Category: News Feeds

The AI-driven contract review technology company LawGeex has named legal industry veteran Sameena Kluck to the newly created position of director of brand evangelism.

Kluck, who has been with LawGeex since April 2020 as a strategic account executive, said that her new position is her dream job.

“What I’ve been put in this position to do is to tell our story externally and internally,” Kluck said. That means not only telling the company’s story, but also highlighting the “visionary” general counsel, legal operations directors, and others who use the LawGeex product.

Kluck worked for 16 years at Thomson Reuters, where her most recent position had been strategic account executive, leading a team of client managers who served some of the largest law firms in Washington, D.C., and the east coast.

In 2019, she left Thomson Reuters to join the pro bono technology company Paladin as its first vice president of business development. She moved to LawGeex in April 2020 as the company’s first account manager.

Earlier in her career, Kluck practiced law in St. Louis, Mo. She is a 1999 graduate of Washington University in St. Louis School of Law.

While she expects that she will do a significant amount of external writing and speaking in her new role, she also plans to work internally with the company’s internal go-to-market team to help them understand how to use the company’s stories.

Among her goals are to showcase the company’s executives, such as cofounder and CEO Noory Bechor, and its customers, particularly to show the innovative ways corporate counsel are using the product.

Although she is moving from sales to marketing for the first time in her career, Kluck says her sales experience over the past year perfectly positions her for this new role.

“i know our customer base so well now. I know who’s doing innovative things with their contract review workflows.”

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

While this story is about the tempest in a Twitterpot stirred up over the weekend, it can easily be lifted and dropped on the next episode of defensive outrage from the Federalist Society. This weekend it was Slate, but next time it’ll be The Atlantic. Or The New Republic. Or Cat Fancy. It doesn’t matter what kicks it off, it’ll always play out over a few stages. Just keep this post bookmarked for future reference.

Today’s installment involved a post in Slate by Nicholas Wallace. You remember Nicholas Wallace, right? The Stanford Law School student whose graduation was put on hold because a troika of Federalist Society members had a case of the feels after he produced a parody flyer suggesting that prominent Federalist Society members were deeply involved in the January 6 riots just because… prominent Federalist Society members were, in fact, deeply involved in the January 6 riots. Now graduated, Wallace wrote an article entitled Boycott the Federalist Society, pointing out the role the organization played in setting the table for the Capitol Hill putsch.

So cue the SocHeads coming out of the woodwork to scold anyone for endorsing this affront! And the seals opened and the four horses of Federalist Society defense rode forth.

“What? We’re Just A Non-Partisan Debating Society!”

Here’s ASSLaw professor David Bernstein:

…not sure why he doesn’t understand the art of finishing Tweets with complete sentences but the salient part is there.

To some extent, this is the byproduct of a farcical tax code that allows an organization so deeply in bed with the MAGA universe that its chairman took a leave of absence to funnel even more dark money into Trump’s efforts to remake the judiciary to claim that it’s non-partisan for the sake of preferential tax treatment. The American Constitution Society does the same thing, so I’m not going to begrudge the Federalist Society for playing the game at tax time.

But this isn’t tax time so we can dispense with the regulatory fig leaf.

As an organization, the Federalist Society does three things: (1) lay the pseudo-academic table for the MAGA movement; (2) recruit students to indulge their most trollish impulses — like mocking sexual assault — while placing them on greased rails to the federal bench… regardless of actual qualifications; (3) serve Chick-fil-A. Every one of those is a political position.

It’s not non-partisan. It scarcely pretends to be non-partisan.

The Secretary Will Disavow Any Knowledge Of Your Actions

What does it look like to have a leadership position in this organization? One might think it involves being selected to a post with some sort of… I dunno… title of responsibility. But whenever the Federalist Society gets in trouble and the outer shield of “non-partisan debate society” begins to collapse, the membership scurries away from titles like they’re made out of free and fair elections.

We’ll get to the second point in a minute. As for the first one, what non-sensical semantic complaint has he locked onto here? In Wallace’s article, he points to “Federalist Society officers” only once, to say that a member of the Executive Committee of one of the organization’s practice group and the Pittsburgh chapter head were “officers.”

That’s certainly what a normal person reading the situation might call them. But if they’re not the specific individuals listed on the Articles of Organization this is a semantic error of the highest order, sir! One that surely undermines every other evidenced and warranted claim in the article.

