'Legalist' Startup Automates The Lawsuit Strategy Peter Thiel Used To Bankrupt Gawker (gizmodo.com)

An anonymous reader writes from a report via Gizmodo: "Two Harvard undergraduates have created a service called Legalist that uses what they call 'data-backed litigation financing,' analyzing civil lawsuits with an algorithm to predict case outcomes and determine which civil lawsuits are worth investing in," reports Gizmodo. The process is very similar to what billionaire Peter Thiel did when he secretly funded a lawsuit from Hulk Hogan against Gawker Media. "Legalist says it uses an algorithm of 58 different variables including, as [Legalist cofounder] Eva Shang told the Silicon Valley Business Journal, who the presiding judge is and the number of cases the judge is currently working on. The algorithm has been fed cases dating back to 1989 and helps people figure out how long a case will last and the risks associated with it. In a presentation at Y Combinator's Demo Day on Tuesday [Legalist was developed as part of Y Combinator's Summer 2016 class], the founders claimed that the startup funded one lawsuit for $75,000 and expects a return of more than $1 million. Shang says the $1.40 is earned for every $1 spent in litigation financing, which can prove to be a profitable enterprise when you're spending hundreds of thousands of dollars." Shang told Business Insider in reference to the Gawker lawsuit, "That's the kind of thing we're staying away from here." The company will supposedly be focusing on commercial and small-business lawsuits, and will not be backing lawsuits by individuals.

Comments

Pro tip

[Anonymous Coward]

If you don't want to be bankrupted, don't post a nude sex tape of someone who was filmed without his knowledge, and then ignore a court order to take it down. Just saying.

Re:Pro tip

[Anonymous Coward]

Or - If you're a celebrity and you don't want your shit posted for all the world to see, keep your damn pants on and don't fuck your best friend's wife.

Re:Pro tip

[Anonymous Coward]

Or - Or - If someone stole your nudes and posted them all over your manager's offices, I'm sure you'd be pleased oh so very much! And then, when yourself and management asks for them to be taken down, they post them back up and on their cars.

I don't get your logic. "It's okay because they did a bad thing and they are a celebrity", this is not grounds for defamation.There is no justice in ridiculing others like that. If they want justice for personal transgressions, then do it the old fashioned way and beat the shit out of him if he deserves it - THEN, DIVORCE THAT BITCH.

Re:Pro tip

[ArchieBunker]

You should see the stories over at Gawker today. Oh the anger and outrage over Leslie Jone's nude photos and passport information leaked. But Hulk Hogan's sex tape is totally different...

Re:Pro tip

[gilgongo]

If you don't want to be bankrupted, don't post a nude sex tape of someone who was filmed without his knowledge, and then ignore a court order to take it down. Just saying.

Well then, you'll have good answers to all these questions , I assume.

Re: Pro tip

[Anonymous Coward]

somehow this smells like american shit too.

like, wouldnt it matter what the case is more than who the judge is?

Re:Pro tip

[Entrope]

I have some other questions:

• If you're going to point to federal court rulings, why use a broken Twitter link?
• If a court decides that you did $115M worth of tort damages to someone's career, is it fair that you only pay $25M in punitive damages after crowing about how you will ignore court orders, "joking" that a 5 year old's sex tape would be newsworthy, and generally holding a double standard about leaking sex tapes?
• Which serious lapse does this guy want Gawker to get a pass on? Publishing a tape that broke state wiretapping laws, publishing a tape that was stolen by a third party, publishing a tape that was being shopped around as part of a blackmail scheme, or one of the things I mentioned above? Can he count serious lapses when they smack him across the face?
• How ignorant of law is this "Trevor Timm", that he thinks having to post a bond before appealing a verdict is unusual or unfair?

I could continue, but I got bored of debunking such shoddy apologetics.

Re:Pro tip

[Anonymous Coward]

Or - Or- Or - maybe the guy that made the video, who happens to be the "best" friend and husband of the chick, maybe he should be the one that is bankrupt.

Re:Pro tip

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me try to answer those questions? They seem quite biased and misleading, so I want to separate out the bias as best I can.

- Judges commented the story was newsworthy and protected? Sounds good to me, but the sex video and the news aren't the same thing.

- Size of the award? The average wrongful death case is worth about 1 million dollars. Sounds about right. This 'news' cost Hogan millions of dollars though, both current and future. I have no problem whatsoever with him trying to get back what he lost, with punitive damages added on. If this wasn't possible, a billionaire could ruin their billionaire competitor and expect it to cost him a mere million dollars. The only shame here is that Hogan's net worth was so many millions of dollars that could so easily be destroyed.

- Gawker's Employees? Oh come on now. They didn't receive a death penalty, virtual or otherwise. If they're journalists they'll move on. If they're literally unemployable now due to having been tainted by Gawker, then yes Gawker had to die. And it was hardly just one lapse in editorial judgement. It was a lapse in judgement which followed a pattern of lapses of judgement, followed by contempt of a court order.

- Should Gawker have been barred from appealing before declaring bankrupty? Gawker, like any other company, had to post a bond before appealing. They didn't do so, therefore they couldn't appeal. This wasn't a malicious attack on Gawker by the judge as the article claims. This law is to prevent companies from burning through their funds in appeals (sometimes paying out to related companies, sometimes just receiving kickbacks, sometimes just out of pure spite) to avoid paying the judgement.

- If I think Thiel's outing or other distasteful stories deserved punishment? No. Those are protected speech. That doesn't make me like Gawker any more though, or feel that they deserve no punishment when they did cross the line.

- Libel suits and legal threats? No, I don't agree with money shutting down a business due to death of a thousand cuts. Merits of the case should decide legal issues, not the size of the pockets. If the libel suits were clear first-amendment cases that any first year law student would have rejected, why didn't Gawker countersue to recover costs? Could it be they aren't so cut and dried?

- Might the same thing happen to sites I like? Possibly. But if they're such corrosive assholes as to establish a pattern of maliciousness, go beyond the boundaries protected by the law, and then ignore a court order... I'd have no more sympathy for that hypothetical site simply because I like them. I also can't imagine why I'd like them... but that's another matter entirely.

- Is it wrong to bar Gawker from paying the defense of their editor or other reporters being sued? Well, considering they're already bankrupt and on the hook for millions they'll never pay, no it's not wrong. They can't pay their friendly lawyers to avoid paying their judgement. A return question: Would Gawker have paid for any of these defenses if they hadn't already lost a 140 million dollar judgement and weren't already bankrupt? It's easy to take the high ground when it costs you literally nothing.

- Should other gossip magazines be driven out of business by deep pockets? No. They should be driven out of business by the legal system if anything. If a case has no merits then it shouldn't matter how much money drives it. Anyone who wants to get money out of lawsuits, think about the original case... Hogan couldn't have sued Gawker for destroying his life because he didn't have the money to take on a multi-million dollar organization who spends more money on libel defense than on journalism. Without Thiel or someone like him, the case could never have been decided on its merits.

Re:Pro tip

[Xenographic]

It's sad that legal ignorance hits +5, but someone who actually understands the process is languishing unseen.

Re:Pro tip

[Anonymous Coward]

I was going to give this an honest go; but then I read the first question, and its source was a broken twitter link. The second question relies on the assertions of the previous question being true, and then goes into emotional appeals territory. The third adds some whataboutism to the mix, and that's about where I stopped reading.

There are good questions to be brought up. This trash is not a source for any of them.

Re:Pro tip

[reve_etrange]

they did a bad thing

Not really, apparently he had permission.

Re:Pro tip

[TexNex]

Wish I had mod points to give you! The above post needs to go +5.

Re:Pro tip

[gilgongo]

I have some other questions

That's good. Let's examine those questions once you've answered the ones listed in the article.

Re:Pro tip

[Entrope]

Fine, the answers are: No, it doesn't give me pause, I don't think it was unfair, it doesn't bother me, etc. Most other tabloids know the law and aren't quite so brazen about breaking it.

Re:Pro tip

[Anonymous Coward]

Well then, you'll have good answers to...

Yeah, I'll have a go.

Does it give you pause that, even if the Hogan post was offensive and should never have been published, that a federal judge and federal appeals court both ruled prior to the jury verdict that the post was likely “newsworthy” and protected by the First Amendment?

No. Judges are called upon to quash suits before reaching a final judgment, by judge or jury. It bothers me not at all that courts express opinions that are overturned by a judgment.

