Frenkel also suggested that ESN's local counsel may have improperly convinced the Clerk of Court of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas to change the date on the docket to reflect that the case was filed the next day.
[3] At that time, a $15,000 bounty for his identity had also been offered [4][5] by Chicago attorney Raymond Niro Sr.[2] After Frenkel publicly revealed his identity on February 23, 2008,[5][6] in the entry titled "Live by anonymity, die by anonymity",[2] the attorneys for ESN, T. John Ward, Jr., the son of East Texas federal Judge T. John Ward,[4] and Eric Albritton, filed defamation actions against Cisco and Frenkel.
"[4] The case raised questions about the risks of blogging anonymously,[2] and received wide publicity in the blogosphere as it was thought that the lawsuits could result in precedents to be applied to future bloggers.
[8] After Judge Richard A. Schell ruled that Albritton had to prove actual malice to be eligible for punitive damages, the litigation settled.
[10] Frenkel left Cisco in August 2008 to join the Palo Alto office of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati as a patent litigator.