“Are you rebuking the liar?” Good heavens what a dramatist. There’s never anyone behind the curtain with these people.

But this response also sets up the next major theme.

Look… We Got SO MANY Good Ones Too!

Jonathan Adler, recently off whiffing his effort to defend Trans skepticism based on an internal org chart, enters the fray to defend the organization’s lack of moral compass as a matter of its big tent principles.

And an allusion to cancel culture for the “and-1”! Still, like a tree falling in the woods, if you’re being critical from within an organization that renounces any accountability… is really a thing?

“This is an unjustified smear,” Jonathan D. Urick tweets, linking to one of his articles. Here’s what he said in that article.

Because of these shared principles, many Federalist Society members courageously rejected Trump’s attempts to overturn the election. Across the country, dozens of Republican-appointed judges, including many of Trump’s own appointees, dismissed meritless election lawsuits. Off the bench, former appellate Judge J. Michael Luttig, Vice President Pence’s attorney Greg Jacob, and Berkeley law professor John Yoo all advised Pence that he could not unilaterally reject duly certified electoral votes. Based on the Constitution’s clear text, they convinced Pence that he had no such authority.

Hm. Unfortunately for him, Wallace came with receipts:

Most notorious among the lawsuits that sought to overturn the 2020 election was Paxton’s challenge to the voting procedures of four other states, an unprecedented legal maneuver that was summarily rejected by the Supreme Court. Of the 17 attorneys general who joined Paxton in that widely ridiculed effort, 13 are affiliated with the Federalist Society.

Other lawsuits challenging the election filed by Federalist Society officers include Stoddard v. City Election Commission, filed by Edward Greim, a member of the Executive Committee of the Federalist Society’s “Free Speech & Election Law Practice Group”; and Kelly v. Pennsylvania, filed by Gregory H. Teufel, who heads the organization’s Pittsburgh chapter.

Because identifying just how far a specific member is willing to take it misses the point in two ways. First, we wouldn’t even be at this point if we hadn’t watched the Federalist Society carry out its decades-long mission of nurturing the academic justification for undermining voting rights.

Second, and more importantly, the existence of dissenting members fundamentally misunderstands what the Federalist Society even is. Which we’ll address in the next point…

Well, What About Black Lives Matter?

WOW.

Well, just for an example, it sucks. Putting aside the racial baggage getting hauled in here, maybe one distinction could be that believing that “Black Lives Matter” is a principle and the Federalist Society is a heavily funded organization of academics, law students, and legal professionals. I guess this is why they also like to cosplay as a movement without any hierarchy despite all the officers, but as we already discussed, that rings hollow.

The analogy would be more apt if we replaced “Federalist Society” with “Originalism” — it’s just as morally bankrupt but at least it’s a loosely defined cause. Supporting the Federalist Society is not a principle, it’s a club, and a club that uses your goodwill to advance bad apples. You could just as easily quit and continue writing books about how child labor was awesome without lending your reputation to this project.

If you’re in the organization knowing this, then you’re a bad apple too.

And that’s it. We’re not political, no one is responsible for anything, we can’t be held accountable for anything we condone, and look… you’re just as bad. Every single time. There will be another controversy soon enough. I don’t know what it’s going to be, but somewhere between using slurs in an event description and defending forced sterilization of the poor, there’s going to be something. And then this whole cycle will fire itself up again.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

Boycott the Federalist Society [Slate]

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Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

Law is a broad field. Between criminal, maritime, entertainment, and civil rights law, there’s a cornucopia of options to choose from. Even within such subfields, the experience can be very different, depending on where you work, but there are quite a few lawyers that have made these kinds of transitions.

Transitioning Between Subfields

For example, Ari Redbord, who used to work as a federal prosecutor, is now head of legal and government affairs at a tech startup called TRM Labs. He and I discussed why he made such a change, and he gave advice to lawyers considering making a big transition themselves. What’s different? What’s the same? It was very insightful, as you can see (or, rather, hear) for yourself by listening to the podcast.

An Even-Bigger Transition

While many have moved from one law subfield to another, some of you may be on your way to changing fields entirely. That was K Royal’s experience as a registered nurse becoming a lawyer. Currently, she is associate general counsel at TrustArc and an adjunct law professor.