--Even if you think Gawker’s publishing of the Hogan tape should not have been protected by the First Amendment – again, as an appeals court previously ruled – do you think that it was fair that the jury awarded Hogan $140 million dollars, 145 times more than the average judgement in wrongful death cases in United States?

No. It bothers me when judgments are awarded that are in no way punitive when punitive judgments are called for, because they are only an insignifcant fraction of a company's resources. Meat-and-blood people would be a different question.

--Do you think it’s fair and just that Gawker – which employees dozens of journalists and staff that had nothing to do with the Hogan story – receive what amounted to the death penalty for one serious lapse in editorial judgement? Similarly, should the New York Times be taken to court and forced into folding for publishing false intelligence that helped lead the United States into the Iraq War? Should the Daily Beast be legally decapitated for its disgusting article from just two weeks ago potentially outed gay Olympians that live in oppressive countries?

No. Work in a sewer, expect to be covered in shit. Oh, and the Gawker employees are forever tainted and not employable because they worked there? How interesting.

--Do you agree that Gawker should have been barred from appealing both the verdict and the $140 million judgement before declaring bankruptcy and being forced to sell the company? As Gawker’s Tom Socca wrote yesterday, “The company was asking only to survive long enough to put the judgment before a higher court, on appeal. This is, supposedly, how the system works.”

I don't know the legal argument about why an appeal was "barred." Sounds like to me it was rather they were forced to pay up for the judgment. If they had a legal leg to stand on my guess would they would have been able to secure venture or vulture capital to continue their defense. I'm more bothered about people who are damaged waiting years and years for reparation money needed yesterday, while appeals processes work themselves out.

--If you think “but Gawker outed Peter Thiel in 2007 and they posted other distasteful stories over the years too”, do you also think they should be punished for those posts in the court of law, even if they are considered protected speech?

This isn't about those distasteful stories. It's about this one. And yeah, Gawker presents itself a being a kind of realpolitik-style gossip blog, so they should consider who they target for their gossip. The NYT, WSJ, Post, etc. woudln't publish a story like this. Why?

--Do you agree with the variety of other lawsuits and legal threats that Gawker has endured from Peter Thiel’s lawyer that have nothing to do with the Hulk Hogan tape? Does it matter that those are garden variety libel suits that any first year law student can tell you are clearly protected by the First Amendment? Those cost Gawker millions in legal fees as well. If the Hogan suit failed, what if Gawker died by a thousand cuts instead, despite clearly being protected by the First Amendment?

Gawker couldn't engage in a proactive anti-SLAPP, then? Work in a morgue, expect there to be some cutting

Re:Pro tip

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for calling attention to it. Upmodded.

Big surprise some jackhole Silicon Valley

[hsmith]

startup wanted to cash in on this. Lawsuits as a Service! Can't wait until this extends to software patent litigation.

Re:Big surprise some jackhole Silicon Valley

[ShanghaiBill]

startup wanted to cash in on this. Lawsuits as a Service! Can't wait until this extends to software patent litigation.

If there is a problem with the legal system, then the solution is to fix that problem rather than deny people access to the courts. This app is a Good Thing if it means that normal people can have the same access to justice as billionaires like Peter.

Re:Big surprise some jackhole Silicon Valley

[Pfhorrest]

That was my thought as well, that this sounds like an awesome way of helping (at least some) people get access to the justice they deserve, until they got to the part about not helping lawsuits by individuals, only businesses.

Re:Big surprise some jackhole Silicon Valley

[Pfhorrest]

If something like this were available to individuals, it could have been very useful to me recently. Last year it came to light that a relative may have wronged the rest of my family to the tune of a possibly very large sum of money that I hadn't even known existed, but the lawyer informing me of this likelihood could not act on it himself (on my family's behalf) because of his prior involvement in the situation, so advised me to get another lawyer and file suit about it myself. But just the filing fees, never mind attorney's fees, would be about a month's rent, and I can't risk that kind of money just to find out whether there's a lot more money due to me or not. I asked several lawyers if they would look at the facts of the matter (neatly packaged by the involved lawyer), decide whether it seemed likely that they would win the case, and take it on a contingency basis if so, but none would even consider that.

With an algorithm like this, available to individuals, they (this new startup) could have made the assessment of whether I was likely to win the case, and funded it if so. Something like that could do miracles for justice, if it were available to individuals.

Re:Big surprise some jackhole Silicon Valley

[khallow]

With an algorithm like this, available to individuals, they (this new startup) could have made the assessment of whether I was likely to win the case, and funded it if so.

You've already consulted several professional lawyers on the matter. Why would the algorithm be any different? The only thing I see that could be relevant is that the business might be able to tap into commercial financial records or spending patterns of your relative and determine at the least that they had a sudden surge of wealth or spending about the time of the supposed appropriation.

Re: Big surprise some jackhole Silicon Valley

[GrahamJ]

The difference is the algorithm will give you the time of day without a big bag of cash in your hand.

Re:Big surprise some jackhole Silicon Valley

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be different because if I understand him correctly, the lawyers won't say a thing, nor even look at the file until they get paid quite handsomely.

Re:Big surprise some jackhole Silicon Valley

[Pfhorrest]

You've already consulted several professional lawyers on the matter. Why would the algorithm be any different?

I asked the lawyers if they would consider a contingency basis if they thought it was likely the case would be won, and they wouldn't even look to see if the case was likely to be won. This startup's entire business is looking to see which cases are likely to be won, and funding the ones that are. It's still possible that they would find my case unlikely to be won and I'd still be stuck, but (if they took individual and not only business cases) they would at least give me a "yes or no" answer rather than "show me the money first then I'll think about it".

Re:Big surprise some jackhole Silicon Valley

[ShanghaiBill]

You've already consulted several professional lawyers on the matter.

Many lawyers give horrible self-serving "advice", and will rarely take small cases on contingency. If they were honest, decent people, then they wouldn't have become lawyers in the first place.

Why would the algorithm be any different?

1. It is free.
2. It has no vested interest in lying to you.

Re:Big surprise some jackhole Silicon Valley

[khallow]

rather than "show me the money first then I'll think about it".

That's a "no". Again, I don't see what an algorithm is going to do differently. It's still a huge risk and odds are likely that any similar cases are money sinks. What you need here IMHO is more than just legal advice. You need stronger evidence of the alleged wrong-doing.

Re:Big surprise some jackhole Silicon Valley

[Pfhorrest]

You still seem to be missing the point.

This business looks at your case (the evidence and other factors), decides if it's a good investment (likely to win big) or not, and if so, funds it.

I couldn't get someone to so much as look at the evidence without first paying them.

Nobody said "I don't think you have a case here, so no, I won't take it on contingency". They said "pay me and I'll see whether or not you have a case here."

This business necessarily must do the "see if you have a case here" part first (rather, they have an algorithm to do that for them), in order to decide which cases to fund. So that alone would be much further than was getting. They still could have said "no" in the end, but they'd've at least considered the question first.

Re: Big surprise some jackhole Silicon Valley

[Anonymous Coward]

if that were the case, it would be nice, but just the fact that it factors in the judge (and his amount of work) is telling you that this is not about fair trials. you know your legal system is broken, when companies are trying to make money just by predicting case outcomes.

Re:Big surprise some jackhole Silicon Valley

[Anonymous Coward]

That was my thought as well, that this sounds like an awesome way of helping (at least some) people get access to the justice they deserve, until they got to the part about not helping lawsuits by individuals, only businesses.

Well the low hanging fruit is likely businesses, but if this works it could end up spreading to smaller cases and individuals. I could also see this crowd sourcing as a way to get class action suits to actually happen. Certainly individuals can't often afford to fight big entrenched corporations. This could actually easily be more good than bad. Of course it is also likely to put more than a few smaller businesses out of business that probably don't deserve it.

Actually one area I'd like to see this taken is the tendency of corporations to target older workers for layoffs while hiring younger workers. Sure they are technically looking at either grade level or salary, but they didn't get the higher grades and salaries in a lottery.

Re:Big surprise some jackhole Silicon Valley

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing makes me reflexively disagree with and hate someone quicker than their use of the term "Good Thing".

Re:Big surprise some jackhole Silicon Valley

[Lord Kano]

I can hear the 80s era commercial version of their service.

"Is that pesky first amendment getting in your way?
Is someone saying things about you that you don't like?
Did someone publicize something sleazy that you did but was recorded without your knowledge?

We can help. We'll sue them into oblivion and maybe get you some money in the process.

