Law And More

Lori Loughlin, Mossimo Giannulli - Urged to Get Separate Legal Counsel

In AdmissionsGate, Lori  Loughlin and Mossimo Giannulli could have taken a guilty plea, throwing themselves on the mercy of the court.

That's the usual way legal messes are managed. As the world knows, that's exactly what Felicity Huffman did and soon enough the saga will be ancient history and she can return to her career.

Instead, the two are going to trial. They are being accused of mail fraud and money laundering. Meanwhile, Loughlin and Giannulli face serious prison time.

Recently, in  a pre-trial hearing, reports Daily Mail, they were urged to present themselves separately and to not have the same legal representation. For them, that's currently law firm Latham & Watkins, which incidentally is also representing the University Southern California. 

To begin with, federal prosecutors are trying them separately. So, it is puzzling why they have had the same law firm representing them up to now.

In addition, there is the issue of the conflict of interest since Latham & Wakins is also the law firm in AdmissionsGate for the University of California.

Also, during the trial it could come up that one but not both is accused of X. Sharing a legal team makes that a legal problem that should never have existed.

If they don't make a decision now about legal representation they are unlikely to be able to change horses later. The judge warned that could be perceived as a delaying tactics. Delay usually works nicely for defendants. 

The couple's children - Olivia Jade and Bella Rose - have their own legal defense. 

Question: Had did it happen Latham & Watkins is representing all three parties in the loop?

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AI and Corporate Responsibility - "Child's Play"

Horror movie "Child's Play" captures the dangers of artificial intelligence.

Parents should wonder: Should we trust our children with apps? And those concerned about law and ethics should be outraged that the corporation - Kaslan - takes no responsibility for the technology gone very wrong. 

Buddi, the toddler-size robot programmed to be children's best friend, becomes a murderer. He got that way as a result of industrial sabotage.

The worker in a factory in Viet Nam is being fired for day dreaming.

Instead of security immediately escorting him out, he screws up the software in the last doll he's working on. That is even though it's documented that most cybersecurity foul-ups begin internally. On the basis of just that, Kaslan should have been sued. It also should have been mandated to review how software could become "self aware," that is, develop its own consciousness. 

Instead, the Kaslan brass gets by with just a product recall.

Defective Buddi finds its way into the home of a lonely pre-teen boy - Andy - and his single mother. Initially, Buddi becomes not only a best friend. He attracts others into the boy's circle. All seems great.

But then Buddi becomes over-protective. He offs the mother's boyfriend who doesn't get along with the son.

Then Buddi gets jealous of a grandmother type the boy befriends down the hall. He does her in through reprogramming a driverless car.

Eventually Buddi, now a creature of total darkness, raises havoc and triggers another death in a store event for introducing Buddi 2. 

For a while now critics of AI have been warning that robots can develop beyond the original programming. What they come up with could be how to eliminate their human creators. "Child's Play" provides one scenario how that can happen. 

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"Boies is a bad person," Alan Dershowitz Tells Journalist Gabriel Sherman

Gabriel Sherman has fully moved on from capturing the Roger Ailes' era in conservative politics and media.

Perhaps Bob Dilenschneider, who had been Ailes' personal public relations representative, can now also move on to a post-Ailes era. Any interest in all that would represent time travel. And those in that time machine would be perceived as so yesterday. 

Sherman's latest target is this: Everyone in the Jeffrey Epstein loop. And there are plenty of BigNames in it. Those are flashed in Sherman's coverage of the latest developments in the unraveling of the Epstein alleged sex misdeeds in Vanity Fair. 

Among the most riveting tidbits is the feud between two superlawyers.

They are David Boies who represents Virginia Giuffre, a minor allegedly sexually exploited by Prince Andrew, et al.

The other is Alan Dershowitz, whom Giuffre has sued for defamation. In the vomiting up of gossip, Dershowitz has been crowded in among those allegedly receiving sexual behaviors.

In The Battle of Superlawyers, Dershowitz, reports Sherman, told the journalist, "Boies is a bad man." 

