Managing Google’s Litigation: A Conversation with Sandi Knight

John is joined by Cassandra “Sandi” Knight, Vice President of Litigation and Discovery at Google. Sandi oversees a global team of over 200 in house legal professionals and a host of law firms around the world. The case load she oversees varies from patent disputes to content moderation, to AI, and privacy issues, among many other types of disputes.
Sandi’s department focuses on three functions: litigation, discovery, and support for investigations. Cases rise to the level of Sandi’s attention based on the legal issues involved, the amounts at stake, and the reputational risk and the potential for press attention. One challenge of managing such a wide variety of matters lies in balancing the daily influx of urgent unpredicted matters with the need to intentionally carve out time for deeper strategic reflection.
Much of Google's litigation docket includes cutting-edge disputes in areas like AI and content moderation where there is often little clear legal precedent. In recent years, tech companies have experienced a shift in public perception—from celebrated innovators to targets of public skepticism. This shift has affected Google’s approach to jury trials and litigation in general.
Sandi underscores the importance of building trust between the legal team and the business side of the company. This requires lawyers to take clear, actionable positions on legal matters, rather than simply explaining the competing legal risks and leaving the business team to weigh those risks and develop future plans on their own.
Collaboration between outside counsel and internal product lawyers is critical to shaping legal strategy in the evolving tech landscape. Counsel who conduct careful mock argument sessions, particularly in Supreme Court litigation, have helped significantly shaped Google’s litigation strategy and contributed to positive outcomes. In general, Google values outside counsel who provide early engagement, strategic foresight, efficiency, and the ability to make legal recommendations rather than hedging every opinion.

Podcast Link: Law-disrupted.fm
Host: John B. Quinn
Producer: Alexis Hyde
Music and Editing by: Alexander Rossi

Transcript

Note: This transcript is generated from a recorded conversation and may contain errors or omissions. It has been edited for clarity but may not fully capture the original intent or context. For accurate interpretation, please refer to the original audio.

JOHN QUINN: This is John Quinn and this is Law Disrupted, and today I have the great pleasure of speaking with Sandy Knight, who is Vice President Legal of Litigation and Discovery at Google. Is it Google or Alphabet? It's Google. It's Google. 

SANDI KNIGHT: Yeah. How are you today, John? Great to see you. 

JOHN QUINN: I'm good. Look, just based on the title alone, that's gotta be a big job, litigation and discovery for all of Google.

We're gonna get into that a little bit about what you do. You report directly to the general counsel, Halima Delaine Prada, right? 

SANDI KNIGHT: Prada? Yes, that's correct. 

JOHN QUINN: And tell us, I mean, how big is your team? 

SANDI KNIGHT: Yeah. So, you know, you say it's a big job. No, it's, you know, small and boring. Nothing going on here.

Right. 

JOHN QUINN: Really. For sure. You're in the newspaper every freaking day, 

SANDI KNIGHT: So that's right. So, yeah, just to give you a little bit about what that actually [00:01:00] means and what I do. So really I have the. Civil litigation side of the house.  And so, you know, that includes everything you can think of under the sun globally, that Google ends up in litigation about, in terms of patent cases,  a lot of privacy things, content moderation, et cetera.

It does not include the,  you know, sort of governmental or regulatory related things. Instead, it's really the. For litigation. So that's the split. In terms of the work that's covered by my team, I have about three different main pillars of work that we can get into a little bit more if you wanna talk about that as well.

But that gives you the litigation picture.  and, you know, my team is. Sizable as you would expect.  You know, over 200 folks,  who are all great and,  you know, best in the business and it's an honor and a pleasure to work with them. And,  [00:02:00] oh, one thing I should mention that I usually do, and I'm talking to folks, is that my full name is Cassandra.

So if anybody ever wants to look me up on LinkedIn or anything, that's how you find me. But friends and family all call me Sandy. 

JOHN QUINN: Well, as I remember, Cassandra is the daughter of Aon. Who wept and cried out 'cause she foresaw the invasion of Troy would be such a disaster, right? 

SANDI KNIGHT: That is absolutely correct.

And so, you know, as a litigator,  it can be quite an advantage to be able to predict evil, even if believed by none, right? 

