Gino Case Inches Towards Trial Amid Summary Judgement, Discovery Fights

Harvard and former Business School Professor Francesca Gino are nearing a decision on the University’s bid to resolve their three-year legal fight without a trial, after months of disputes over a contested data file, forensic evidence from Gino’s laptop, and the format of her court filings.

Harvard filed a motion for summary judgement in June, asking U.S. District Court Judge Myong J. Joun to rule in its favor without a trial. Gino opposed the motion in late July, and the parties have since traded another round of filings over the facts they say are relevant to the case. A trial is currently scheduled to begin Dec. 7.

The summary judgement came one day after Magistrate Judge Jessica D. Hedges issued a ruling on Harvard’s effort to compel testimony from Gino, her husband, Gregory Burd, and attorney Benjamin G. Edelman ’02.

Hedges declined to apply the crime-fraud exception to attorney-client privilege to force Gino to answer a question about what she provided to Edelman concerning a disputed data file.

“Whether Ms. Gino did, in fact, engage in fraud or wrongdoing with respect to the July 16 OG File remains in dispute,” she wrote, adding that the question was at the “heart of Harvard’s counterclaim.”

Hedges nevertheless handed Harvard a partial win in the ruling, allowing the University to compel Burd to answer a question he had declined to answer during his deposition on attorney-client privilege. Hedges found that Burd did not have an attorney-client privilege relationship with Edelman and that the conversation was not a protected work product.

She separately denied Harvard’s request to comment testimony from Edelman, ruling that the University had filed the motion in the wrong court. Because Edelman’s deposition was conducted under a subpoena requiring compliance in Seattle, Harvard would have to seek an order from a federal court in Washington.

Court documents show that Harvard sought to question Edelman about his involvement in the creation of Gino’s website, his knowledge of the disputed data file, whether he had been involved in modifying the content or metadata of any of Gino’s devices, and his involvement with a separate file Harvard has described as a suspected cover-up file.

Gino’s lawyers defended Edelman in response to the motion, arguing that he had been targeted by Harvard and that the motion itself was flawed.

“Defendants’ lack of evidence has not deterred them from throwing significant mud. And that mud is conveniently directed at a person who is 3,000 miles away and unable to defend himself before this Court—Attorney Benjamin Edelman,” Gino’s lawyers wrote.

Gino, a former HBS professor, came under fire after she was accused of falsifying data in past research. After years of investigations, Harvard revoked her tenure and terminated her employment in May 2025 – the first time the University had revoked a professor’s tenure in roughly 80 years.

The case became further entangled in discovery in July, when Hedges ordered Gino to turn over additional forensic information about a laptop she used in 2023.

On July 7, Hedges ordered Gino to produce terminal or bash history, browser history, and downloads from Sept. 23, 2023, and image and video files created or modified that day. She could withhold “highly sensitive information,” relating to her children and family, medical history, and other personal matters if she logged what had been withheld and why.

Both parties were also permitted to ask the forensic analyst examining the laptop whether there was evidence of log-clearing or unexplained gaps around USB connections, in connection with questions over whether activity had been erased or hidden from the computer.

But Hedges barred the analyst’s responses from being used as “substantive opinion evidence.”

Gino filed her opposition to Harvard’s summary judgement motion on July 30 and the next day submitted a point-by-point response disputing what Harvard claimed were undisputed facts. She also filed a lengthy statement laying out additional facts she argued were relevant to the case.

On August 4, Harvard moved to strike that filing and requested an urgent status conference, arguing that it did not adhere to court rules governing its format, length, and organization.

According to Harvard, the filing, a “sprawling 94-page, 408-paragraph statement,” with 146 attached exhibits, nearly four times the length of Gino’s opposition to summary judgement and nearly three times the length of Harvard’s own submission.

Harvard also alleged that Gino’s filing contained “compound paragraphs,” a “plethora of immaterial facts and duplicative facts,” and “incorrect exhibit citations.”

Joun granted Harvard’s motion the following day, striking the filing in its entirety and giving Gino 14 days to submit a new version that complied with the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and the court’s standing order.

Gino filed a renewed version on Aug. 19. Harvard responded the following day and filed another reply in support of its summary judgement motion on Sept. 2.

—Staff writer Katharine E. Chavez can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on X @KatharineEC7.

—Staff writer Siena G. Devine Guzmán can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on X @sienadevinee.