You can't litigate matters in the press. That's not shielded by the litigation privilege. So the granting of the anti-SLAPP motion here gets reversed.
That said, I would still rather be Patton Boggs than the plaintiff. The tweet's clearly opinion, so it's protected by the First Amendment. Some of the factual statements in the press release are true and/or opinion as well.
As the Court of Appeal holds, a portion of the release may contain allegedly defamatory facts. As a result, given the state of the evidence below, the anti-SLAPP motion should have been denied in part.
But once we hit summary judgment time (and surely by trial, if it ever gets there), Patton Boggs is looking pretty darn good. Since it looks to me like the factual claims are substantially true.
But for now, at least, a portion of the lawsuit survives.