JOHN QUINN: So I assume your, your team members, the 200 plus folks,  they're all over the world.  

SANDI KNIGHT: Yeah, that's right. All over the world. 

JOHN QUINN: Yeah.  and you must work with, I'm gonna guess. Over a hundred law firms, maybe a couple of hundred law firms around the world.

SANDI KNIGHT: Yeah, good question. You know, I should, I should take a look at the official count. But yeah, it's definitely a large number. You know, there's a few like your [00:03:00] esteemed firm,  that we work with more than others, especially on our larger higher risk matters.  but yes, to cover, you know, that much territory across the globe, we indeed work with a lot of law firms.

JOHN QUINN: I'm interested, you said there, there were three pillars. Let's get those out there. What are, what are the three pillars of your, of your responsibility? 

SANDI KNIGHT: Sure. So,  you know, there's litigation, which we talked about a little bit already, and then discovery as part of my title. So you can imagine that's it.

Another,  mighty team here in dealing with all of our discovery issues globally. It works closely with our litigators, but really across the organization,  with all of our discovery related issues.  And then the third pillar is a team that we call legal investigation support.  that deals with a number of matters including law enforcement requests,  other civil requests, things like that that come in you.

Subpoenas, lots of things,  that we handle through [00:04:00] that team as well. So a high volume operational part of the organization that's also,  you know, critical to a lot of the work that we do. 

JOHN QUINN: I mean, you, you're a, you're with an organization that's so much in the public eye.  and, and we were joking before,  we started about, you know, you're in the newspaper every single day.

You must work a lot and you must focus a lot on the communications aspect. You must work very closely with communications people, both inside, outside, 'cause that's a whole nother, that's the court of public opinion, which of course has gotta be very important to you. 

SANDI KNIGHT: Well, the last time I talked to my comms person was almost an hour ago, so, right, right.

That's, that gives you a sense of,  yeah. How closely we work together. So indeed, that is a, that is a close relationship. 

JOHN QUINN: So my daughter, Megan, graduated from Stanford and started with comms at Google, and then [00:05:00] became,  went into product. She made a complete change. She had no technical background, so it had to be approved at the very top.

Ultimately, she left,  and became a VC. She now lives in London.  but she had such a great experience at Google and I really, her time at Google,  was a great,  taking off point for her career. 

SANDI KNIGHT: Well, good for her. And that's really great to hear, and I've heard that from a lot of folks.  You know, unfortunately you get a little spoiled sometimes having that as the first job if they're lucky enough to start at Google because it really is a great place to work with such interesting, smart and fun people.

So good for her. 

JOHN QUINN: Well, this was back in, I wanna say 2008 plus or minus, and  it might have been two, 2007. And she said, dad, she was at Stanford. She didn't really know what she was wanting to do. Dad, I wanna go to Hollywood. I wanna get a job with a, you know, motion picture studio. And, you know, [00:06:00] that's, you know, I don't think she really knew what that entailed.

I've done a lot of work with the motion picture studios. I was kind of skeptical about that.  but she said, I also got this job offer from this company you might not have heard of. It's Google or Google,  a communications job. And for once in my life, Sandy, as a father, and I have five daughters. I actually took a position, I put my foot down and I said, you can't pass, pass up on that job at Google.

And she took it, and that turned out to be a good thing. So I'm sure I made lots of mistakes as a father, but I feel like that one I. Set her in the right direction. 

SANDI KNIGHT: I think you got that one right. And I'm, I'm glad for both you and her that it worked out and that she listened to you. You know, I'm lucky enough to be the stepmother to two great young adults now as well, and so I know that can be tough navigating, you know, you wanna help and, and give some advice or you can.

Around that stage, you know, [00:07:00]   within a few years out of college and trying to figure things out. And that can be, you know, that's tough, but,  glad that one worked out for her and that they're, your kids are doing well. 

JOHN QUINN: So, I mean, all lawyers by nature, we don't go into this line of business unless we're kind of obsessive compulsive compared to the average person.

You take a psychology profile for a lawyer and. We're all off the charts in terms of being obsessive and compulsive. And part of that, you know, for me, and I think a lot of lawyers, and I'm gonna guess for you, every day you come to work and you have a list, you have in mind a list of things that I'm gonna get done today and then I.

