Will Mary Jo White conduct a truly independent…

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The NFL has utilized the services of lawyer Mary Jo White on several occasions over the past decade. She’s back again, hired to investigate the new claims of misconduct made by former Washington employee Tiffani Johnston against team owner Daniel Snyder.

As White’s work commences, there’s a fair and appropriate question to ask. Will she operate with a blank slate, or will she shape her investigation toward the conclusion she believes her client wants?

That’s what lawyers with big firms do. That’s how they continue to get hired to do work by major clients who pay bloated monthly invoices without scrutinizing them for filler or fluff or posing the simple question of whether a given task should have taken the amount of time for which the client was charged.

There’s an important nuance at play. A smart lawyer picks up on what the person who hired the lawyer and who will pay the lawyer’s bill wants. Then, the line between objectivity and advocacy becomes blurred, with the supposedly independent lawyer coming to the conclusion that he or she believes the client desires.

For White and the NFL, her work on the Saints bounty scandal suggests that she acted not as a truly independent reviewer of the facts but as someone who unofficially joined Team Shield, pushing the narrative that the league wanted her to push.

We sensed that White wouldn’t be truly independent. Eventually, she met with reporters, presenting the league’s evidence not with true independence but, in my opinion, the way that a trial lawyer would present a closing argument.

During the meeting, White misrepresented (intentionally or not) a key piece of video and audio, the notorious “Bobby, give me my money” quote. After some (like PFT) began to question White’s characterization of the evidence, the league backed off.

Several years later, the NFL hired White to conduct the investigation regarding owner Jerry Richardon’s alleged workplace misbehavior. NFL Players Association executive director DeMaurice Smith expressed concern at the time regarding her appointment.

“I have a question because I know that she falsely accused players in Bounty[gate],” Smith said at the time. “And things that she said to the press were either knowingly untrue or there came a time when we all knew they weren’t true.”

The following year, Ohio State hired White to conduct an investigation regarding former head coach Urban Meyer. In the end, it appeared that Ohio State got what it wanted from White.

For her latest work on behalf of the NFL, what does the NFL want? At this point, that’s not known. It’s safe to assume, based on past incidents, that whatever White concludes will be precisely what the NFL wanted her to conclude.

Regardless of the outcome, that’s not the way it should be. The investigator should conduct an investigation that takes her where the evidence leads, without bias or prejudice. White quite possibly has gotten this assignment because, on past occasions, she has given her client what her client wanted. It’s a safe bet that, yet again, the NFL will get whatever it wants.

So what does it want? We’ll find out when the results of White’s investigation become public.