Even if Pepper Hamilton violated a former client's confidentiality by disclosing an FBI affidavit of probable cause to search that client's home, the firm can't be sued considering the affidavit was made public prior to the firm's disclosure, a Philadelphia trial judge has ruled.

Union leader John J. Dougherty had accused Pepper Hamilton of breaching its fiduciary duty to Dougherty, who the firm represented from 2003 through 2007 in response to a subpoena he received in a federal investigation. Dougherty was never charged as part of that investigation and the firm's representation of him ended.

Dougherty had subsequently sued the owners of Philadelphia's two major daily newspapers in 2009 after a series of allegedly disparaging articles during his run for Pennsylvania Senate. Pepper Hamilton represented the newspapers. As part of filings in the defamation case, the law firm attached the FBI affidavit and two days later the newspapers ran an article about it, according to the opinion in Dougherty v. Pepper Hamilton by Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas Judge Mark I. Bernstein.