Stuff happens.  So often we don't get to things that are pop flies, things that hijack our day. In your case, how much of your time on any given day, if you can speak in terms of averages? Is it things that I. You planned to do, you knew you were gonna do things you were gonna cross off versus things that just surfaced that day that you [00:08:00] couldn't have anticipated, like half a third.

How would you, how was that break out? 

SANDI KNIGHT: That's a good question. You know, unfortunately, I feel like my to-do list mocks me on a regular basis because you're so right. We came in today.  I don't know if there's any typical day, but I give today as an example. Right. I have part of my civil litigation team as a jury out right now.

Right? Yeah. So,  you know, communicating with them,  they got a few questions from the jury late in the day yesterday. The judge came up with some responses this morning.  You know, talking to the comms team about, you know, preparing for when that verdict comes, sort of all of those sorts of things. So you're writing not a single thing on the.

In addition, you know, I had a number of meetings, met with the litigation team this morning, as well as one of my meetings today. So, to be honest, most of my days,  my regular part of the workday is spent on things like, you know, the rapid [00:09:00] fire emails coming in, dealing with whatever's happening at the moment, and a number of set meetings throughout the day.

So what I find, you know, get. Five, 10% of the day during those sort of normal work hours,   going through a to-do list. So what I try to do instead, and I've found from a number of my mentors and sponsors and other folks in the past. Is to really be diligent about blocking out other time to be able to think more deeply about some issues because that's, it's not going to happen, I think organically or naturally in a job like this where you're managing a lot of people dealing with these kinds of matters that are very busy all day, things like that.

And otherwise, you know it. Sort of day after day will go by without taking the time out to do that deeper, more strategic thinking, unless you're really sort of regimented about it.  and block it out. So that's what I try to do, is to [00:10:00] make sure I have different times in the week or I can step back, think about what I wanna do more holistically,  for the, whether it's about the team, whether it's about case strategy, really being able to dig into,  some of the briefing things like that, because it's.

JOHN QUINN: And, and the engine behind that is you wanna be responsive. You wanna be responsive to your client. You live with your client, which is one of the tough things about being in-house, I think, if you've got one client, they may have a thousand voices, but, and you're embedded with that client and you wanna be responsive.

So if you don't do what you said you know, and block out the time you're gonna find yourself just always responding to those pop flies. 

SANDI KNIGHT: That's right. 

JOHN QUINN: So how do you keep track of, I mean, do you have any idea of how many civil cases are on Google's litigation docket? 

SANDI KNIGHT: Oh gosh. You should have told me.

They asked me ahead of time when I would've, you know, gone into the matter management system. [00:11:00] Let's just say it's a lot, right? Yeah, there's a lot going on, and especially depending on how you count it, because you know, we deal with it. Everything from, you know, small claims matters and, you know, bodily injury cases and other types of small cases, cases, those roll up to a part of my team all the way to, you know, this case that's out right now.

And, you know, other very large cases that go through motion practice and trial and of course, even our Supreme Court docket.  And so it's a massive docket.  if you look at all of those pieces.  I can't think of the number off the top of my head right now, but it is very large. Let's say that, as you can imagine, 

JOHN QUINN: I can, it's gotta be in the hundreds.

Are there some thresholds as to, you know,  particular issues, dollar amounts at stake, or other things that automatically. Trip something. So that's gonna come to your attention. I mean, [00:12:00] how do you get involved? How do you decide what ones you're gonna spend your time on? 

SANDI KNIGHT: Yeah, it's less of an automatic trip and more of, you know, relying on, I have incredible teams,  and great leaders of those teams who help assess the cases right from the beginning,  to think about, you know, exposure and risk,  based on a number of factors, whether it.

You know, damages sought in the case, of course, is one factor.  That'll bring a case to the forefront and make sure it gets on to my radar screen as well as my GCs.  but a number of other things as well in terms of just like reputational risk, if it's something that we do think is going to garner some press attention.

