Category: News Feeds

We’ve long discussed how the Pai FCC’s net neutrality repeal was plagued with millions of fraudulent comments, many of which were submitted by a bot pulling names from a hacked database of some kind. Millions of ordinary folks (like myself) had their identities used to support Pai’s unpopular plan, as did several Senators. Numerous journalists like Jason Prechtel have submitted FOIA requests for more data (server logs, IP addresses, API data, anything) that might indicate who was behind the fraudulent comments, who may have bankrolled them, and what the Pai FCC knew about it.

Those efforts have slowly been paying off. Back in January, Gizmodo linked some of the fake comments to Trump associates and some DC lobbying shops like CQ Roll Call. This week, Buzzfeed went even further, drawing a direct line between the fake comments and the broadband industry:

“A BuzzFeed News investigation — based on an analysis of millions of comments, along with court records, business filings, and interviews with dozens of people — offers a window into how a crucial democratic process was skewed by one of the most prolific uses of political impersonation in US history. In a key part of the puzzle, two little-known firms, Media Bridge and LCX Digital, working on behalf of industry group Broadband for America, misappropriated names and personal information as part of a bid to submit more than 1.5 million statements favorable to their cause.”

Broadband For America, who we’ve discussed previously, pretends to be a coalition of “consumer groups” and other interests “dedicated to protecting a free and open internet for all Americans.” But it’s little more than a cut out for Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, and other industry giants. Via a slow and painstaking FOIA process, Buzzfeed ultimately linked many of the stolen identities to major data breaches like the hack of modern business solutions by matching the fraudulent names via the hack database at HaveIBeenPwned.

Just in case the lede gets buried here: the broadband industry hired shady goons to use stolen data to create fake public support for anti-consumer tech policy. And nobody (especially the FCC) has done a damn thing about it.

Granted the net neutrality repeal is just one of many examples of lobbyists polluting regulatory comment periods (usually the only time consumers are allowed to give feedback on policy decisions) with fake people, and both Media Bridge and LCX Digital appear to have other clients beyond just the broadband sector:

“The anti–net neutrality comments harvested on behalf of Broadband for America, the industry group that represented telecommunications giants including AT&T, Cox, and Comcast, were uploaded to the FCC website by Media Bridge founder Shane Cory, a former executive director of both the Libertarian Party and the conservative sting group Project Veritas. Cory has claimed credit for “20 or 30” major public advocacy campaigns in recent years, including, he says, record-setting submissions to the IRS, Environmental Protection Agency, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, and “probably a handful of others.”

Classy! Given that both the DOJ and the NY Attorney General are (supposedly still) conducting ongoing inquiries into the fake net neutrality comments, this may not be the last time you’ll see these lobbying shops’ names in lights. Meanwhile it’s rather ironic that the same week a court ruling comes down supporting (mostly) the FCC’s repeal, a big chunk of the “public support” for the repeal — and the FCC’s primary justification for it (that the rules stifled broadband investment) — were clearly proven to be fraudulent. So far, one gets the sneaking suspicion the US legal system may just be broken.

Surprise! Buzzfeed Links Bogus Net Neutrality Comments Directly To Broadband Industry

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Zimbabwe is facing the worst economic crisis since 2008, when inflation got so bad it had to print trillion-dollar notes. Many thought after Robert Mugabe fell two years ago things would get better, but they haven’t. Nearly everyone is suffering, but recently, it’s doctors who’ve taken to the streets in protest. NPR’s Eyder Peralta reports.

EYDER PERALTA, BYLINE: The doctors gather in front of one of the big public hospitals in Harare.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTER: (Foreign language spoken).

UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Foreign language spoken).

PERALTA: Since the beginning of last month, junior doctors have not been showing up to work. Dr. Tapiwa Mungofa stands before his peers and says doctors are now being paid less than $100 a month. That’s not enough to eat, not enough to pay rent.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

TAPIWA MUNGOFA: We are not talking about clothes. We are not talking about buying cars. We are not talking about anything – just to survive. Just to be able to go to work, we couldn’t afford.

