokeswoman, Irena Briganti, told Semafor that Dinh’s law licence has ‘no bearing on any pending litigation or matter of privilege’. 

“’The registration process began years ago, was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic and was perfected in June,’ she said. A Fox News spokesperson said, on the condition of anonymity, that Dinh applied in January of 2019, but the state bar of California lost Dinh’s application; the spokesperson said he reapplied later that year, but COVID-19 delayed his application.

“But the executive director of the State Bar of California, Leah Wilson, flatly rejected both claims. ‘The assertions regarding lost or delayed applications are false,’ she said in an emailed statement.

“Fox did not respond to a request for documents that might confirm Fox’s explanations for the missing licence.”

In a separate matter, Lachlan Murdoch is suing Crikey for defamation over a story related to Fox News and its coverage of the January 6 2021 riot in Washington, DC.