A number of issues,  as you can imagine, we deal with,  as you know, directly, we deal with a lot of cutting edge,  legal issues that, again, might garner a bit more attention and that we want to, to pay even [00:13:00] closer attention to as to where the law is moving on those areas. So, you know, for instance, those recent copyright rulings that came down, we have a team separate from mine that deals.

Specifically with copyright issues, but then we work cross-functionally and collaboratively, very closely together,  to track those matters and that could, you know, affect any other types of litigation that we have on that front. So those are just a couple of examples of ways that cases get bubbled up to me by folks on my team.

JOHN QUINN: You know, yesterday you're, you're dealing with cutting edge issues all the time, but. Cutting edge issues. Eventually you get some resolution, clarity from the courts. There's an accepted understanding of what the law's gonna be or what the exposure is. So, you know, today's cutting edge issues tomorrow will be settled.

Law still important maybe, but you wouldn't characterize them as cutting edge. I mean, I'm trying to think of an example here. You know, when the internet was first a thing and the whole. [00:14:00]  we're still struggling with the context of ai, soft IP issues. Mm-hmm.  You know, in terms of the internet,  there's a pretty settled law in that area about, you know, trademarks and copyrights and the like.

We're struggling now,  with AI as you mentioned. What are some of the things that now that you would say are still kind of cutting edge and something where, where you really have eyes on, on the issue? 

SANDI KNIGHT: Gosh, I mean, there's so many things right now. You know, there's still a lot of developments in the content moderation space in and of itself, so I'm sure you're familiar with the Gonzalez case that went to the Supreme Court a couple of years ago.

So at least we got a decent amount of direction from the court on that front. But then there were follow-on cases as well,  where there's still law being developed in terms of how that plays out, especially with a lot of this. State legislatures that are coming out with these laws about content [00:15:00] moderation now.

So that's an area where, you know, certain parts of it have been settled, but others are still moving and we're watching it very closely,  to see how it affects our products,  different jurisdictions we work in,  et cetera. So that's, you know, one example,  the ai,  is obvious. A critical, you know, the most important part of our business.

Most would say,  at this point. And there's just a lot spinning up, 

JOHN QUINN: so many, so many unresolved issues, 

SANDI KNIGHT: So many, right. That makes it exciting and interesting, but also, you know, feels a little harrowing sometimes as you're trying to figure these things out on the legal front and give the best advice you can to the business.

JOHN QUINN: Yeah. I mean, from,  how do you protect AI inventions to this whole business about. Using proprietary or copyright material to train large language models to product ability, the car goes off the road.  Who's responsible for defamation, scraping privacy? Just across the board. I mean, [00:16:00] will, I think we're gonna have answers to a lot of these questions.

They're teed up before courts, but so much is uncertain right now. 

SANDI KNIGHT: That's exactly right. And that's likely gonna be true for at least the next couple of years. Yeah. At least. Right. And so, yeah, it's,  bit of uncharted territory there. Yeah. 

JOHN QUINN: So how do you, you're on the front, you, you know, you're there at the coalface or, you know, pick your metaphor,  the firing line.

Where these developments are happening, you have swaths of business people who have a business to run. They've gotta make decisions, and you gotta find a way to give them guidance. How does that happen? 

SANDI KNIGHT: Yeah, it happens. A lot of these good folks I've been telling you about. You're right. It's not easy. And so it really is a partnership.

You know, we work very closely with the business. And you mentioned earlier, I think you joked a little bit about like, well, you just, you have one client when you're in-house. But that's what I really love about it, right? Because we do get to develop that relationship, those deep [00:17:00] relationships with them, deep knowledge about the products.

Um. Figure out, you know, what is most important to them.  you know, I often tell younger lawyers who are looking to go in-house, you know, go to a place where you really believe in what they're doing and can be passionate about that, the products and the work and all, and feel really good about the work that you're doing and the people, I mean, it's just.

You know, life's too short to do anything otherwise.  and that's certainly true about the products and the work here at Google. It's a, like I said earlier, a great place to work.  I think anybody should be proud of working here. And so to be able to then, you know, dig in with the business, figure out what their.

Their needs are, the concerns are, and how to keep moving the business forward is really the critical role, I think, for any in-house council. And so we do that by working directly with them to dig in deeply,  about the products. Of course, trusted outside counsel like you.  You know, we don't just go it alone on these things.