PERALTA: The night before, the head of the doctors union, Dr. Peter Magombeyi, a pediatrician who had led this strike, was abducted. The doctors had no doubt the government was to blame, so the fear is palpable.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

MUNGOFA: We are now considering the workplace and even our homes unsafe for doctors. We don’t know who is going to be taken next.

PERALTA: The doctors take off. They march around the hospital campus.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Singing in foreign language).

PERALTA: But they never leave the gates because that would mean facing off with security forces.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Singing in foreign language).

PERALTA: Right now, it’s not just doctors who are hurting. Zimbabwe’s currency has tumbled. Inflation is sky-high. And the markets have lost trust in the government. Economist Tony Hawkins.

TONY HAWKINS: So you’ve got a sort of a vicious circle relationship. And the authorities are really at a loss to know what to do.

PERALTA: In real terms, the government has few dollars to pay for essentials – gasoline to run generators, chemicals to treat water, money to pay teachers and doctors. For regular folk, the minimum wage keeps dropping. In just one week, it lost almost 40% of its value. They now make just $20 a month. One of the big problems is that Zimbabwe lacks the reserves to prop up its currency.

HAWKINS: It’s hard to see a way out of this unless there’s some kind of international bailout.

PERALTA: And the international community has been waiting for real democratic changes in order to step in. The abduction of the doctor hasn’t helped, but Sibusiso Moyo, the country’s foreign minister, says they had nothing to do with it.

Still, about 50 other government critics have been abducted in recent months, and several activists were criminally charged by the government after they were found. Is this not the way old Zimbabwe used to deal with its foes, I ask.

SIBUSISO MOYO: It’s not easy to move from one regime into the next.

PERALTA: This is a new government, he says, that is, quote, decongesting minds and teaching people to unlearn the past.

MOYO: And therefore, when you say it looks like, because of certain issues, we may be the same like the previous, it is only because everybody is human and that people are likely to fall into the previous.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Singing in foreign language).

PERALTA: The day after the first protest, doctors do leave the hospital.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Singing in foreign language).

PERALTA: They walk onto the city streets, but they are stopped by police about a block from the presidential offices. Dr. Karongo, who only gives his first name because he fears retaliation, stands right in front of officers in full riot gear. The abduction, he says, made them push through their fear.

KARONGO: For this incident, everyone is prepared to come out and be heard.

PERALTA: This time, it was hundreds of them. Senior doctors and nurses joined in. They sat at a major thoroughfare as workers gawked from buildings above. Dr. Tinga, who only gave her first name because of the same fears, says they were forced to the streets.

TINGA: We are being forced to work in an environment where there’s nothing to use in the hospital.

PERALTA: No pain medicine, no gloves, no needles – and some doctors have had to turn to farming to make a living. Dr. Tinga is having to take money from her parents abroad to make ends meet. I ask if she ever imagined herself on the streets of Harare facing off with riot police.

TINGA: Never. I thought life was going to be really good once I was done with med school. I thought med school was the worst that my life was ever going to experience, so it’s crazy, yeah.

PERALTA: Dr. Peter Magombeyi was eventually found in a field far from Harare. He says he remembers being held in a basement and electrocuted. After initially being barred from leaving, he is now in South Africa getting medical treatment.

Eyder Peralta, NPR News, Harare. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

Post published in: Featured

* Michael Avenatti is suing Stormy for legal fees and remembering those names should serve as a reminder that impeachment as a concept six months ago and as a concept post-Ukraine revelations isn’t even in the same ballpark. [Daily Beast]

* Antonio Brown may not be an ideal litigant. [TMZ]

* A reminder that criminals are routinely too stupid to avoid a (digital) paper trail. [Courthouse News Service]

* A look at Pat Cipollone and his campaign to demean his office. [The Atlantic]

* Attention vapers: New York courts have got your back. [Law360]

* The Sixth Circuit could blow up the opioid suits under the foundational American doctrine of “big companies can’t do anything wrong.” [Law.com]

* In a very Silicon Valley kind of move, IP firm Harrity & Harrity opened an incubator for women and minority owned law firms. [American Lawyer]

* The most trusted corporate law firms. [Forbes]

Seal Software, the company that helped spawn the increasingly competitive field of enterprise contract review and analytics, has now expanded into the pre-execution, negotiation side of the contracts lifecycle with the launch of Seal Now, a contract analytics product specifically designed to review draft contracts prepared by a third party on its own templates.

