Law And More

Harvard Puts Out Welcome Mat: Kevin Cao steps over it

The story has gone viral.  Virginia high school senior Kevin Cao has turned down Harvard for the University of Virginia, reports Steve Annear in BOSTON Magazine. 

Harvard received 35,023 applications and admitted 2,029 or 5.8%.  Cao was one of them But when he went to visit campus he didn't like the better-than-thou attitude of students and alumni.  He sensed the competition would be cut-throat.  And someone tipped him off he would be lonely.

He put down all the reasons why he was stepping over the welcome mat and posted that on Facebook and Google docs.  Of course, no one was going to miss out on reading that.

Time will tell if Cao applies to Harvard Law School, if he will be accepted.  In four years, who knows - the legal sector could have bounced back and the kid all-grown-up wants in.

One for Preet Bharara: What did Bloomberg News reporters know, when did they know it, and did they trade on information

Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown. 

That's an observation from a play by William Shakespeare.  The royal figures, in terms of wealth and power, associated with Bloomberg terminal and Bloomberg News probably didn't sleep so hot last night. 

As we all know, News Corp's the NEW YORK POST broke the story that Bloomberg News reporters were observing traders' activity on the terminals. Now that the shock is over, we look at implications.  Over in his office, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara and his team must be considering the issue: What did those Bloomberg News reporters know, when did they know it, did they trade on any of that information on their own or someone else's account, and did gains result?

If there is cause to investigate that issue, Bharara can bag prey bigger than would be SAC hedge fund founder Steve Cohen for alleged insider trading.  This could open a whole new phase in Bharara's career. 

Michael Arrington, TechCrunch Founder, Sues Jenn Allen: Facebook, twitter posts as evidence

In what could turn out to be a huge lawsuit in terms of media attention and the questions it raises about posting on social networks, TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington sued former girlfriend Jenn Allen.

As BUSINESS INSIDER reports, Arrington, one of the biggest names in tech coverage, has accused Allen of defamation and false publication.  Here, thanks to VALLEYWAG, is a copy of the complaint.

On social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, Allen stated that Arrington had allegedly done things to her as serious as rape and as ambiguous as emotional abuse.  When she made those claims, given Arrington's powerful brandname and wealth, they received considerable coverage in both business and tech media.  Now that a lawsuit has been filed, the legal media will probably jump in too.

On trial, of course, is what one can post on social networks and not be vulnerable to legal action.  If Arrington's suit doesn't get tossed, this kind of complaint could send a chill through social networks.  Those used to posting without much thought to the legal implications could become quite circumspect.  The impact on the popularity of Facebook and Twitter could be huge.

Bystander Effect: What are we seeing?

In this era of crowdsourcing to identity sociopaths in our society we also wonder about the accuracy of what we assume we are seeing.  After all, the first suspect for the Boston Marathon bombing was wrongly identified by sleuths on the Internet.

Yet, given the harm miscreants do, whether they are domestic terrorists or lawyers who siphon money out of client accounts, we sense that we have to do something.  No surprise, Roger Simon takes up this subject in POLITICO.  He clears the ground for fresh thinking about this by interviewing crime psychologist Robert A. Fein who frames mental illness as irrelevant and moving right to an assessment of how probable is it that someone, who might be mentally ill, will actually commit a crime.

Therefore, the issue is to determine if what we're seeing is the propensity to act on fantasies, strategic planning, boasting in the bar, or studying up on poisoning through arsenic.  That's called the "Bystander Effect." 

Right now, investigators want to ferret out who in the circles of the now-famous Brothers might have had suspicions that they had migrated from discontent to readiness to take action. Should they have reported those to the police, even if they were friends or family members?  Had the Brothers been brought in for questioning, would that have deterred them? In short, can the Bystander Effect prevent a crime? 

Mom: Channel her to help your law practice

No less than the influential HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW has published an article on channeling mom to help with success in business.  The piece is by lawyer Nick Gaffney whose mom hammered the importance of neatly hand-written, carefully worded thank-you notes. 

Mom's advice has been on the money for Nick.  He's now a partner at public relations firm Infinite. There he helps law firms with their communications strategies, both planning and implementation. 

The genius of the hand-written note is that it gets to stand alone, like unique branding.  The recipient is not staring at a screen, either on the laptop or smartphone, with hundreds of messages.  Instead it has its own space.  And it can have a long shelf life on the desk or mounted on the wall for others to see.  You bet, a kind of free advertising.  After all, the high-quality stationary has your logo on it. 

The trick, of course, is to take the time to create the content of the note to resonate like a presentation at TED, but with the brevity of a tweet.  Maybe Nick can assist your law firms with that.  At Infinite he can be reached at ngaffney@infinitepr.com.