Of course we rely on our own knowledge,  and advice that we can give the client as well, but partner very closely,  with outside counsel who know these spaces very well and can also give us some expert guidance on that front.  and then work across, you know, the difference. Pillars in our organization.

We have a product council as well,  who usually have very deep knowledge or who do have very deep knowledge about the specific products who can help us apply that,  in the different,  legal areas that come up. 

JOHN QUINN: I mean, sometimes I know there has to be, you know, we, we've, we've read about this,  disagreements within,  a, a big tech company like Google about, I mean, we've read stories about.

There was a time period that was very controversial working with the defense department, for example,  or issues about large language models and the pace of.  you know, the pace of the growth of the models and [00:19:00] safety issues and people have different points of view on these things,  at all big tech companies.

Is that something sometimes you get involved in those debates,  from a sort of giving them,  a legal perspective or. Is that really not within your bailiwick? 

SANDI KNIGHT: You know, I would say,  that people do and should have those debates at all companies and at any horse healthy organization. Right. And so this is the third company at which I worked. I know you're familiar with my old boss Eric Grossman at Morgan Stanley.

I got great training for many years there.  and then at. PayPal,  with,  my GC at the time was Ji Walcott, she's now Chief Legal Officer at Pinterest.  and then here with,  Halima and Kent and many other great leaders and at all of those organizations,  I've dealt with, [00:20:00]  healthy debate about whether it's, you know, our approach to,  legal matters, especially on these like.

Cutting edge types of issues in cases we were talking about, or, you know, within the company in terms of the work that it's,  doing often those kinds of fundamental questions I think happen a lot more often on the business side. And we come in,  to be able to advise them about. Potential legal ramifications,  depending on which way the business goes.

But that's part of being in that trusted advisor relationship to be able to help them work through those debates as well, and to, to have an opinion, not just, you know, I, another thing that,  piece of advice that I give,  many of my,  lawyers, especially earlier in their careers here, is that, you know, the business doesn't have us here so that we can just sort of recite the law and say, you could do this or you could do that.

Up to you. You take the risk. Right. [00:21:00] You know, that's pretty useless. Like, you've gotta have an opinion and then they choose to, to follow it or not. A little, like you said, you took,  you took a stand with your daughter. Thankfully it worked out. You gotta take a stand as a lawyer in house. 

JOHN QUINN: We have a phenomenon in America.

I think that when there's a,  you know, a new technology company arrives on the scene and, and not just technology companies, but a new entry that captures the imagination of the public.  They're foreseen as they're seen as the next new thing. People are enthusiastic about it, maybe seen as kind of a national champion and everybody's proud.

And then. The company starts to take root, becomes very, very powerful and important,  and plays a bigger, bigger role in people's lives. And you kind of see the popularity. Kinda weighing, there's segments of the public that kind of turn on companies that are perceived as being too successful, too powerful.

In Australia they have a phrase, the tall poppy syndrome, and I think we've seen that, and I'd be interested in your reaction to this with big tech where. It's gone,  from a period of, you know, these companies, not Google, not just Apple, but Google, Facebook, they're amazing. Microsoft, they're amazing too, well, wait a sec,  this is big tech As Big Brother, they've been collecting all this data about me.

They've been monetizing it. They have too much of a role in my life and maybe kind of a suspicion enters the public consciousness. You've kind, I think we've kind of seen that arc,  with the big tech companies. 

SANDI KNIGHT: I agree. You know, I've been here at Google now a little bit less than three years.  And so, you know, whereas we have a lot of people and for good reason, who've been here a long time,  even though they could have left, you know, people stick with the company because it is a great place.

But those who've been here for. A long [00:23:00] time,  have shared with me their personal accounts about seeing that arc. Right.  and that change, especially with what we deal with in the civil litigation arena. You know, I think you're right that,  you not that long ago even, we were often given the benefit of the doubt.

JOHN QUINN: Yeah. 

SANDI KNIGHT: And,  and. Seen as one of the good guys and everybody, you know, used the products and was happy with it and, and generally positive. Whereas I think you're right that,  you know, it's not certainly unique to Google.  but in a lot of ways across the industry, people have had sort of this, this tech backlashes, there's been a lot written about it,  in recent years where you're right, they're more.