We smirk.

Clearly, Dershowitz is off his game. And maybe he has been since he retired from being a professor at Harvard Law School.

What Boies is is a lawyer. We know from the reporting of Ronan Farrow in The New Yorker that Boies will and does go to extremes in client advocacy. That's what lawyers do, at least the top ones. It's not pretty. And that could be a factor associated with the higher than average mental illness, substance abuse, and suicides among those practicing law. 

The Epstein scandal will have a long shelf life. The media will see to that.

The story meanders through New York, D.C., Palm Beach, and Prince Andrew's address in Britain. Lots of personal and professional brands could collapse.

Sherman is good at what he does and has access to the sources he needs to provide new information and insight about those in the Epstein loop.

Unfortunately, for those involved in milking the Ailes' rise and fall, the world has something much more juicy. Already ratings are disappointing for Showtime's series "The Loudest Voice in the Room."

But that's good news for Dilenschneider, et al. whose professional lives date back to a very different time. 

In media there will be no dog days of August. In legal circles, everyone will probably wind up bug-eyed following the Boies-Dershowitz feud. And we ordinary folks will again be reminded: Don't praise famous men. 

Questions: Will there be a suicide, as in the Profumo scandal in Britain? After all, Prince Andrew aka "Randy Andy" is in the loop. And, will a government topple, as had Macmillan's? 

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Heading Off Increased Regulation? - Instagram Testing Out Concealing Likes

In Australia, Instagram is testing out an app which conceals the number of likes. That tally will only be visible to the person doing the posting, not those viewing the material. 

The hypothesis of that experiment is that relieving the pressure to pile up lots of likes will allow both posters and users to enjoy the social network more. Here are more details from The Daily Mail.

Eventually, other social networks could also decide to test out eliminating not only likes but also shares and comments. 

Such a trend could head off increased regulation of these digital platforms. Studies have been coming out about the emotional harm social networks can be inflicting. There the teenagers are, viewing all the likes their classmates' posts have and their own have none of that. 

In addition, on a professional network such as LinkedIn the lack of likes and comments can wind up damaging a personal brand. 

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Prince Andrew - Will Epstein Association Trigger Another "Profumo" Scandal?

Prince Andrew, Duke of York, and, by extension, the institution of the British monarchy should be nervous.

Andrew, who sometimes has been referred to as "Randy Andy," is associated with convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

Now that Epstein is again in major legal trouble, that association eventually can play out to be a major scandal for the royal family. In the New York Post, Maureen Callahan details how the monarchy has been fighting for its existence since the death of Princess Diane.

Depending on how much comes out about Andrew's activities with Epstein, this particular expose could be the tipping point in the end of The Royals. The public may no longer be willing to foot the bill to keep that institution going.

The Randy Andy scandal could be the most significant one since the 1961 Profumo affair. That brought down the Macmillan government. Back then, John Profumo, Secretary of State for War, had an affair with a showgirl Christine Keeler. She also may have been involved with a Russian attache. Of course, that had been perceived as a security threat.

As many know, the court has allowed public access to the documents from the Virginia Giuffre defamation lawsuit. It's assumed that Andrew's activities figure prominently in those pages. After all, it had been alleged that, on multiple occasions, Epstein forced the minor Virginia to have sex with Andrew.

The Royals have denied all the allegations. 

Time will tell how much shade Andrew will throw on the institution of the monarchy in Britain. Question: Will it still be around five years from now?

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Workers' Rights - Tipping Point Could Be Amazon Prime Day Deals

Around the world, Amazon workers have become a symbol of the exploitative labor conditions associated with online shopping.

Some compare what's going down now to what was standard in the Industrial Age.

In his novels Charles Dickens captured the rawness of that shift from mom and pop home enterprises to the brutality of struggling to earn a living in factories. The factory has evolved into the fulfillment warehouse. The best of times for ecommerce might have become the worst of times for laborers.

Currently, in some regions those employees are protesting. Their plight went high profile through a 2015 article in The New York Times. Here is a copy of that expose.