How did she make this huge transition? And what’s it like being a woman in privacy law? With over 25 years of experience in both law and medicine, she is more than capable of answering these questions, and plenty of others. Listen to my discussion with her on this podcast.

The Importance Of Wellness

Sometimes, as attorneys, we focus so much on our work that we neglect ourselves. This is not only dangerous to us as individuals, but it also threatens our productivity, too. This is what I discussed with Monica Phillips, president and founder of Spark Plug Labs. After having delivered many keynotes and taught various workshops on wellness, she is more than qualified to speak on this issue. For the past 22 years, she has led innovation and change in law firms.

She and I discussed some of the legal industry’s top saboteurs and how they impact relationships and productivity. She ties this all back to wellness, its importance, and how it leads to improved performance on diverse teams. Take a listen here.

With the information discussed in these podcasts, you will be better able to make any transitions that may arise in your legal career. Whether you’re entering the field of law, moving from one field to another, or even going through some changes at your current job, this advice will help. And, really, all I want for you is to be better able to handle these changes in your professional life.

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Olga V. Mack is the CEO of Parley Pro, a next-generation contract management company that has pioneered online negotiation technology. Olga embraces legal innovation and had dedicated her career to improving and shaping the future of law. She is convinced that the legal profession will emerge even stronger, more resilient, and more inclusive than before by embracing technology. Olga is also an award-winning general counsel, operations professional, startup advisor, public speaker, adjunct professor, and entrepreneur. She founded the Women Serve on Boards movement that advocates for women to participate on corporate boards of Fortune 500 companies. She authored Get on Board: Earning Your Ticket to a Corporate Board Seat and Fundamentals of Smart Contract Security. You can follow Olga on Twitter @olgavmack.

WASHINGTON: Mike Brown, the Defense Innovation Unit head who had been nominated earlier this year to be the Pentagon’s top acquisition official, has withdrawn his candidacy.

In a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, obtained by Breaking Defense, Brown cited an ongoing investigation by the Office of Inspector General — first reported in April by Defense One — as the reason for withdrawal. That investigation appears poised to take more than a year, Brown said, tying up the nomination process. 

“While I am confident the Office of Inspector General will ultimately find no wrongdoing on my part, I know there are other qualified candidates who can focus on the urgent business of making our acquisition processes faster and more cost-effective,” Brown wrote in the letter. “I must put the interests of the Department above my own enthusiasm for serving as the Under Secretary for Acquisition and Sustainment.” 

Brown, a former CEO of cybersecurity firm Symantec, joined the DoD in September 2018 to lead DIU, a small office dedicated to increasing ties between the department and commercial technology firms. The rare Trump administration appointee to have been kept on at the Pentagon by the Biden team, Brown over the years has gained a reputation in Congress as a China hawk thanks to his co-authorship of a departmental report that warned Beijing is actively trying to buy into the defense supply chain.

His nomination was backed by a number of notable defense figures, including Ellen Lord, who served as A&S head during the Trump administration, and former House Armed Services Committee chairman Mac Thornberry. 

The IG complaint, filled by a former DIU official, targeted Brown’s hiring practices, claiming his team improperly hired individuals and that DIU altered contracts to award bonus funds to specific employees at some companies. Sources in DIU have consistently said the complaints are without merit and have described the complainant as more disgruntled employee than whistleblower. 

Regardless of how the report pans out, the process has scuttled Brown’s chances. He intends to return to running DIU, which he described as being key to “challenge the status quo” for the department. Stacy Cummings will continue to perform the duties of the A&S role, which she has been filling since Lord’s departure in January. 

Right now firms are just feeling like, ‘We don’t really have that much of a choice.’ And I think the lawyers realize that and are going to be pushing for as much as they can get.

[Firms are] very cognizant of who has the leverage right now because they’re so busy, they literally can’t find enough people to get all the work done. That’s why you see these tremendous signing bonuses to associates, and the recent salary wars escalating again. [Firms are] very concerned about putting a line in the sand.

Here you may have a situation where the desires of the client are diametrically opposed to the wishes of a larger number of attorneys at the firm, both associate and partner alike. That has the potential to create significant tension within the firm and may even cause some attorneys to vote with their feet.

— Jeffrey Lowe, global practice leader of the law firm practice at Major, Lindsey & Africa, commenting on “very pro-attorney market” that law firms are dealing with in the wake of the pandemic. Individual associates and partners have more power, leverage, and autonomy now than they ever did before.