Call 1-800-SHYSTER
There's no fee unless WE get money for YOU!"

LK

Re: Big surprise some jackhole Silicon Valley

[WindBourne]

Except the last sentence said that it will not be used for individual lawsuits. Instead, it will be corp suing another corp.

Re:Big surprise some jackhole Silicon Valley

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately you can't enter anything related to the merits of the case.

Luckily this doesn't impact the accuracy of the program.

Re:Big surprise some jackhole Silicon Valley

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you paying attention? They're basing their what-to-back algorithm on the probability of a lawsuit being profitable.

Justice is not going to be involved in any shape or form.

Re: Big surprise some jackhole Silicon Valley

[Anonymous Coward]

Better Call Saul

Re: Big surprise some jackhole Silicon Valley

[Anonymous Coward]

It's more like lawsuits as an investment strategy.

Re:Big surprise some jackhole Silicon Valley

[AmiMoJo]

The problem is that it is for-profit, so if your lawsuit has merit but won't make a good return they won't help you. That will encourage people to ramp up the amount they claim to RIAA levels, to attract funding.

Re:Big surprise some jackhole Silicon Valley

[azrael29a]

startup wanted to cash in on this. Lawsuits as a Service! Can't wait until this extends to software patent litigation.

SCO, Oracle, and Apple are already lining up for a license.

Re: Big surprise some jackhole Silicon Valley

[Entrope]

The algorithm won't be able to tell whether a random person's suit has merit. Suits brought by natural persons are a lot more variable than suits brought by firms in that respect (although some firms, such as those with gold-painted logos saying "You're fired!", are unusually litigious). That's probably also why lawyers wouldn't take the case on contingency: If the client can't provide even basic evidence for their theory, it might take a lot of time to find out whether there's a colorable case at all.

Re: Big surprise some jackhole Silicon Valley

[Anonymous Coward]

The algorithm won't be able to tell whether a random person's suit has merit.

Luckily this isn't taken into consideration by the court either.

Re:Big surprise some jackhole Silicon Valley

[jellomizer]

The problem is the Justice System allows the Rich to have advantages. More Money = More Lawyers = More Research = More Chances on finding a loophole = More Victories.

So the little guy who was wronged will lose out because the rich guy will win by a technicality.

Now I have been involved in helping doing the research for the company against the little guy, and from my experience most of the time the little guy is at fault too. Where they are often abusing the company's services well past the contracted amounts and declining multiple attempts to amend the contract to allow them to handle these extra services. Declining to pay when we prevent the user from abusing the service. Then finally suing the company after all services are cut off for non payment.

However that is the point of view I get from working for the company. I am sure that guy was given the full workup from the sales team, then gave a complex contract that he had little understanding of. Already feeling rip off he tried to use as much of what he got as he could. Then when seeing his services reduced without the price going down, he is refusing to pay because he isn't getting what he thought he should be getting. Then finally getting canceled.

For cases like this The company will always have the advantage as they know how to deal with these cases and have a cookie cutter process in place. While the guy suing it is mostly new to him and makes a lot of mistakes.

However the point of the justice system is to really look at the both points of views and point out where both sides may have been in the wrong and deal punishment for the group that has been considered to do the most wrong/reward to the person who has been injured the most.

Re:Big surprise some jackhole Silicon Valley

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

If something like this were available to individuals, it could have been very useful to me recently. Last year it came to light that a relative may have wronged the rest of my family to the tune of a possibly very large sum of money that I hadn't even known existed, but the lawyer informing me of this likelihood could not act on it himself (on my family's behalf) because of his prior involvement in the situation, so advised me to get another lawyer and file suit about it myself. But just the filing fees, never mind attorney's fees, would be about a month's rent, and I can't risk that kind of money just to find out whether there's a lot more money due to me or not. I asked several lawyers if they would look at the facts of the matter (neatly packaged by the involved lawyer), decide whether it seemed likely that they would win the case, and take it on a contingency basis if so, but none would even consider that.

My best friend is a guy I've known since college. After graduation he went to law school and he's taught me a lot about how the law really works in the USA. I'm not claiming I can practice law, but let's just say that I'm a talented amateur with a better understanding of the system and its realities than the average Joe who isn't a lawyer. I can tell you that lawyers do not care at all if you were wronged and getting justice bankrupts you and ruins your life financially. Nor do they think that you being ruined means that anything is wrong with the system or that the system needs any tweaks at all.

Re: Big surprise some jackhole Silicon Valley

[GrahamJ]

I don't disagree, just guessing here, but if the algorithm has access to a lot of case law maybe it can find something quickly that would cost a lawyer a lot of billable hours. If true I wonder if it could end up being better for individuals as they are the ones who won't have a chance without access to large amounts of money.

Re: Big surprise some jackhole Silicon Valley

[Anonymous Coward]

Dooey, Cheatum, and Howl, the people's law firm.

Re: Big surprise some jackhole Silicon Valley

[Anonymous Coward]

Like the neatly packaged evidence and court documents that were handed to the OP by a lawyer that had previous involvement in the case? Dumbfuck

Re:Big surprise some jackhole Silicon Valley

[speedplane]

startup wanted to cash in on this. Lawsuits as a Service! Can't wait until this extends to software patent litigation.

This idea is nothing new, and in fact, there are many companies out there that are already doing the same for patent litigation. Patent litigation was really where litigation funding hit the mainstream. This is a neat company, but the ideas and tech are all old.

Re:Big surprise some jackhole Silicon Valley

[khallow]

Nobody said "I don't think you have a case here, so no, I won't take it on contingency". They said "pay me and I'll see whether or not you have a case here."

Yes, that was the "no" I spoke of. I'm not the one missing the point.

This business necessarily must do the "see if you have a case here" part first (rather, they have an algorithm to do that for them), in order to decide which cases to fund. So that alone would be much further than was getting. They still could have said "no" in the end, but they'd've at least considered the question first.

No, they don't. I doubt they would get any further than the lawyers you consulted. It's still a high cost operation that you aren't willing to pay for. Even if it took a trivial cost of electricity to look at and evaluate the case, there is the considerable risk of advising you.

Re: Big surprise some jackhole Silicon Valley

[david_thornley]

Where I live, I can go through the local Bar Association and get a half-hour consult for something like $35 or $50. GGP mentioned consulting several lawyers, presumably on a similar basis. Getting the time of day, or a little advice, isn't expensive.

Re: Big surprise some jackhole Silicon Valley

[OutOnARock]

Dewey, Dickem, and Howe...

get the Three Stoogies ref correct...

Re: Big surprise some jackhole Silicon Valley

[GrahamJ]

Ok, granted. I was being a bit facetious there though - point being that if this AI can be applied on an individual level maybe the bar (as it were) can be raised in terms of qualifying potential suits. I doubt you get an exhaustive analysis of your facts vs. all of case law in a short, cheap session.

Re: Big surprise some jackhole Silicon Valley

[ZeroWaiteState]

The article states that they will not take cases from individuals. So no, normal people will not benefit.

Re:Big surprise some jackhole Silicon Valley

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you're the one missing the point. In order for your case to be fed into the algorithm, someone has to look at the case and provide specific metrics. That initial hurdle is still going to require a screening process, operated in exactly the same way as what you encountered. The lawyers are using an algorithm already, and you're being screened out.

Something in your story is turning attorneys away at the outset without even looking, and that wouldn't be any different with this chance-of-success litigation risk projection. "Pay me to tell you if you have a case" means "you've not described anything that's worthwhile, or that's worth spending my free consultation time looking at". In other words, your pitch has indicated a low likelihood of a meritorious case with sufficient actionable damages.

Re:Big surprise some jackhole Silicon Valley

[Pfhorrest]

"My pitch" is entirely "this other lawyer says I have a case, but he personally can't file it for me. Will you look at what he has prepared and consider filing it for me on contingency?" and the answer to that is "no". I personally don't know a fucking thing about the matter other than that someone else who's supposed to know better says I've probably been wronged and that he personally is barred from righting it for technical reasons I don't understand, and all I want is for someone to look at his pitch, and they won't even do that.

Re:Big surprise some jackhole Silicon Valley

[khallow]

Many lawyers give horrible self-serving "advice", and will rarely take small cases on contingency. If they were honest, decent people, then they wouldn't have become lawyers in the first place.

That's why you consult several of them.

Why would the algorithm be any different?

1. It is free.
2. It has no vested interest in lying to you.

Neither would be true.

