January 3rd, 2010

Twitter Followers and Stalkers — Can You Tell the Difference?


[This post was edited 7/30/10 as some links went dead]

In 1993 The New Yorker published this now-classic cartoon with the caption, “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.” Initially created for a little chuckle, it’s turned into a prophetic warning. Anyone could be lurking on the other side of that keyboard.

One example played out on the websites of two law bloggers who were being cyber-stalked. The stalker happened to be a convicted rapist, and Twitter was his tool.

And this is worth writing about as a lesson to newcomers to the blogosphere and those who think acquiring a jillion Twitter followers, or a bazillion Facebook friends, will magically lead your nascent law firm down the Yellow Brick Road to Oz. It doesn’t work that way. And it could even be dangerous.

You would be foolish not heed the dangers of the web. Don’t be so quick to add Twitter and Facebook buddies under the pretension that these networks give you a level of familiarity with others if that familiarity doesn’t actually exist. If you don’t know how to say no then you aren’t an adult.

Just as social networks are used by the innocent, so too are they used by trolls, malcontents and criminals. You don’t want to learn the hard way about the difference between a follower and a stalker. This is particularly true since, as Kevin O’Keefe points out, there is software that will help buy Twitter followers. He issues his own mea cupla on once touting the benefits of large numbers of followers.

I’ve never been a fan of Twitter and the blizzard of garbage it sends over the transom at the user. If you use the service (or any other) quality must take precedence over quantity.

As Sergeant Phil Esterhaus used to say on Hill Street Blues, “Hey, let’s be careful out there.”

     

    January 1st, 2010

    US Chamber of Commerce Wins Golden Turkey Award


    A hearty congratulations to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on this New Year’s Day. They won my prestigious Golden Turkey Award for the most ridiculous and hypocritical lawsuit of the year, after many hours of super-secret deliberations. The vote was unanimous, after I cast the sole vote just moments ago.

    The competition was stiff, with the Chamber railing against everyone else bringing lawsuits but forgetting that they brought one of their own.

    While I mentioned it’s suit in my Halloween-themed Blawg Review, the suit really does deserve to shine separately.

    In October a group called the The Yes Men staged a fake news conference to pretend they were the Chamber and they had seen the light (angels and hosannas flow through background), and that they were reversing course on their opposition to climate legislation.

    Not happy about being parodied, mocked and ridiculed, they sued the The Yes Men in a suit that is no doubt destined for the trash heap of hypocrisy, apparently forgetting about that First Amendment thingie.

    Some posts on the subject here:

    • Chamber Suing Yes Men For “Commercial Identity Theft” (TPM-Muckraker)
    • EFF to represent Yes Men in Chamber of Commerce lawsuit (Boing Boing)

    Congrats to the Chamber on their fine work, and welcome to the growing stable of tort “reform” hypocrites. We can always count on them to shoot themselves in the foot with over-the-top conduct.

    My Golden Turkey, of course, is not to be confused with the book by that name about the worst movies in Hollywood, or any other Golden Turkey awards, of which I imagine a few others might exist. With a last name like mine, I claim squatters rights. Or something like that.

     

    December 31st, 2009

    Linkworthy (End of Year Edition)


    Let’s clear out the old in-box of things I’d like to blog about but never found the time for (because Martindale–Hubbell, Yahoo and FindLaw sucked out my recent time here).

    And so, without any attempt to organize by subject or in any other rational way:

    If you pay the cost of medical care, should you (or someone else?) get the benefits? (Walter Olson @ Point of Law);

    Which is better for a law professor, a PhD or actual experience as a lawyer? Both Marc Randazza and Scott Greenfield have sharp opinions, with dozens of comments that follow;

    Opinions on lawyers ethics and honesty dropped 5% in one year. Why? And does it matter? (Tannebaum @ My Law License);

    Personal injury cases are not funny. People get hurt. But when a moose head falls on someone in a bar, it’s hard for some to wonder how the moose got loose…Did anyone blame Sarah Palin? And was it Woody Allen’s moose? (Kevin Underhill @ Lowering the Bar, the Gothamist, and NY Mag);

    It was nice to be included in the ABA Blawg 100, as I previously noted, but now it seems some are so desperate to win that votes are for sale (@ Simple Justice)

    What value is Twitter to a personal injury lawyer? Is it zero, or just close to zero? (Mark Zamora @ A Georgia Lawyer)

    Someone in Florida gets steamed at lousy treatment from Route 60 Hyundai, they send a cease and desist letter, and then get a sharp lesson in the Streisand Effect and some brilliant legal writing from Marc Randazza (@ Overlaywered)

    Criminal defense lawyer Norm Pattis writes about Another Year in the Trenches, and man, can this guy write. Just one small piece:

    Summoning fight is usually not hard for me. I was born on the other side of the tracks and know firsthand how thin the line that separates me from the folks I represent. And for all my bold irreverence, I know a truth Christians know: All have sinned, and fallen well short of the glory of God.

    But I am having a hard time summoning fight just now. I am tired, discouraged and filled with misgivings about the law and my role as a lawyer…

    Grrr. Bark. Woof. Good dog. (Wise Law Blog);

    Blawg Review # 241 came on Pearl Harbor Day from Infamy and Praise;

    Blawg Review #242 at Liklihood of Confusion, inspired by the Festival of Lights, was a joy;

    Blawg Review #243 from Silverman Sherliker came out of London;

    A round-up of the Blawg Reviews of the past year, and a time to vote for the best one.

    And now, since Mrs. NY PI Blog is yelling at me to get off the damned computer and come have a drink, best wishes to all for a happy and healthy new year. (Except you, FindLaw, I’ll see you Monday morning.)