In so doing, Seal is facing a new group of competitors that already offer contract prescreening, including BlackBoiler, ContractLogix, LawGeex, and ThoughtRiver. But Seal has the market advantage of an established customer base and technology that works across the contract lifecycle, from negotiation to review.

Using the AI and analytics capabilities of Seal’s contract analytics platform, Seal Now analyzes contract drafts and delivers a “scorecard” grading the extent to which they conform to conform to or diverge from a company’s legal standards and playbooks. These scorecards — which use red, yellow and green lights similar to a traffic light — are provided directly within Microsoft Word and also delivered via email.

According to the company, Seal Now incorporates a combination of AI insights using Seal’s contract analytics platform, a logic engine to confirm compliance with a company’s playbook, a clause library to allow substitution of preferred or approved language, and scorecards and dashboards to show key information and guide the negotiator to critical areas of the draft contract.

Seal’s general counsel, Laurie Brasner, told me in an interview yesterday that she uses Seal Now in her own work and that it has been a game changer for her.

As GC of a growing company, she explained, she cannot personally review every contract. But what she can do is identify the elements that she most cares about and, by using Seal Now, quickly review contract drafts and make sure they are all there. “The speed and accuracy are crucial, and it gives me the confidence to move forward.”

It also serves a triage function, she said, giving her a quick and early look at the likely issues in the negotiation and helping her decide the right lawyer in her department to handle it. It also helps her work with her internal sales staff in negotiating a contract, enabling her to identify the business issues they should tackle and the legal issues her lawyers should handle. “It shows us how we can work in tandem from early on.”

Seal said that it beta tested the Seal Now product with several clients, including the enterprise legal services provider UnitedLex, and that UnitedLex will now be making it a core part of its own service offering, predicting that its own clients will achieve more than $250 million in accelerated revenue due to more rapid contracting cycle times. (The statement did not give a time frame for that assertion.)

Seal Now is not a substitute for the work done by lawyers in negotiating and drafting contracts, Brasner said, but it drives efficiency by speeding review and enhancing the accuracy of the review, and it gives her assurance that contracts are being handled in the right way, even if she cannot review each and every one.

According to a new study of clinician faculty demographics by the Clinical Legal Education Association, what percentage of all full-time law school clinicians are minorities?

Hint: Caitlin Barry of Villanova Law, one of the study’s authors, said of the findings: “I think we were surprised by the lack of more significant progress over time—although anecdotally most of us, just looking around the institutions where we work, should not have been surprised given that we’ve all been working within law schools and clinics. I would not say that, on the whole, the findings are positive.”

See the answer on the next page.

Calling All Legal Ops Leaders: The 2019 LDO Survey Is Live

Calling All Legal Ops Leaders: The 2019 LDO Survey Is Live

LDO and Above the Law

I think it’s inappropriate to be having ‘what if’ discussions about Justice Ginsburg’s health. But the fact that the left is talking so much about Justice Ginsburg demonstrates her importance to them as a symbol and the intensity of the kinds of campaigns they would wage over Supreme Court vacancies in the future.

— Leonard Leo, executive vice president of the Federalist Society, commenting on the fact that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s health has been a constant topic of conversation among both Democrats and Republicans in the lead up to the upcoming presidential election. Leo has headed up numerous GOP Supreme Court selections, including that of Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

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.

Every year, the International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) releases its handy and incredibly useful Technology Survey. This year, the full survey will be released in late October 2019, but if you’d like a sneak peak, the Executive Summary is currently available here.