Re: Big surprise some jackhole Silicon Valley

[david_thornley]

No. One purpose behind the consultations is that it gives the lawyer a chance to see if there is a case, and if so to offer to represent.

Re:Big surprise some jackhole Silicon Valley

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, that's a shit pitch that doesn't pass the smell test and I'd turn you away, too. The other lawyer should make a referral for you if there's an actual case to be made. Lawyers don't take cases from clients who claim another lawyer thinks it's a great idea but won't personally get involved. It's basically a Nigerian prince scam 99% of the time.

Any lawyer with a case s/he can't handle personally will conflict out to a colleague if there's any actual meat to it. We don't leave clients to shop it around on their own unless it's garbage. At minimum, you need to ask lawyer #1 to explain exactly what your cause of action is and what basis there is for recovery, so you can make a better impression.

End is Nigh

[transami]

Awesome. Unleashing AI and Big Data on the Law. The fireworks are going to be awesome on this one. I give it 10 maybe 20 years before the whole system implodes. Everyone will be sued into oblivion.

Re:End is Nigh

[rtb61]

You have no idea, how mass for profit law suits could screw up the system, just a year or two will be enough to collapse the courts and cripple industry.

Re: End is Nigh

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. Just imaging an AI lawyer than can actually sue hundreds of thousands at once... And "appears" in court simultaneously for all of them... Makes me ill.

Re:End is Nigh

[Dunbal]

High Frequency Suing.

Re:End is Nigh

[Gussington]

Awesome. Unleashing AI and Big Data on the Law. The fireworks are going to be awesome on this one. I give it 10 maybe 20 years before the whole system implodes. Everyone will be sued into oblivion.

Only if nothing changes between then and now, which is never the case.
The end is near prophecies always fail to take into account society's ability to adapt.

Re: End is Nigh

[Anonymous Coward]

How is this not champerty?

Re:End is Nigh

[inode_buddha]

Wanna get depressed, just take a look at the ISDS provisions of the TPP.... this will become commonplace if it passes

Re:End is Nigh

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly what about the last 6 years of politics has made you so faithful that congress is able or willing to effectively respond to *anything*, let alone something both highly technical *and* extremely efficient at making rich people richer.

Re:End is Nigh

[ayesnymous]

Won't matter if you're sued then. It'll take 50 years for your case to work through the queue.

Re:End is Nigh

[Anonymous Coward]

moneyball meets vegas meets judge judy.

Re:End is Nigh

[Anonymous Coward]

There's still hope, if you just convince Petey the Sexual Harassment Panda out of retirement as the "Don't Sue Each Other Panda"

Re:End is Nigh

[DarkOx]

I think this is probably the biggest issue here. Once one company starts doing this and enjoys any success at all people will pile on. We have so so many torts and criminal laws a like that simply get ignored by most people most of the time. If the system suddenly has to deal with them it won't hold up will.

I mean the logical conclusion of this is a bots scraping peoples facebook and twitter feeds then e-mailing them "Did you know you may have a right to legal compensation for $(PERSON ASSOCIATED WITH YOU) click here for your free analysis. You file electronically when ready for just $5 dollars."

Sadly I think this is going to force a re-evaluation of the whole jury trial for civil cases over $20 thing. I don't see much option here other than lots lots more judges and very speedy very cursory bench trials.

Re:End is Nigh

[bytesex]

Also, the system has a weakness in it, in that it will incorporate the results that it helped create. Also, there will be competing programs, all influencing each other. We've had (we're continuing to have) broker prediction programs that suffer from the same. The result is never pretty.

Re:End is Nigh

[AmiMoJo]

I can actually see this happening. Bots will do speech/image recognition on the court feed. The nanosecond the judge blinks for the third time in less than 12.63 seconds the automated system withdraws funding for the current case and files a speculative countersuit electronically, just beating its rivals by a few microseconds thanks to the new fibre optic link to the courthouse server.

Re:End is Nigh

[HornWumpus]

The party in the white house is owned lock stock and barrel by the trial lawyers.

Nothing that affects shysters gravy train has any chance of passing.

Re:End is Nigh

[VorpalRodent]

Better yet, attempting to intimidate someone involved in an ongoing lawsuit is now securities fraud. Lose faith in your lawyer and transfer some money away from your case? That's now insider trading.

Re:End is Nigh

[Anonymous Coward]

This reminds me of the book Accelerando by Charles Stross. Very interesting book. I'm starting to think his scary ideas on a future where AI entities become lawsuit-happy legalists might actually be more realistic than I thought. The rest of the book is far-fetched of course.

Re:End is Nigh

[Gussington]

Also, the system has a weakness in it, in that it will incorporate the results that it helped create. Also, there will be competing programs, all influencing each other. We've had (we're continuing to have) broker prediction programs that suffer from the same. The result is never pretty.

I wouldn't say never, a lot of those HFT brokers are extremely rich.
The successful ones catered for their own generated results and the competition, while the failures didn't. It's evolution, so the better systems will always succeed.

Re:End is Nigh

[Rakarra]

Keep in mind that judges and the courts have a lot of power themselves. If your lawyer or their legal team do things that the judge interprets as "wasting his time," they have a lot of latitude to put that legal team in a world of hurt. "High frequency" works in the finance world, because that world is designed to award such actions and there are basically no facilities to punish traders who do this. The legal system is the exact opposite of all those points.

Chance of victory is never 100%

[Anonymous Coward]

> the founders claimed that the startup funded one lawsuit for $75,000 and expects a return of more than $1 million

Or, you know, a loss of $75,000 if they lose the case.

Peter Thiel didn't bankrupt Gawker

[TroII]

Gawker's behavior bankrupted Gawker, end of story. Peter Thiel picked up the legal bills so that the person they wronged could afford to sue them. It's a sad commentary on the American legal system that even a celebrity with some extant wealth can't financially sustain a lawsuit on his own.

Re:Peter Thiel didn't bankrupt Gawker

[stinerman]

It's a sad commentary on the American legal system that even a celebrity with some extant wealth can't financially sustain a lawsuit on his own.

It's also a sad commentary that the guy is a millionaire about a hundred times over because someone posted a sex tape of him. I wonder how many c-list celebrities would post their own sex tapes on the internet if they knew they could be multi-millionaires because of it.

Gawker deserved to be sued and Bollea deserved some compensation, but $135,000,000 is too much by about two orders of magnitude.

Re:Peter Thiel didn't bankrupt Gawker

[Anonymous Coward]

A.J. Delaruio should use this startup to bankrupt Peter Thiel. It's what all the assholes are doing these days!

Re:Peter Thiel didn't bankrupt Gawker

[The New Guy 2.0]

Gawker kept winning over the Hogan Family (as seen in VH1 series Hogan Knows Best and Brooke Knows Best) by outspending them, when the Hogans had solid facts behind them. So, some investors reviewed the case without money involved, then bought the Hogan claim and won big for everybody but Gawker.

Re:Peter Thiel didn't bankrupt Gawker

[squiggleslash]

Bankruptcy was an absurd punishment over a celebrity sex tape.

This was never about a sex tape. It was about Thiel being pissed about an expose of homophobia within silicon valley in which he was outed. The original article Gawker published about him was actually, ironically enough, relatively good journalism, about a matter of legitimate public interest, only partially spoiled by Gawker's carelessness.

You may want billionaires to dictate who can and who can't write the news. Me? I'd rather not live in a thielocracy.

Re:Peter Thiel didn't bankrupt Gawker

[Anonymous Coward]

Bankruptcy is the perfect punishment over a celebrity sex tape. Unless you've got someone with lots of money to help you, you'll never _ever_ get away from the fallout. Even now, A.J. Delaurio doesn't know what he did was ethically wrong. Especially because many of Gawker writers aren't journalists. They just write some blurbage based on what they read from another site, add a "reached out to", and post. Some of them just copy/paste shamelessly from Wikipedia.

Re:Peter Thiel didn't bankrupt Gawker

[Anonymous Coward]

Except Gawker was bankrupted by one of those Republican judges that hates women so therefore they hate the Internet since it empowers us. They were destroyed because of the hatred Republicans have for women. Have for women.

Re:Peter Thiel didn't bankrupt Gawker

[Anonymous Coward]

It's important to note that Bollea was "only" seeking $100 Million, but the jury thought even that wasn't enough.

Re: Peter Thiel didn't bankrupt Gawker

[Anonymous Coward]

This. They did this because they hate women.

