Yes possibly, but we are now years after the fact and his willingness to commit energy to this and have it hashed out in public indicates he is a believer, that she is inclined to interpret ethics statutes on her own for herself, without affording anyone else an opportunity to have a say. So this is very relevant to the confirmation, or at least to the public paying attention.
In my experience, an attorney who was angry at an award level years back would not bother to come out and get in the public eye unless the anger transcended to areas other than simple dollars. Greenberg referred to the astounding appearance of impropriety, apparent unethical judicial behavior, lack of empathy ... all of which Obama himself has paid lip service to the contrary.
The bottomline is that Sotomayor could have easily recused herself or afforded opportunity to plaintiff counsel to motion for a new judge. Surely she could have gotten off the case and moved to another case. Maybe she really thought it was a trivial fact that she worked with and knew defense counsel, but she decided that on her own. That shows a certain callousness. So it begs the question that in her mind what was so special about this case that she needed to withhold information?
I don’t think that the case (that is, the relationship between attorney and appellate judge) was special at all—I think it was perfectly common. That’s why it wasn’t disclosed—there was no real reason to because it is old hat.
Maybe we’ll see more in the coming days that persuade me otherwise