And on Mother's Day this May 12th, you might gently but firmly interrogate mom for further insights on differentiating your law firm from all the others.  When I was discouraged about my career path in the late 1970s, my mom recommended that I offer to work for free.  Gulf Oil, now Chevron, didn't accept the offer but it hired me at 2.5 times more than I was being compensated at the University of Pittsburgh.

 

Greenberg Traurig: Fired by Humana because of suspicion of leaking material information

In this possible insider trading scandal, the spotlight is on law firm Greenberg Traurig's lobbyist Mark Hayes. 

According to Bloomberg, Hayes allegedly sent an email to investment firm Height Analytics informing it that there would be a reduction in the proposed cuts to Medicare Advantage Plants.  Not long after that, there was an official announcement of that.  Meanwhile the stocks of private health insurers like Humana went up.

U.S. Senator Charles Grassley, a Republican representing Iowa, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are investigating this alleged disclosure of insider information.  Meanwhile Humana has terminated its relationship with Greenberg Traurig.

The pragmatists among us wonder why, after emails have proved to be smoking guns so often, Hayes would allegedly turn to this form of communications to transmit information which could be found to be illegal.

Richard DesLauriers: Not so far from Dick Tracy's crimestopper wristwatch

FBI Special Agent Richard DesLauriers, who received his JD from Catholic University, represents a natural progression from fictional Dick Tracy. 

As Bloomberg reports, DesLauriers uses social media to catch the bad guys just as Tracy, an early adopter of gadgets in police work, leveraged his crimestopper wristwatch.  It had partly been through social media that DesLauriers apprehended alleged murderer James "Whitey" Bulger, whose trial begins June 6.

In pursuit of the bombers of the Boston Marathon, DesLauriers had set up a tipster site in cyberspace. With the progress made in chasing down these alleged terrorists, this FBI Special Agent will likely emerge as a well-known brandname in the world of law and order. Count on many of the best and brightest to apply for positions to the FBI.  This could be an alluring alternate to going to law school.

Crowdsourced Sleuthing for Boston Marathon Bombers: Parallel investigations on Internet

Having the public pitch in and help with an investigation of crimes is nothing new.  Part of the law of attraction of "America's Most Wanted" with John Walsh has been his ability to turn ordinary citizens into volunteer crime-stoppers.

The new version of that is crowdsourcing investigations on the Internet.  As THE WASHINGTON POST reports, simultaneously with the FBI search for the bombers are the parallel ones on the Internet.

Sometimes that sleuthing in cyberspace is a disaster and sometimes it's helpful.  Those on Reddit had identified the wrong man as the suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing.  In a sense it was a People's crusade.  The man wrongly identified as the bomber was harassed on Facebook to the point that he turned himself into the police.  When he did the police had no idea that in cyberspace he had been fingered as the culprit.  

Because of that error, this time the FBI has arranged with Reddit just to display the official photos and video it releases.  Reddit will not allow any other material.  There will probably be a case study about what the Internet sleuthing contributed to the identification and apprehension of those who will convicted of the Boston Marathon two bombings.

Charles Cullen, Serial Killer: Nailed by his computer-snooping habits

Increasingly, miscreants are going to get nailed through their computer habits.  At Somerset Medical Center, New Jersey serial killer and nurse Charles Cullen raised the suspicions of co-worker and nurse Amy Loughren because of the time he was spending on Cerner, a computer system tracking patients. 

What caught Loughren's attention, reports the NEW YORK POST, was that he was snooping into the data about other nurses' patients, not his own.  Meanwhile an atypical number of patients in intensive care were dying of cardiac arrest.  Cullen, with his use of the drug digoxin, was the angel of death.

The book "The Good Nurse" recounts how Loughren shared her concerns with the prosecutor.  Cullen may have offed 400 patients in various hospitals.

The lesson here for those planning mischief is not to leave an electronic trail.

"U.S. v Steinberg" - All Steve Cohen's Men

Those of us who came of political age during the Watergate scandal vividly recall momentum building about what big fish would be caught in the nets manned by journalists and Congressional figures.  For some that was a introduction to investigative reporting and the rules of evidence.

Today, there is that same fishing expedition, only now the big fish being caught are allegedly inside traders.  The suspense involves if the biggest fish - SAC's founder and head Steve Cohen - will finally be caught. So far he has eluded capture.

The latest development, reports BLOOMBERG, has been the arrest of Michael Steinberg, who had until September been a fund manager at SAC Capital, for allegedly passing on illegal tips about technology companies.  Earlier Mathew Martoma, another prominent figure at SAC, had been arrested.  The issue is what could be revealed in "U.S. v Steinberg."

Watching elite players "getting it" has always provided Everyman entertainment in America, a nation which is supposedly classless.  The smug assumption has been: They had their fun, now it's done.