Re:Peter Thiel didn't bankrupt Gawker

[Anonymous Coward]

What a crock of shit. What's sad is that a self proclaimed so called "christian" nation worships people who can't keep their pants on and go around fucking other men's wives. He's a dickhead and so is Thiel. Oh lookie, I'm a billionaire and my shit don't stink.

Re:Peter Thiel didn't bankrupt Gawker

[Anonymous Coward]

the sum was determined by number of pageviews x 10000 or something dumb like that

Re:Peter Thiel didn't bankrupt Gawker

[Shadow of Eternity]

Except anything less and nobody would have cared. Corporations aren't people. You can't lock them up, all you can do is bankrupt them. Anything less than putting them out of business and as far as the corporation is concerned it's just a cost to write off.

Re:Peter Thiel didn't bankrupt Gawker

[TroII]

I wonder how many c-list celebrities would post their own sex tapes on the internet if they knew they could be multi-millionaires because of it.

How, by suing themselves? This scheme only works when someone else posts the tape unlawfully. If the Hulkster had posted the video himself, he wouldn't have Gawker's money.

Re:Peter Thiel didn't bankrupt Gawker

[inhuman_4]

Bankruptcy is an absurd punishment over a celebrity sex tape. But that isn't what bankrupted them.

Gawker got taken to court to have the film taken down, and lost. But decided to keep spreading the film anyway, and wrote an article bragging that they were going to ignore the ruling. Giving a big middle finger to the judicial system. That is what did them in. The court would have let them off much easier if they hadn't been complete assholes. It didn't help that AJ Daulerio "joked" that he would have given the green light to publish child porn.

Finally the punishment wasn't to bankrupt them. Hogan only sought $100 million in damages, it was the court that felt he was owed more.

Re:Peter Thiel didn't bankrupt Gawker

[TroII]

You may want billionaires to dictate who can and who can't write the news. Me? I'd rather not live in a thielocracy.

Gawker wasn't under any threat from Thiel when they were writing the news. If they had stuck to writing the news, instead of committing crimes, defying a judge, and making kiddy porn jokes during legal depositions, they'd still be publishing today.

Re:Peter Thiel didn't bankrupt Gawker

[Anonymous Coward]

To be fair Gawker brought it upon themselves by being complete dumbasses and disobeying a judge. That plays poorly in courts to put it mildly.

Re:Peter Thiel didn't bankrupt Gawker

[Anonymous Coward]

Pay some nobody a small lump of cash to leak the video to a news outlet with big pockets (but not so big you think you can't win in court), then sue the news outlet.

How did Gawker get their hands on the video, again?

Re: Peter Thiel didn't bankrupt Gawker

[Anonymous Coward]

That should have been illegal from the start. If the system is that broken, it's broken beyond repair

Re:Peter Thiel didn't bankrupt Gawker

[TroII]

Pay some nobody a small lump of cash to leak the video to a news outlet with big pockets (but not so big you think you can't win in court), then sue the news outlet.

Still, that only works if you find a "news outlet" morally depraved enough to post the video. You don't see Hulk suing anyone else who reported about the scandal, because while they may have passed along unflattering quotes about Hulk's genitalia, none of them broke the law and published the video.

Re:Peter Thiel didn't bankrupt Gawker

[AmiMoJo]

You should create jail for corporations. They have it in Japan. The corporation can be ordered to do no business for a period of X days. I think the longest sentence was over 100 days. During that time staff get paid, but they are not allowed to do any work beyond the accounting needed for payroll and a bit of HR.

It hurts more than just a fine, and the mostly innocent staff don't lose their jobs.

Re:Peter Thiel didn't bankrupt Gawker

[Anonymous Coward]

Not that clear cut. Agree the punishment and the payout were too much, but the celebrity sex tape *is* what bankrupted him. Not ignoring the earlier ruling is a legitimate course of action in a 1st amendment case. Ignoring that order had no direct effect on the verdict and award, which was by a six person jury who made the award for "invasion of privacy, infringement of personality rights, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The jury awarded Hogan $115 million, which included $55 million in compensatory damages and $60 million for emotional distress. The jury awarded Hogan an additional $25 million in punitive damages."

Juries are supposed to go by the law, but they don't. They're laypeople and if you push the right buttons on them, their outrage grows, the steam starts coming out of their ears, and they make a big award. Gawker's arrogance and obnoxiousness would have rubbed the jury the wrong way. That was probably the most important factor in the case.

What the public have overlooked though is it has now become much easier for a public personality to sue a paper, any paper. Bad people now have a new way to keep their names out of the paper. This will scare papers from running stories which once they could have safely run.

Re:Peter Thiel didn't bankrupt Gawker

[Anonymous Coward]

It also sounds like it scales pretty well.
A ten day prison sentence can be equally hard on a small and a large company.
There are issues if the employees have paid vacation and such but overall it sounds way more efficient than the regular fines since people aren't good at appreciating what a reasonable amount is.
A $1 million fine can kill one company and be what another company saves on changing paper clip distributor.

Re:Peter Thiel didn't bankrupt Gawker

[Anonymous Coward]

Gawker got what it deserved, but Peter is no hero helping the underdog. He had a hate on for Gawker, and this is how he got his revenge.

Re:Peter Thiel didn't bankrupt Gawker

[Gavagai80]

There's no reason to give punitive damages to the person who sues the corporation. Let people designate a charity from an approved list to which their winnings (beyond a reasonable amount) will go. I say charity instead of sending the money to the government just so that the government doesn't have a vested interest in more lawsuits.

Re:Peter Thiel didn't bankrupt Gawker

[nitehawk214]

How is this any different from "fine of the amount of money your company would make in 100 days"?

And if the company gets to continue on as if nothing happened, did the fine actually affect anything? The only way Gawker was going to stop is asshattery was to sue them out of existence.

Re:Peter Thiel didn't bankrupt Gawker

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you assuming that Gawker hadn't gained from posting the tape? Are you assuming Gawker hadn't gained from bad behavior for years? It's the same with the Erin Andrews case... people are tired of their constitutional rights being infringed upon incorrectly by pointing to "freedom of press" or "freedom of speech" as it is stretched far from what the laws actually imply.

Re:Peter Thiel didn't bankrupt Gawker

[nitehawk214]

Yeah, that's it. Keep telling yourself that Gawker is the victim. Just double-down every time you get called out on your bullshit. If it works for Social Justice, it will work for you. (it doesn't work)

So it is ok to shame people like Hogan and Thiel because they are jerks? Who gets to determine who is a jerk and who is not? The people doing the shaming? Got it.

Re:Peter Thiel didn't bankrupt Gawker

[phorm]

Money goes on the books, a whole bunch of time cut off from the world has a more visible impact, is more visible to both shareholders and partners, and could have a longer-reaching effect.

A big fine could possibly be "fixed" by laying off people and cutting costs/corners to save money. Being out for 100 days, you're going to need those staff to catch up...

Re:Peter Thiel didn't bankrupt Gawker

[speedplane]

Gawker's behavior bankrupted Gawker, end of story. Peter Thiel picked up the legal bills so that the person they wronged could afford to sue them.

This is only one of the cases we've heard about. I would not be surprised if Thiel picked up legal bills for every lawsuit against Gawker. Put together, it's a full-on campaign to use the legal system to destroy a company for a personal vendetta. If Thiel didn't like Gawker, he should have sued them.

Re:Peter Thiel didn't bankrupt Gawker

[Anonymous Coward]

Pay some nobody a small lump of cash to leak the video to a news outlet with big pockets (but not so big you think you can't win in court), then sue the news outlet.

Or don't, when the news outlet shows some integrity and human decency, and doesn't publish the sex tape. Whoops, there goes your bizarre scenario.

Re:Peter Thiel didn't bankrupt Gawker

[david_thornley]

The problem with that...suppose somebody screws me over for $100K (I don't have millions), and it's worth filing a lawsuit. If the best outcome is that I get $100K back minus lawyer fees and court costs, and it's likely that I'll just have to pay the lawyer and court, I'm screwed. If I can get additional damages for incurring the risk and investment of filing suit, I'm in much better shape.

Re:Peter Thiel didn't bankrupt Gawker

[nitehawk214]

I guess, but then why not have the more measurable effect of a direct fine?

Re:Peter Thiel didn't bankrupt Gawker

[Aerokii]

Thiel used his money to silence a news organization. Granted, the news organization had done some shitty things, but doing this even once proves it can work.

Even if you don't like Gawker (I don't), this is not a thing to be celebrated. It will be used again, and quite likely on targets far less deserving.