Meanwhile Amazon is having its Prime Day Deals.

In solidarity with the workers, readers of publications posting on the deals are pushing back on those members of media. They range from Wired to The New York Times. Some of those publications have arrangement to receive commissions when shoppers click on the ads. Here are more details from BusinessInsider. 

The combination of worker protests and reader support of them could be the tipping point for better working conditions at Amazon. 

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Showtime's "The Loudest Voice in the Room," Episode 3 - Meme of Trust No One in Corporations

It's not unusual to resent one's boss.

But Roger Ailes' resentment of his - Rupert Murdoch - led him to dig up dirt on the boss' then wife - Wendi Deng Murdoch. The resulting piece was going to be published in the digital tabloid Gawker. But that never happened.

Such details of the Ailes-Murdoch conflict came out in Episode 3 of "The Loudest Voice in the Room." 

For viewers, the overall takeaway from Episode 3 might be that in corporate life no one is to be trusted. And no one can assume he or she is "safe."

The intrigue has layers and layers of deceit and manipulation. In the end, not even Ailes himself could count on job security. Subordinate Gretchen Carlson did him in. 

This notion of stealth moves brings the world back to when author of "The Loudest Voice in the Room" Gabriel Sherman first published the book.

It was then that Ailes' personal public relations representative Bob Dilenschneider spent $15K to place an ad in The New York Times Book Review section. It to promote a vanity biography of Ailes.

Likely the objective was to distract attention from Sherman's negative book. But, what happened was that the scheme backfired. And Sherman got plenty of unexpected publicity. That could go down in history as The Battle of the Books. Here are more details. 

No wonder so many smart people, of all generations, are opting for self-employment, including entrepreneurship.

Sure, there is the challenge of getting, holding, and scaling business. Also, no employer is ponying up the money for the health insurance. But there is more control over more of the moving parts and the people than when one is an employee. 

In addition, parents might be warning their offspring, especially daughters, to steer clear of pursuing careers in broadcast media. 

The ratings for this series haven't been too hot. However, some enterprising group could repackage it and bring it back in a more profitable way. That would give greater exposure of the myriad ways Ailes abused power. 

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Legal Marketers: What Game Are You Really In?

Not long ago, Axios confirmed the audience fatigue with All Things Trump. In response members of the media had downsized the amount of space focused on covering Donald Trump. 

The phenomenon has been labeled "The Trump Slump." The trend continues. It's obvious that politicos such as AOL are getting more space in media of all kinds. 

And, here is a learning lesson from that: The less media attention the U.S. president received, the more his approval numbers inched up. Not that they are great but clearly they are moving in the right direction during a reelection campaign. Here Megan McArdle notes that in The Washington Post. 

Among her provocative statements is:

"I'm not the first to observe that if the president wants better approval ratings, all he needs to do is shut up."

Essentially, that would mean that he would enact The Quiet Campaign. There is a certain dignity in that, which could win over new kinds of supporters.

In addition, there is less possibility for making the kinds of rhetorical errors which go viral and sink a campaign. As the world knows, Joe Biden has already accomplished enough of those and might have put his run for U.S. president on short time. 

Yes, The Quiet Campaign could result in four more years in the White House for the Trump Administration.

Before political-campaign management became a sophisticated science, that move had been called "laying low." Years ago I was a research assistant for a Pennsylvania state senator. His administration was caught up in a scandal. He laid low and was reelected. 

What is emerging in this era of social is what seems downright counterintuitive: There is not necessarily an absolute correlation between influence via media - ranging from establishment/digital native to social networks/social media - and success.

Influence, shockshock, is not the price of entry or the required currency in all games. For example, there are founders/owners of lucrative online businesses no one has heard of.  

They want it that way. What they are selling are products, not themselves per se. No, they don't want to be thought leaders. They don't want to be in the front lines of launching the next movement. They just want to make a very good living. 

Politics could evolve into a game in which influence through media could become downright irrelevant. The Quiet Campaign could be a standard option. 