Suspicious of, afraid of and resentful toward,  companies like ours. And it's something that we have to face and deal with particularly,  you know, when we're looking at, at juries,  and presenting the evidence to them and hopefully not facing,  a negative bias going [00:24:00] in. 

JOHN QUINN: Yeah. I mean, you see in jury selection.

I've selected a lot of juries up in the northern district.  in LA you see the same thing, for example, with Disney. I used to do a lot of work for Disney. You would think that in Los Angeles people would love Disney. Actually, it turns out not so much. Yeah. As you learn in jury selection.

And that, of course, that's very important in that part of the trial to fair it out. People's attitudes. 

SANDI KNIGHT: You know, we had a case go to trial recently in LA as well, and you're right, I would think it'd be a little more keen here in the northern district. But we had a state court jury trial in the LA area recently.

Just in the last month or two,  where we had some of that come out during,  voir dire as well. And,  you know, it's tough when you, because obviously you want to be able to know if there's a potential problem with the juror, but it also sort of starts to taint your jury pool as you hear [00:25:00] some of these very negative things.

 and we go 

JOHN QUINN: sidebar, your Honor.

SANDI KNIGHT: So. 

JOHN QUINN: Do you think from the standpoint of Google and the other tech companies that this is an unsolvable problem? Or is there something that can be done? You know, Microsoft used to have, I think, kind of a terrible reputation, and they went through a period where they seemed to keep their heads down.

Things may have changed now, but for a long time they weren't facing those antitrust challenges that they were, and they kind of in the public eye seem to reinvent themselves. 

SANDI KNIGHT: Mm-hmm. I'm an eternal optimist, so I definitely don't think this is an unsolvable problem. And I think, you know, these things, the pendulum swings.

On a lot of things, right? Mm-hmm. So while it may seem pretty far over one way right now, I don't think it necessarily stays there.  and I think, you know, there are ways that a company can [00:26:00] distinguish itself and, you know, Google has lots of, lots of ways to distinguish itself,   for the good work that we're doing here.

And I think, you know, it's something you have to be proactive about and really think about, you know, what do we do,  to address some of the concerns. Um. That the public might have,  about the company and,  make sure that we have,  a, a good reputation of transparency and honesty and really,  working for the good and,  you know, protecting our users and having a safety and security first approach, which is really key to what we do here.

JOHN QUINN: Mm-hmm. You know, a lot of the audience for this podcast are lawyers,  including outside lawyers, including many who I'm sure do some work for Google. By the way, I had Joe Petra Elli over to my house for dinner on Sunday night. Nice. Who's such a great guy and terrific, terrific lawyer, and I know who you work with him as [00:27:00] well.

What kind of suggestions might you have for best practices in terms of.  working with Google, of course, keeping people informed and sticking to budgets. I mean, there's all those things that are good practices,  anywhere at any time. Are there any particular things that you would say that in your experience are really appreciated at Google and working with outside counsel?

SANDI KNIGHT: Absolutely. Well, you know, I often joke that, you know, the key to any great relationship with outside counsel is that they make me look good and make my life easier. Right.

So, you know, it's,  you say those are kind of basic things, but I'm actually surprised at how often we'll still run into problems with those things that you think should be just a given. And so,  you know, it really is things like,  getting us briefs. Early enough, because it's not just that, that's not 

JOHN QUINN: six hours, not six hours [00:28:00] before filing.

SANDI KNIGHT: It's not six hours before filing, but really kind of backing up and thinking, you know, it's not just the lawyers you're dealing with on the case who need to be able to review it and, you know,  comment and those types of things, depending on the level of case. There might be a number of people up the chain who wanna take a look at it.

We have people here who are sort of unusually involved,  sometimes and, and really interested in the actual, like lawyering and, and strategy on the cases. And so we need enough time to get it. Through each of those stages,  to feel good about it for filing. And so, yeah, not, not getting us jammed up on things like,  you know, dealing with,   filings and that sort of thing.