Re:Peter Thiel didn't bankrupt Gawker

[Anonymous Coward]

How is this any different from "fine of the amount of money your company would make in 100 days"?

Time. Sure, you can abstract it out to how much money they would have made in 100 days, but there's more to it than that. Some company activities build assets or infrastructure (think any R&D) which can be leveraged to make more money later. Think of time-to-market and other time-sensitive opportunities. Think about relationships with vendors and clients. Not all of those are possible to even quantify in a dollar amount. 100 days is an eternity to a modern corp. 100 days of not being able to keep timelines, make progress, uphold contracts, etc. The loss of reputation (and business) as now your company can't be relied on to make deadlines because corp jail. These things have very real impacts on a business and it's owners than some piddly 100-day's-worth fine that will just be rolled into the cost of doing business.

Re:Peter Thiel didn't bankrupt Gawker

[Rakarra]

Pay some nobody a small lump of cash to leak the video to a news outlet with big pockets (but not so big you think you can't win in court), then sue the news outlet.

Or don't, when the news outlet shows some integrity and human decency, and doesn't publish the sex tape. Whoops, there goes your bizarre scenario.

Integrity and human decency aren't even necessary. They just ask their legal team "hey, will we get into big trouble for posting this? Oh, we will? Doesn't sound like it will be worth it."

Re:Peter Thiel didn't bankrupt Gawker

[Rakarra]

Not ignoring the earlier ruling is a legitimate course of action in a 1st amendment case.

But it's not a First Amendment case. You don't get FA protection for this type of stolen material. If it was considered either in the public interest or political speech, that might be different because those types of speech get slightly more protection. And if Gawker had removed the tape but then said "Hogan had sex with X and Z on April 3rd," they would have been safe on First Amendment grounds. But no, that doesn't absolve them for hosting that tape and continuing to host it. The First Amendment does not cover that.

Re:Peter Thiel didn't bankrupt Gawker

[catprog]

My thoughts for that are a victim compensation fund.

Company goes bankrupt and can't pay the damages. Victim gets the money from the fund (and the fund becomes a creditor in the bankruptcy process. )

Champerty

[Anonymous Coward]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Champerty

[Anonymous Coward]

Champerty is only illegal under ancient common law. It's accepted practice in modern law.

Credibility of the system

[quantaman]

"Legalist says it uses an algorithm of 58 different variables including, as [Legalist cofounder] Eva Shang told the Silicon Valley Business Journal, who the presiding judge is

That different judges give different outcomes is already common knowledge but putting an actual dollar value on it might have significant repercussions.

What happens when someone asks for a judge to recuse themselves because the litigation value tripled when the judge got assigned? It's a lot harder to defend the integrity of the system when supposedly impartial actors have quantifiable effects.

Re:Credibility of the system

[jenningsthecat]

It's a lot harder to defend the integrity of the system when supposedly impartial actors have quantifiable effects.

With that in mind, and given that algorithms, (and soon big data as well?), are now significant factors in the justice system, can 'algorithmic judges' be far behind? The court system will push back; but inevitably, the job of judging will have to at least be informed by computerized analyses of pertinent data. And eventually, the position of judge might simply be taken over by AI. Yes, that's a long way off, if it ever happens at all - but developments such as 'lawsuit as investment' are among many factors that will further drive the development of artificial intelligence.

On a side note, I seem to recall something recently about automation being poised to take over something like 40% of law practice jobs in the next couple of decades. It seems that even the law biz isn't immune from digital disruption.

Re:Credibility of the system

[stephanruby]

What happens when someone asks for a judge to recuse themselves because the litigation value tripled when the judge got assigned? It's a lot harder to defend the integrity of the system when supposedly impartial actors have quantifiable effects.

Lawyers, the media, and insurance companies already do try to quantify the rulings of judges.

It's not like this is anything new. Plus, it's not like these reports will be posted online for free. Some parts will, to gain attention and get publicity, but most of these won't since obviously the founder is trying to a make commercial product out of it since he's using YCombinator funding.

Re:Credibility of the system

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a lot harder to defend the integrity of the system when supposedly impartial actors have quantifiable effects.

The problem isn't that it's hard to defend the integrity of the system, but rather that the integrity doesn't exist, or is at least feeble enough to not matter.

The ability to predict outcomes based upon the judge, especially with enough confidence to build a business model off it, is a rather damning. In retrospect, it is not particularly surprising, but it is definitely going to be uncomfortable for some to have it up in everyone's faces like this.

Re:Credibility of the system

[ItsJustAPseudonym]

"And eventually, the position of judge might simply be taken over by AI."

In my opinion, the chances of that happening are roughly equivalent to the chances of politicians being replaced by AI. There's a lot of influence-peddling involved in both, and the insiders like things the way they are.

I'm not saying it can't happen, just that the forces in each case are similar and resistant to change.

Re:Credibility of the system

[Actually, I do RTFA]

The reason we have such a glut of lawyers is automation hit lawyers hard in the late '90s. It used to be you needed tons of associates with law degrees poring over paper tomes, and write about how they impact some area. Now, a computer can print up all 1,142 cases (with synopses about how they apply to that area, cause it's cached from the one associate who did that work) in minutes.

And yet, law schools are the same size.

Re:Credibility of the system

[nitehawk214]

My bet: There will be a trading market for litigation cases.

If there is not already one.

Like any investment scheme...

[110010001000]

...if it really worked, people would keep it a secret and wouldn't try or need to get VC money to fund it.

Re:Like any investment scheme...

[Pfhorrest]

Where does it say they are looking for VC funding? They are advertising their new business, which might fund you if you have a business lawsuit that they think they can profit from.

Re:Like any investment scheme...

[110010001000]

Uh, "Y Combinator Demo Day" is put on for VCs. What do you think it is for?

Re:Like any investment scheme...

[Pfhorrest]

Ok, I didn't know what that was, and the summary doesn't make it clear; I had assumed some kind of technology convention. Thanks for informing me.

Re:Like any investment scheme...

[110010001000]

We don't really have tech conventions anymore. Now it is just shiny demos of half-assed ideas to grab quick VC cash instead of having to get a real job.

Re:Like any investment scheme...

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait for the hackers to get their hands on the data, quantify the political beliefs of the judges, and put all that online with their finances.

Re: Like any investment scheme...

[BlckAdder]

The data is already public. Except in fully sealed cases, which are rare, the decisions of a judge are the matter of public record. Any competent attorney who does their research has a good idea going in of where their judge likely stands on various issues. But, the court doesn't let you switch judges just because you got one you don't like, and they're fairly savvy to game playing by the attorneys once a judge has been assigned the case.

Re:Like any investment scheme...

[Anonymous Coward]

If they have enough capital, sure. But if you need to spend in average around $700k to earn $1m (40% return average, but only ~10% of cases succeed when looking at the numbers in the summary), not many people have big enough buffers to be able to finance that.

Function YouAreAWinner

[The New Guy 2.0]

Function YouAreAWinner(PlaintiffSide as Object, Defense as Object) as Boolean
        If PlaintifSide.Facts > Defense.Arguments Then YouAreAWinner = True Else YouAreAWInner = False
End Function

Re:Function YouAreAWinner

[Anonymous Coward]

Geez, thats why hate the "everyone should know how to write code" crap. Next time, try

Return (PlaintifSide.Facts > Defense.Arguments)

instead

The losing side must automatically pay

[mi]

The solution to frivolous lawsuits is the loser pays system. If you lose a suit, you have to pay the winner's legal expenses (vetted by the judge). Automatically...

And, yes, the rule ought to cover criminal proceedings too with wrongfully accused compensated by the prosecutor's office.

Re:The losing side must automatically pay

[110010001000]

Good idea. No one would ever dare to sue any corporation, because if they lost they would be broke after paying the legal fees of the corporate lawyers. Corporations would rule everything!

Re:The losing side must automatically pay

[Anonymice]

And then you're back to the problem of wealthy companies/individuals who can afford expensive legal teams, intimidating poorer, lesser funded individuals who can't afford good legal support, with the threat of being financially destroyed & saddled with millions in debt.
This is the system we've got in the UK, & it's also notorious for being abused.

I don't know how to fix the problem, but it's not as easily solved as you suggest.

Re: The losing side must automatically pay

[reg]

No. The correct solution is for the courts to assign all lawyers for both sides at random from a list, and pay both sides equally.

Re:The losing side must automatically pay

[RichPowers]

This is the chief argument against complex regulations, however well-intentioned. The perfect example is Dodd-Frank here in the United States.