U.S. Senators or U.S. Representatives could get reelected for other reasons instead of their many followers on Twitter. At the top of the list is that the voters in their states are totally aware of what they have accomplished both for the state in general and for individuals.

That knowledge comes through direct experience and word of mouth, not the media. In the midterms my vote went for the candidate whose office had given me useful advice when a client stiffed me. You bet, I sang his praises to everyone on my networks here in northeast Ohio. He was reelected.

This trend could apply also to legal marketing and to plaintiffs/defendants. There is speculation that Harvey Weinstein is waging his struggle to be declared guilt-free in the court of opinion, not the court of law. And some observers assess that as totally wrong.

OJ Simpson's criminal trial was won in the court of law. The public opinion part was, in the end, irrelevant to his defense. That's why the expertise of lawyers is so valued - and sells for such a high fee.

Takeaway: Figure out what game you are really playing.

Then ask if influence from any or all forms of media is necessary?

Or is it counterproductive?

In reality, is a backlash coming against politicos, businesspeople, and academics who seem to be "influence junkies?" Could there be a universal "Social Slump?"

The less I play in the influence sandbox, the more revenues for my two boutiques increase. Also, the more comfortable my clients seem to be with me. 

Influence might have been fun. But it could be on the way to being done, at least in some niches. Those could include not only legal marketing but also litigation communications. In the latter, points of law would be hammered, not macro issues such as the public good.

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Ben Crump Could Be the One to Stop Alleged Police Brutality Against Blacks

The way New York Magazine depicts Ben Crump is as the digital era's Martin Luther King who has a law degree. 

Crump has King's innate sense of showmanship and his selfless determination.

Also, through his legal background, Crump has already achieved justice for the families of black males such as Martin Lee Anderson and Trayvon Martin. 

But, Crump feels no satisfaction. Despite the headlines he helped create for his legal victims, he assesses that alleged police brutality against blacks hasn't stopped. That's his mission: stopping all that. 

Crump is an expert in how to get the right attention. Early in his law career he knew to bring into the loop publicity experts. Currently he has his own production company. 

Most importantly, like Detective Robert Goren from "Law & Order Criminal Intent," Crump focuses on the question. Recently, he knew exactly the question to ask of a black financial services executive who had allegedly been mistreated by a bank. Then that professional was arrested by the police and put in a jail cell. There he remained for hours before being allowed a phone call.

That question was: How did you feel?

It took a while for the executive to allow the answer to rise up from his soul.

Eventually, the response was: This is how it happens.

Crump could go down in history as the disruptor who didn't allow "it" to happen any more.

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The Roger Ailes Smirk - Was #MeToo Kicked Off by a Boy-Man?

Adolescent boys are practically delusional about where they can channel their sex drive.

They are also Masters of The Smirk. How many parents, even sophisticated ones, have barked out to their teenage sons: Wipe that smirk off your face.

Also, boys in those years between childhood and adult responsibility tend to be mean.

In addition, they frequently get into a pickle with the law.

As we watched Episode Two of Showtime's "The Loudest Voice in the Room" Sunday night, some of us had an ah-ha moment. Could the code about whom Roger Ails really was be broken by analyzing Ailes as a Boy-Man. The media tycoon with the smirk on his face.

Somehow Ailes might have missed that rite of passage which males undergo to leave boyish things behind. Yes, Ailes might well be a classic case of arrested development. Here is TV's summary of Episode Two. 

And, it was the play-out of that syndrome which might have kicked off #MeToo. Ailes died before any of the allegations of sexual misconduct at Fox could be proved in court. So, we will never know for certain if Ailes was the sexual predator he has been suspected to be. However the suspicions were enough for The Murdochs to oust him from Fox.

Meanwhile, this Showtime series, which re-interprets Ailes' rise and fall, could be affecting other careers. For instance, in Episode Two, Rupert Murdoch does not come across as the cunning fox he is usually portrayed as.

Here is speculation about losers and winners from Showtime's "The Loudest Voice in the Room." That programming, although not a ratings blockbuster, could havee long-term impacts on individual professional lives and media in America.

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