     

    December 29th, 2009

    Turkewitz v. Yahoo (Part 2: Class Counsel Responds To My Objections With Nonsense)


    As I wrote two weeks ago, I’m a member of the class of people victimized by Yahoo! click-fraud, and was stunned at being given the shaft in the proposed settlement. You can read the details of said shafting at that link, but it includes over four million dollars for class counsel — the lawyers that represented the class of victims — and virtually nothing for the actual victims. I get zippo in this deal if the judge approves it, which led me to object to the settlement.

    When I first wrote, I wondered how class counsel would justify taking the fat fee while the class members got reamed. And I wrote “I look forward to the response to my objection where the attorneys get to state in open court that my interests were protected by giving me nothing.”

    Well, now they’ve filed their response to my objections (YahooClassCounselResponse.pdf), as well as the objections of nine other victims. And that response can only be described as moronic. Unless, of course, you prefer the words dopey, dimwitted, inane, pointless, ludicrous, bizarre, and flouting the basic premise of attorney-client relations. Yes, I know that last part isn’t a word, but I’m on a roll and I’ve got a thesaurus. Stay with me here.

    In their response, the lawyers counter my objection by saying it was filed by a professional objector, Ted Frank at The Center for Class Action Fairness:

    The Turkewitz objection was filed by the “Center for Class Action Fairness” (“Center”), a professional objector to class action settlements. See http://centerforclassactionfairness.blogspot.com/ (blog of the Center for Class Action Fairness discussing three objections it filed in the month of December 2009 alone).

    Except that Frank isn’t the objector. I am. Frank is counsel. I really shouldn’t have to explain this concept to anyone who went to law school and now wants four million bucks in legal fees. If their lawyering is that lame (or feeble, faulty or ineffective — I’ve still got that thesaurus out), maybe they deserve zero for a fee.

    Let’s be clear about this since class counsel can’t figure it out: I contacted Frank to handle the objection for me. Frank has familiarity with the laws surrounding class action objections. I toyed with the idea of hiring a matrimonial or real estate lawyer to represent me but, oddly enough, chose someone familiar with the field. Go figure.

    They attack Frank, of course, because they can’t attack me. I’m a plaintiff’s guy. I think class actions under Rule 23 are a highly effective means of dealing with situations like this, and I said so in my court filing. In addition, I’ve never objected to a class action in my life, despite being involved as a class participant in many. And that appears to be why class counsel tried to shift away from the merits of the argument — that most victims are being shafted — to the lawyer representing me.

    In fact, the reply papers are so miserably superficial on this point I don’t know how it made it past the first draft. Was there more than one draft? There are four separate lawyers listed below the signature line. Did any of them read it? Don’t any of these folks know how to edit out awful?

    Next up, class counsel disputed my assertion that this suit was about click-fraud. Why bother with another irrelevant and idiotic argument? Likely because they know what they’ve done to the victims and again need to distract.

    You see this suit was about pay per click advertising and it was about misrepresentation, and numerous others have, therefore, referred to this as a suit about click-fraud or misrepresentation. (See, for example: Virtual Blight, eBrandz, and Seeking Alpha.) Yahoo! was alleged to have permitted ads to be displayed in spyware, domain name parking sites, pop-ups, pop-unders ad typosquatting sites. Yuck. I get sick just thinking about where Yahoo! wasted my money.

    More importantly, Yahoo! has confirmed that I’m a member of the protected class, making this issue moot as well. Even if I asserted that the case was about Crazy Eddie stock, it wouldn’t matter. Because I’m a member of the class and that is what matters. I need not make any showing of individual facts to receive compensation — assuming that I was getting any compensation which, if you’ve been reading you know by now, I’m clearly not.

    So class counsel figures, I guess, that if you can’t beat an objector on the merits then you just try to distract the judge. If you got the facts, after all, you argue the facts. And if you got the law, you argue the law. Class counsel has neither, so they shovel manure. Think the judge will notice?

    I’ll leave it to Ted Frank to argue the legal merits in a reply and beat the crap out of them further, since they all deserve it.

    The issue has been picked up, by the way, by TechDirt and Todd Zywicki @ Volokh (who focuses on Frank, and the reason I chose him).

    Links to this post:

    Miscellaneous
    First, I’m taking suggestions. If there is anything you want me to include or change, email me at [email protected]. Do not email me with questions. If you want to pay me, that’s a different story. But if there is something that …
    posted by David M. Gottlieb @ January 01, 2010 9:20 PM

     

    December 28th, 2009

    Would you rather have a law professor on a jury or a practicing litigator?


    Over at Concurring Opinions, law professor Adam Benforado asks this simple question, after being called for jury duty:

    For trial attorneys out there, I’m curious: would you rather have a law professor on a jury or a practicing litigator?

    The question isn’t really framed well. It is a popular misconception that lawyers get to pick the jurors that we desire. But it doesn’t work that way.

    We don’t pick the ones we do want, but rather, do everything we can to make sure the lemons don’t ever see opening statements.

    Thus, peremptory challenges get used on the the potential jurors sitting with their arms folded and a scowl on the face, who nevertheless answers all the questions appropriately about how fair they can be.

    You do your best to dump the bad apples and are stuck with the rest. That’s jury selection in a nutshell. Picking between practicing lawyers or law professors isn’t a choice many will ever get, and will be superceded by a million other factors.

    But all other things being equal, I would pick the one I most want to have a beer with.

    For more on that, see: Who Sits Jury Duty? (The Turkewitz Beer Test)

    Links to this post:

    How to get bounced on peremptories
    Prospective jurors, listen up: if you want to get out of serving you should try to give “correct” answers in voir dire, the kind that don’t result in a for-cause removal, but do it with folded arms and a scowling expression [Turkewitz]
    posted by Walter Olson @ January 17, 2010 12:16 AM