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Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

A Kraken lawyer has dispatched a private investigator to accompany a Michigan sheriff’s deputy on secret interrogations of election clerks about the 2020 election.

Just … WTF?

Bridge Michigan reports that Barry County Sheriff Dar Leaf has sent private investigator Michael Lynch out accompanied by a sheriff’s department employee to harass election workers about the 2020 election.

Leaf previously made news by suggesting that the plot to kidnap and execute Governor Gretchen Whitmer was perhaps just a plan to carry out a totally legal (huh?) citizens’ arrest. He worked with the Kraken legal team in an effort to seize the voting machines in Barry County (pop. 61,157), where Trump took 65 percent of the vote. And he filed one of the more amazingly ridiculous election suits of the season, attempting to halt election certification based on warmed over “Sharpiegate” allegations from Arizona.

Denying Leaf’s request for a restraining order, Chief U.S. District Judge Robert J. Jonker said the application “contain[ed] only introductory comments, a section regarding subject matter jurisdiction, a section on the parties, and then proceeds straight to an analysis of Rule 65 and a request for relief. The Applications are not verified either.”

He went on:

Plaintiffs’ Applications invite the Court to make speculative leaps towards a hazy and nebulous inference that there has been numerous instances of election fraud and that Defendants are destroying the evidence. There is simply nothing of record to infer as much, much less conclude that irreparable injury will occur before the defendants can be heard.

Finally, the Applications do not satisfy the Court that Rule 65’s notice certification requirement has been met. Plaintiffs state they made a “reasonable effort” to serve the Applications via email to counsel representing the Defendants in a separate action currently pending in the Eastern District of Michigan. But a “reasonable effort” does not notice make.

Three guesses which Kraken Krackerjack filed this POS suit on Leaf’s behalf.

Hint: It’s the same one who put her name on that insane brief insisting that an e-signature didn’t count as actually appearing in the case.

That’s right, it’s Stephanie Lambert Junttila, most recently seen in these pages getting castigated at last week’s Kraken sanctions hearing for failing to cite any cases in support of her argument that the First Amendment allows lawyers to say absolutely any insane bullshit in the course of zealous client representation.

Previous FOIA requests show Leaf cahootsing with Junttila and other members of the Kraken Krew via his attorney Carson Tucker. And so it’s perhaps no surprise that Junttila hooked Leaf up with a civilian investigator to participate in this wildly inappropriate fishing expedition in the company of a law enforcement official, so as to give it the apparent coercive endorsement of state imprimatur.

“I was told by my clerks that they were told not to say anything to each other or to me,” Barry County Clerk Pam Palmer, a Republican, told Bridge. “So I don’t know what (Leaf and his team) are trying to hide. I’m told by the investigator that they’re doing this under the element of surprise.”

There’s a lot that’s unclear here, including who is paying Lynch to interrogate these county employees as apparent state actors and what Junttila’s role is in the scheme. But it certainly appears that she’s communicating on Lynch’s behalf.

Leaf has refused to disclose an initial complaint that he said prompted the investigation. The local media has quoted Leaf as saying his office is not paying Lynch, the private investigator who is working with his office and has questioned local government officials alongside a sheriff’s deputy.

In a brief phone interview Thursday, Lynch told Bridge Michigan he is “part of” the Barry County probe but declined to say who hired him. He said he was about to have a meeting and would call back. He has not.

Instead, Junttila responded by email to a separate Bridge inquiry, describing Lynch as a “certified fraud examiner” and “licensed investigator” who “was previously employed at DTE for 40 years with 20 years spent serving as the director of security.”

“Michael Lynch has not been paid to investigate election fraud in Barry County,” Junttila wrote.

She did not respond to follow-up questions, including whether Lynch is being paid to investigate anything else. Lynch did not answer a phone call on Friday and did not respond to questions via text message, telling Bridge Michigan that “Ms. Lambert (Junttila) sent you a response.”

Diiiiiiiiiiiirty.

It’s always the ones you most suspect, right?

Michigan sheriff enlists private eye to grill clerks in vote fraud probe [Bridge Michigan]

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Elizabeth Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.

The new market standard salary may have taken effect at most firms on July 1, but we’re still hearing from associates at firms across the country about compensation changes in the wake of Davis Polk’s bombshell salary increases that have now become the status quo.