But really even more importantly is just being, you know, a strong strategic thinker with us. We were talking about this a little bit earlier, and again, it's like, you know, anybody could come in and kind of give us what's. The black letter law, et cetera. It's like, [00:29:00] you know, be willing to take a little bit of risk in terms of your own advice and, you know, maybe go out on a limb and think through, like, I can't tell you exactly what's going to hear happen here, but here's my, you know, best prediction as to where this could be going and how you can, you know.

Protect yourself going forward, whether it's, you know, from potential downside risk to it or how you can actually be a leader in this area,  based on the legal landscape. So it's that kind of thing that's most valuable for us to not just sort of sit back and do the basics, but to really think through, to know our products and our business well enough to be able to have that type of deep strategic thinking with us.

Yeah. 

JOHN QUINN: Yeah. In my experience,  in working with Google, one thing that was really valued was not imposing on engineers time. 

SANDI KNIGHT: Yes, that is also key. You know, we 

JOHN QUINN: We're always getting that message from our [00:30:00] counterparts in your department that, Hey, this person is working on a really important project. I'm gonna have you say you need two hours with him or her.

I'm gonna have to go to bat for that. So it better be really important and you gotta make really good use of that time. 

SANDI KNIGHT: You do wanna make good use of that time. It's a good piece of advice, but also, you know, some of that is on us too. And so, you know, we need to work carefully with you and be able to explain,  you know, to our folks in the business now, this is really something that needs to happen.

And then you economize that time because sometimes we'll have matters that overlap or, you know, that engineer's knowledge about that issue has come up. Three different cases and on different teams, et cetera. Well, you know, we shouldn't be going back to the well with that person. 

JOHN QUINN: Same conversation three times.

No, that's 

SANDI KNIGHT: Right. You know, that's, that doesn't make 

JOHN QUINN: Everybody looks good. 

SANDI KNIGHT: That doesn't make anybody look good. And that's on us. Yeah. We've gotta be more organized and really think through and use [00:31:00] our people's time the best. So I think we have a lot of ownership as well. 

JOHN QUINN: Are there any instances that you can think of where you were just blown away by something outside council did or,  I don't know, the foresight or, you know, something that they did that you just don't see very often that you thought, wow, that was impressive?

SANDI KNIGHT: Oh man. I should have thought about this one. That's a good question.  I would say. You know, I'm thinking about like when we're preparing for those Supreme Court arguments 

JOHN QUINN: mm-hmm. 

SANDI KNIGHT:  And going through, and we had multiple panels really look at it as we did mocks ahead of time, I think we can get so much out of a really good mock Right.

Uhhuh and, and I'm particularly impressed with whether it's, you know, a Supreme Court argument or other cases that we've had getting ready for trial lately at all. We'll take the key facts from the, the mocks and obviously we [00:32:00] wanna hear the readout about it, but maybe even do another round,  to, to then test out some of those theories from the first one and go a little bit deeper and see how we think it's gonna play out.

Like that tends to be some of the most valuable information Yeah.  that they can convey to Halima and me. With, while we're thinking about the cases and sort of our, you know, chances of success, risk on it, all of those types of things that, that work,  I find to be particularly helpful. And, and some are just a lot more skilled at it than others.

JOHN QUINN: Yeah. So digest, get the learnings from those, exercising, digesting it, and incorporating 'em. Putting them to use. 

SANDI KNIGHT: Yes, because I think about where we went from, you know, sort of our first practice rounds in that Gonzalez oral argument to where we finally ended up after working through some of those more difficult issues and it was almost like night and day and I couldn't have been more pleased with how it went at the end of the day.[00:33:00] 

JOHN QUINN: Such a pleasure talking to you, Sandy. Thank you so much. Thanks, John. Always a pleasure. Hope to see you again soon. I hope so. This is John Quinn. This has been Law Disrupted. We've been speaking with Sandy Knight, vice President Legal of Litigation and Discovery at Google.

Thank you for listening to Law Disruptive with me, John Quinn. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe and leave a rating and review on your chosen podcast app. To stay up to date with the latest episodes. You can sign up for email alerts at our website, law Hype Disrupted fm, or follow me on X at JB Q Law or at Quin Emanuel.

Thank you for tuning [00:34:00] in.