Citibank's CEO noted that Dodd-Frank would "widen the moat" -- that is, give them a competitive advantage because Citibank's large enough to pay lawyers and compliance staff without much impact to the bottom line.

Regional banks -- and we need them to thrive because economic centralization is as bad or worse than political centralization -- have to comply with this regulation too, only it's proportionally more costly to them. Here's what the CEO of M&T Bank in Buffalo, NY said about it:

"Rapidly changing technology in combination with the need for continued expenditure on compliance infrastructure is creating a dual challenge for regional banks. ... Traditional banks are increasingly caught in a vise—they cannot afford to shortchange investment in the mobile and online banking technologies that their clients want, as well as in the cybersecurity that will keep their customers’ information and assets safe from global criminals. Yet banks also have to simultaneously bear the higher regulatory and compliance expenses and decreased revenues brought about by legislation and regulation meant to address the ills of the last crisis. The largest banks, on the other hand, are able to take advantage of their massive size to shrug off the impact of compliance costs, fines and penalties, and still have the wherewithal to invest in the latest technologies. As a result, they are increasingly gaining a competitive advantage over these smaller banks."

There's a provocative and interesting book called The Triumph of Conservatism: A Reinterpretation of American History by Kolko, a socialist. His thesis is that the famous "progressive" regulations of the early 1900s benefited large, established corporations -- essentially they used Congress to create favorable regulatory regimes to stifle competition and upstarts.

This is why you should be extremely skeptical of dense "regulations" drafted by lobbyists working for entrenched companies. If you benefit, it's usually by accident.

Re: The losing side must automatically pay

[dabadab]

And what will you do to prevent the obvious - the emergence of "legal experts", aka lawyers who are not lawyers in the legal sense you can hire them if you have enough money?

Re:The losing side must automatically pay

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the implementation sucks does not mean the idea is unsound. Try:

Loser pays winner's legal fees up to the amount of loser's own legal fees.

Re: The losing side must automatically pay

[tepples]

Paralegals exist, but the law limits what "advice" they can give to the public.

Re:The losing side must automatically pay

[nitehawk214]

Which means the winning side runs up legal fees until the loser goes right out of business.

There needs to be some middle ground between the current system and loser pays.

Re:The losing side must automatically pay

[mi]

No one would ever dare to sue any corporation

Why not? If you are so sure of your case and/or can find a deep-pocketed sponsor (such as described in TFA). But, if you aren't sure, you would not file your stupid suit — thus lowering the legal insurance fees for the corporations and lower prices for their products/services for the rest of us.

because if they lost they would be broke after paying the legal fees of the corporate lawyers

I did allow for the judge to review the expenses claimed by the winner — to prevent abuses.

Re:The losing side must automatically pay

[mi]

And then you're back to the problem of wealthy companies/individuals who can afford expensive legal teams, intimidating poorer, lesser funded individuals who can't afford good legal support

My way, the poor side can reclaim its expenses upon winning.

The current way, the poor side will be bankrupt even if it wins, which is exactly, what allows for the intimidation you denounce.

Re:The losing side must automatically pay

[mi]

Which means the winning side runs up legal fees until the loser goes right out of business.

My proposal explicitly included the vetting of the winner's expenses by the judge... He can trim them, if he suspects abuse or some such.

The point is, currently, the winner needs to file a separate lawsuit seeking legal expenses compensation. This is too costly and time consuming in itself — the award should be an automatic part of the conclusions.

Re:The losing side must automatically pay

[david_thornley]

The other problem is that there often isn't a case of being really sure of your case. I have no objection to having someone filing a frivolous lawsuit having to pay all the fees, but in the loser-pays system it could be ruinous to lose, so even a 95% chance of winning might be too dangerous. Having some sort of win-lose-"that was stupid and a waste of everyone's time" verdict could be useful, but I don't know that it doesn't function like that already.

Reducing the costs of doing business doesn't necessarily translate into lower prices. It's likely to go to greater profits instead (do a bit of microeconomic analysis to see). In any case, if prices are lower because the corps can treat people illegally without consequences, that's not necessarily a good thing,.

Re:The losing side must automatically pay

[Anonymice]

But if it loses, which is an unfortunately likely event in such David v Goliath cases, it'll be in far less trouble than if it also got saddled with the other side's A* legal team's fees.
With loser pays, the little guy would only take on the risk if they were absolutely certain they'd win. Few cases have such certainty.

Re:The losing side must automatically pay

[mhotchin]

Fix - "up to the amount of their own lawyer bill."

Re:The losing side must automatically pay

[lars_stefan_axelsson]

No that's (of course!) not how it works here in loser pays-land. For exactly the reasons you mention. Instead, the winner can only claim reasonable fees, so burying the loser in lawyer's hours wont work. There are set scales and standards so you can actually pretty well know in advance what it'll cost you.

And also, if you win, but are awarded less than half of what you sought, that counts as "losing" from the perspective of fees. There's also middle ground where you're ordered to pay part (say 20%) of fees, depending on "how much" you lost. And no punitive damages. If the company needs to learn their lessen, they're fined.

But of course a system like this wouldn't work for the kinds of legal problems where ordinary people would actually see a court. So there are special courts for workplace/employment issues, a special renter's court, etc. where it is cheap (free) and easy to have your case heard. We also have a system of "ombudsman" where there are special government prosecutors that will act on your behalf. e.g. when it comes to consumer issues, or discrimination.

This means that the average Swede never sees the inside of a court, and doesn't even typically know anybody who has. Civil suits are almost unheard of. E.g. traffic accidents are handled by insurance companies, without any court involvement. And if you're unhappy with the insurance company, again, there's a special court for that.

Definition of a broken system.

[Harlequin80]

When your legal system becomes the realm of financial investment trading you KNOW your system is broken.

I look forward to the creation of a new stock exchange. Lets call it LAWDAC. You can now day trade on court cases.

Re:Definition of a broken system.

[jenningsthecat]

When your legal system becomes the realm of financial investment trading you KNOW your system is broken.

When your political system becomes the realm of financial investment trading you KNOW the legal system isn't far behind and your society is well and truly fucked.

Re:Definition of a broken system.

[RichPowers]

Why not? The central bank cartel is conjuring money out of thin air and suppressing interest rates, so "investors" have to seek returns *somewhere*. We tried make-believe internet companies, housing, bonds, commodities, so why not this is, too? Let's also turn them into securities, sell them to public pension funds (which face a massive funding gap and thus desperately need returns), and then have the government bail us out when the whole thing explodes, because moral hazard is missing from your original idea. MURICA!

All snark aside, I'm counting on the computer scientists and engineers to save us from the legal carter, which, like banks, exists to serve its members at the expense of productive society. Hence the bloated tax codes, legal codes, etc. Algorithms seem like the best way to beat the useless rent-seeking bastards at their own game.

Re:Definition of a broken system.

[JaredOfEuropa]

In a country pretty much run by lawyers, what's the difference.

Just what America needs

[Applehu Akbar]

Let Asians build the world's fastest trains and the continent-wide energy systems we can only dream about. We have lawsuit AI technology we can use to rob each other blind as we cash those unemployment checks.

Re:Just what America needs

[PopeRatzo]

Let Asians build the world's fastest trains and the continent-wide energy systems we can only dream about. We have lawsuit AI technology we can use to rob each other blind as we cash those unemployment checks.

But at least this new automated-lawsuit system will keep a lot of lawyers employed.

Oh wait...

Re:Just what America needs

[Anonymous Coward]

In case you didn't notice, Eva Shang is Asian.

Re:Just what America needs

[Applehu Akbar]

"But at least this new automated-lawsuit system will keep a lot of lawyers employed."

Me, I would rathe see lawyers unemployed. We could use them as compost or for ginning cotton ("...Premium organic hand-ginned cotton...".

Re:Just what America needs

[jenningsthecat]

Let Asians build the world's fastest trains and the continent-wide energy systems we can only dream about. We have lawsuit AI technology we can use to rob each other blind as we cash those unemployment checks.

Some of those Asians will undoubtedly invest in American lawsuits in order to help fund those trains and energy systems, with the added bonus that they're also helping the competition bankrupt itself.

Re:Just what America needs

[goose-incarnated]

"But at least this new automated-lawsuit system will keep a lot of lawyers employed."

Me, I would rathe see lawyers unemployed. We could use them as compost or for ginning cotton ("...Premium organic hand-ginned cotton...".