That’s where real-estate boutique Duval & Stachenfeld — the home of our former longtime columnist, Bruce Stachenfeld — comes in. We’ve heard that during a firmwide Zoom call earlier this month, managing partner Terri Adler announced that D&S would be matching the DPW scale. In case you’ve somehow forgotten, this is what that salary scale looks like:

• 2021: $202,500
• 2020: $205,000
• 2019: $215,000
• 2018: $240,000
• 2017: $275,000
• 2016: $305,000
• 2015: $330,000
• 2014: $350,000
• 2013: $365,000

Congratulations to everyone at Duval & Stachenfeld!

We depend on your tips to stay on top of this stuff. So when your firm matches, please text us (646-820-8477) or email us (subject line: “[Firm Name] Matches”). Please include the memo if available. You can take a photo of the memo and send it via text or email if you don’t want to forward the original PDF or Word file.

And if you’d like to sign up for ATL’s Bonus Alerts (which is the alert list we’ll also use for salary announcements), please scroll down and enter your email address in the box below this post. If you previously signed up for the bonus alerts, you don’t need to do anything. You’ll receive an email notification within minutes of each bonus announcement that we publish.

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Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

One by one, Biglaw firms have announced plans to return to the office, but not many have announced that all associates must be vaccinated. The majority of firms have strongly encouraged vaccination, but firms that are outright mandating vaccination seem to be few and far between. Today, we have news on a firm that’s not only requiring vaccination, but also has a relatively flexible remote work policy as well.

This past Friday, Clifford Chance announced an agile working policy for its American offices, with a return to office-based working to start on September 13. That plan involves up to two remote days each week for both attorneys and business professionals (and time spent with clients outside the office will be considered time in the office). Once or twice a month, all employees will be expected to be in the office on specific days for specific events. The firm’s plan is relatively simple so that employees can “reap the benefits without heavy bureaucracy.” That’s a nice change of pace from what we’ve seen at most firms.

Next comes the firm’s vaccination policy, which is also short and sweet: get vaccinated by September 13 and get ready to provide proof. Similar rules will soon be implemented for clients and non-employees who expect to enter the firm’s U.S. offices.

Sources we’ve heard from at the firm say they’re pleased with the firm’s “very flexible and reasonable” new policies and really “appreciate” the firm’s stance on vaccination against COVID-19.

What has your firm announced as far as a reopening plan is concerned? The more information is out there, the more likely it is that firms will be able to establish a market standard for a return to work.

As soon as you find out about the reopening plan at your firm, please email us (subject line: “[Firm Name] Office Reopening”) or text us at (646) 820-8477. We always keep our sources on stories anonymous. There’s no need to send a memo (if one exists) using your firm email account; your personal email account is fine. If a memo has been circulated, please be sure to include it as proof; we like to post complete memos as a service to our readers. You can take a photo of the memo and attach as a picture if you are worried about metadata in a PDF or Word file. Thanks.

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Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

Several hospitals have filed class action antitrust lawsuits against Intuitive Surgical, one of the largest surgical robot makers, alleging that it used its market power to force them to sign restrictive repair contracts and buy replacement parts at inflated prices.

Despite limited evidence that they work better than other minimally-invasive surgeries, more hospitals are buying surgical robots. As of last year, Intuitive had installed 3,720 of its da Vinci surgical robots in the U.S., according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These devices are expensive, costing up to $2.5 million each, and often come with thousands of dollars in additional annual costs.

In a complaint filed earlier this month, 13-hospital system Franciscan Health said it had to sign a five-year service contract,  which could be voided if it sought out third-party repair services for its da Vinci surgical robots. These services cost between $80,000 and $190,000 per year.

According to the lawsuit, as first reported on by Axios, one customer that had tried to use a third-party robot repair service found its device stopped functioning during an operation, forcing the surgeons to finish the surgery manually.

Franciscan Health alleged that some hospitals who try to use third-party services receive cease-and-desist letters from Intuitive threatening to refuse future maintenance, and in some cases, even threatening to disable the robot.

In a separate lawsuit filed this month, New York-based Kaleida Health said independent robotic repair companies also received cease-and-desist letters demanding that they not contact its customers to offer repair services.

Both lawsuits focused on limitations in maintaining and re-using EndoWrist surgical instruments that come with the robots. Each one comes with a series of attachments that resemble traditional laparoscopic surgical tools, such as a scalpel and scissors, but they also have an embedded chip to track how many times the device is used. In some cases, the instruments could only be used 10 times before the hospital had to purchase more devices, both lawsuits claimed.