This year’s Survey is based on the input of 537 firms and provides a wealth of interesting insight into the legal technology focus and spend of firms large and small. According to the Summary, 31 percent of responding firms were from firms with less than 50 attorneys, 37 percent were from firms with less than 150, 18 percent were from firms with less than 350, and 15 percent were from with more than 350.

At the very outset, it was clear that change was afoot. Jim McCue, the author of the Summary, commented on the notable trend of firms taking the long view and implementing change with a view toward the future: “(L)ooking forward, many firms are embracing technologies with less than immediate results and instead offer long term promise.”

In my experience, law firm leaders are often focused on short-term goals, whether financial, technology-related, or otherwise, so to learn that firms appear to be making technology decisions with the long game in mind is a promising development, to say the least.

One interesting, albeit not unexpected, finding was that mobile technologies have been most impactful for the firms surveyed. Specifically, the survey respondents were asked to share the single project completed in the past year that had the greatest impact, and the top result was “improving mobility and the security needs that come with mobility.”

Mobile technologies have been a driving force since the release of the iPhone in 2007, and have dramatically affected — and infiltrated — all aspects of our culture. Accordingly, it’s not surprising to learn that law firms have necessarily focused on adapting their technology infrastructure and procedures to incorporate the secure use of mobile tools by their employees.

Another notable trend is the increase in the use of cloud computing software by responding firms, with 72 percent of firms predicting that their use of cloud computing software would increase in the coming year. And, when respondents were asked to identify a technology that would “create significant change or be a major factor in the legal technology profession,” the top response was cloud computing, with 39 percent of respondents choosing it. As explained in the Survey, these findings comported with the four year trend of firms predicting an increase in the adoption of cloud-based tools.

Some of the top areas where firms reported that they were most likely to use cloud computing software were payroll, email (security, archiving, storage), document management systems (DMS),  and time and billing. 

Seventy percent of law firms reported that they had already migrated their payroll systems to the cloud, and 7 percent were planning to do so within the next year. Sixty-six percent already used email security cloud-based solutions and 10 percent planned to do so within a year.  Email archiving was already in the cloud for 46 percent of firms and 22 percent had plans to migrate it to the cloud within the year. Thirty-three percent already had email in the cloud and 39 percent expected to have it in the cloud over the next year. Twenty-five percent of firms reported that they’d moved their DMS to the cloud and 31% had plans to do so within a year. Finally, 14 percent of firms reported that their time and billing systems were cloud-based, and 17 percent planned to moved to a cloud solution by next year.

The Survey also addressed the cybersecurity measures taken by law firms. Specifically, survey respondents were asked the following question: “Besides encryption and traditional desktop security software, which of the following security measures does your firm use?”

The top responses included:

• Removing desktop administrative rights (77 percent)
• Adding multi-factor authentication to remote access/web services (77 percent)
• Phish testing of users (68 percent)
• Increase in intrusion prevention systems (63 percent)

And last, but not least, when respondents were asked to identify “the top three technology issues or annoyances within your firm,” change cropped up again, repeatedly.  In fact, it appeared in three of the top four responses. Thirty-seven percent cited “Change: users acceptance of change” as the top issue, followed by 28 percent citing “Change: keeping up with new versions of software,” and finally, Twenty-eight percent cited “Change: managing expectations (user and management).”

In other words, change is the name of the game when it comes to law firms and legal technology in 2019; it’s never easy, but it’s necessary. And, as the majority of respondents acknowledged, it’s all about the long game: embracing change leads to long term benefits — and what’s not to like about that?

Nicole Black is a Rochester, New York attorney and the Legal Technology Evangelist at MyCase, web-based law practice management software. She’s been blogging since 2005, has written a weekly column for the Daily Record since 2007, is the author of Cloud Computing for Lawyers, co-authors Social Media for Lawyers: the Next Frontier, and co-authors Criminal Law in New York. She’s easily distracted by the potential of bright and shiny tech gadgets, along with good food and wine. You can follow her on Twitter @nikiblack and she can be reached at niki.black@mycase.com.