In an emailed statement, Intuitive Surgical said it does not have the ability to shut down a surgical system during a procedure underway, but there are circumstances where the device might shut down if operated in an unsafe manner.

As for its restrictions on third-party repairs, the company cited risks in deviating from processes cleared by regulators.

“Continued use beyond the instrument’s determined useful life may reduce safety, precision and dexterity. Further, third parties may use incompatible or unvalidated parts or processes in servicing or repairing the systems, which could cause damage and put patient safety at risk,” a company spokesperson wrote in an email.

Still, these service contracts and accessories are a big source of revenue for Intuitive Surgical. It brought in $2.46 billion in instruments and accessories alone last year, and another $724 million in services, collectively making up more than half of its total revenue. 

Both class action lawsuits are seeking a judgment that Intuitive Surgical violated antitrust law, and treble damages.

The cases are Kaleida Health v. Intuitive Surgical Inc. and Franciscan Alliance Inc. v. Intuitive Surgical Inc. Both were filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

Image from flickr user Roswell Park

A couple of weeks ago, Donald Trump filed putative class-action lawsuits against Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube (and their top executives) alleging that the social media companies violated the First Amendment when they banned Trump from their platforms.

Constitutional scholars promptly noted that the First Amendment applies only to governmental actors, not to private companies, and the complaints did not state a claim. No one’s ever confused me with a constitutional scholar, but that sounds about right to me.

Other commentators joined the fray, talking about discovery. If these lawsuits proceed into discovery, then Trump will have to give deposition testimony about his conduct before and after January 6. Although Trump says that he’d be happy to give that testimony, he’s bluffing. Cooler heads will prevail, and he won’t agree to testify under oath in civil cases against social media companies.

Within a year, either the courts will dismiss these lawsuits on First Amendment grounds or Trump will voluntarily dismiss the cases before his deposition is taken. You heard it here first.

But here’s another angle about which pundits have not yet spoken:  Typicality.

People who are speaking to the general public can talk only about the First Amendment and discovery, because those are topics that the general public can understand. Given my audience here at Above the Law, I can dig (just slightly) deeper. I assume that most readers of Above the Law know that cases can proceed as class actions only where the members of the class are sufficiently numerous, legal issues are common to the class, the class representative’s claims are typical of the claims of others in the class, and the putative class representative is an adequate representative of the class.

I’m focusing here on the third requirement of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(a):  The so-called “typicality” requirement.  I have two thoughts.

First, I bet it’s terribly hard to prove that Trump’s claims are “typical” of other members of the putative class. Facebook and Twitter probably throw people off their platforms for a multitude of different reasons, and those reasons almost surely vary from person to person. Trump was suspended, I assume, because he fomented insurrection (or some such thing). Other members of the putative class were probably suspended because — and here I’m just guessing — they spewed racist or sexist stuff, they advocated the violent overthrow of the government, they published links to child pornography or directions on how to construct nuclear or biological weapons, and God knows what else. This is one of many areas where my imagination probably isn’t up to the task, but discovery will surely reveal that each person is banned from social media platforms for very individualized reasons.

Second, as a practical matter, why does Trump want himself to be deemed “typical” of this class? This class surely includes people from both ends of the political spectrum. I’m confident that Twitter and Facebook ban bomb-throwing anarchists and riotous communists of the left as quickly as the platforms ban white supremacists and would-be autocrats of the right.  Trump would be asking a court to decide that he was “typical” of a class of people that almost surely consists largely of lowlifes that the average person wouldn’t care to associate with, let alone be deemed typical of.

So here’s my bet: These cases will be dismissed, either by a court or by Trump voluntarily, before Trump’s deposition is taken. But, if I’m wrong, the typicality analysis will pose both a legal obstacle and a public relations nightmare for Trump.  Trump’s claims probably can’t be typical of this class, and he probably doesn’t want a court to hold that they are. That’s yet another reason why these lawsuits are doomed to fail.

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Mark Herrmann spent 17 years as a partner at a leading international law firm and is now deputy general counsel at a large international company. He is the author of The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law and Drug and Device Product Liability Litigation Strategy (affiliate links). You can reach him by email at inhouse@abovethelaw.com.