My ex-wife is a lawyer. You are significantly overestimating her utility as an unemployed lawyer.

Re:Just what America needs

[myowntrueself]

"But at least this new automated-lawsuit system will keep a lot of lawyers employed."

Me, I would rathe see lawyers unemployed. We could use them as compost or for ginning cotton ("...Premium organic hand-ginned cotton...".

My ex-wife is a lawyer. You are significantly overestimating her utility as an unemployed lawyer.

Surely an unemployed lawyer actually brings value to society simply by not operating as a lawyer... ie the more lawyers there are the worse things are for society, so the fewer lawyers, the more unemployed lawyers, the better.

Therefore an unemployed lawyer is more productive in the larger context than an employed lawyer (working as a lawyer).

So what I'm getting at is that lawyers are actually more a burden on society than the unemployed.

Re:Just what America needs

[Anonymous Coward]

Let them do it without using another countries technology and they have essentially nothing.

Re:Just what America needs

[Rakarra]

I hope that when you get into legal trouble, you stick to your guns and refuse to deal with any lawyers.

Money buys justice

[Anonymous Coward]

Only Thiel had the financial resources to take on Gawker. Even Hulk Hogan couldn't afford to.

Money can also buy injustice http://rall.com/2016/08/16/ant...

Whoever can afford the best lawyer wins!

Good book by investigative journalist showing "magic lawyer tricks" http://netk.net.au/WhittonCart... http://netk.net.au/whitton/ocl...

Why not just allow betting on court cases?

[Anonymous Coward]

With a portion of the vig going towards the defence fund.

they have no honor

[vel-ex-tech]

Peter Thiel had a vendetta, and an honorable one at that. How dare Gawker's BKWs (bigoted keyboard warriors) out somebody who is gay. That is inexcusable in my view.

These financing assholes trying to get rich as a gamble have no honor.

A better pro tip

[Anonymous Coward]

And if you were the Supreme Court, they would have listened to you. Thing is: Gawker didn't know that and thought they were on firm legal ground. If they knew this would happen they wouldn't have done it. This is the problem: You don't find out if you're right or wrong until you've paid lawyers millions of dollars. Shouldn't be like that.

The courts are a crapshoot. With a different judge and jury, Hogan and Thiel could have lost.

Also "Two Harvard undergraduates" This is why everyone hates Harvard.

Re:A better pro tip

[Anonymous Coward]

Thing is: Gawker didn't know that and thought they were on firm legal ground.

Then they must have had the dumbest lawyers in the history of both law and idiots. Although this was pretty obvious when they didn't amend Daulerio's deposition to clarify or remove the comment about 4 year olds.

Re: A better pro tip

[Anonymous Coward]

Have yet to meet any smart lawyer.

Re: A better pro tip

[Opportunist]

If they had any marketable skills, they would be doing a honest job.

Re:A better pro tip

[Anonymous Coward]

Gawker didn't know that and thought they were on firm legal ground. If they knew this would happen they wouldn't have done it.

They literally had a judge tell them to take the video down and responded by publishing an article boasting about how they were going to ignore the court order. This was not an honest mistake, they walked into this with their eyes wide open.

Re:A better pro tip

[Anonymous Coward]

Thing is: Gawker didn't know that and thought they were on firm legal ground

They had a court order telling them that no, they weren't - that was the state of things. In some cases a court order can be down right insane and it can be in your best interest to ignore it and hope for the best while fighting it out in court. In this case Gawker would have lost what exactly by taking the video down until they successfully fought the order in court? They gambled high and lost.

Re:A better pro tip

[Anonymous Coward]

The courts are a crapshoot. With a different judge and jury, Hogan and Thiel could have lost.

It might be a crapshoot, but in the end it's better to resolve disputes definitively one way or the other rather than let them fester or have people resort to taking justice into their own hands. The main problem is the first part - it should not cost millions of dollars to decide an outcome.

I don't know how you solve this though, especially while maintaining a common law system. In the end, it is pretty hard to see how a system where lawyers are paid to make the laws, make judgements on the laws, and argue on both sides of disputes around the law, would at all be incentivised towards simplifying things.

It's essentially the same process that led to things like C++ and JavaScript in the development community.

Re:A better pro tip

[ranton]

Thing is: Gawker didn't know that and thought they were on firm legal ground. If they knew this would happen they wouldn't have done it. This is the problem: You don't find out if you're right or wrong until you've paid lawyers millions of dollars. Shouldn't be like that.

Gawker knew it was pushing boundaries of the law. I'd agree that no one could have claimed with 100% certainty which way this case would go three years ago when they first ignored a judge's order, but that doesn't mean this result is some kind of big surprise either. When you break the law, even when you think the law is unjust, you accept the possibility of severe consequences.

The courts are a crapshoot.

This is why you settle, and why you don't try to make political or social commentary in our court system unless you are willing to lose everything. That is what lobbying is for.

Gawker knowingly put its existence in jeopardy by fighting this court case. They are not a babe in woods here.

Re:A better pro tip

[Anonymous Coward]

No. Noone posts revenge porn thinking they are in the right.

Re:A better pro tip

[Anonymous Coward]

A poor argument; so any court order is not binding unless it comes from the Supreme Court? OK, try not paying taxes or obeying speed limits anymore.

Re:A better pro tip

[iMadeGhostzilla]

They didn't know they couldn't *get away with it*. They surely knew what they did was morally wrong, and many pointed that out. Well guess what -- we live in a society whose moral and legal rules keep it from falling apart. Break them and be punished by the society, especially if you profited from that same society.

Re:A better pro tip

[Anonymous Coward]

They thought they were on firm legal ground not because they thought they were acting within their legal rights; they just thought Terry Bollea wouldn't have the money to launch a lawsuit, and no one would care about some guy's sextape being published without consent.

Re:A better pro tip

[Anonymous Coward]

Thing is: Gawker didn't know that and thought they were on firm legal ground. If they knew this would happen they wouldn't have done it. This is the problem: You don't find out if you're right or wrong until you've paid lawyers millions of dollars. Shouldn't be like that.

Not exactly true. Gawker may not have known what the verdict would be for releasing the tape, but Hogan initially won a nice fat $0 from Gawker for them releasing the tape. Zero. Zilch.

What he won was a court order for them to take the tape down. That's the verdict for releasing the tape.

Where the fines and damages come into play is when they ignored the court order and did so with brazen public announcements.

It is entirely correct that the outcome is not predictable when rights collide (privacy and press). Who bankrolled whose side on these lawsuits doesn't matter because nothing bad or scummy happened here. Hogan has a right to privacy, Gawker has a right to free press, these rights collided, and the courts agreed that because the tape was created illegally (Hogan was being recorded by a spycam, while within a private residence, without his knowledge or permission) and it had nothing in it that advanced the public interest, that the public interest was better served by favoring his right to privacy. Rights aren't, and can't be infinite for the very issue shown here - they often collide, and it is the court's job in these cases to decide which direction better favors the better public interest.

And because there's no certainty as to how such a ruling would go /before/ the court happened, there was NO FINE. Instead, they got exactly what they should get - a court order to remove the video.

Gawker did not get fined for posting the tape. They got fined for ignoring the take-down order. There's no way to argue they were ignorant of that or of its potential consequences, and the difference between the two DOES matter for that very matter of clarity.

Deep pockets -do- benefit you unfairly - you can drag a case out past the other party's ability to come to court all day long and still maintain their finances, or appeal more often than they afford to keep up with, or pay for massively better representation, etc, but it didn't apply to the "The courts decided the video should be taken down, this is a court order" "No, and we'll also publically say we intend to completely ignore the court" "Okay then we're hitting you with huge punitive fines" that happened here.

Re:A better pro tip

[Coren22]

The funniest thing though is that the made the exact opposite stand when it was nudes of Jennifer Lawrence. They made the argument that no one should publish them because it was wrong.

I don't get the cognitive dissonance of the two opposing positions they took. It must be because Hogan has a penis, so is inherently evil?

Re:A better pro tip

[iMadeGhostzilla]

I think they knew with Jennifer Lawrence they couldn't get away with it, but with Hogan they miscalculated. Or they came to think they are invincible, or needed a financial boost.

Or, and I'm going out on a limb here, maybe Gawker staff and Denton felt particular hatred towards what Hulk Hogan represents: a primitive masculine character of the old world that they wanted to dismantle.

Legalist algorithm

[BlackSabbath]

Rate_of_return = f( sum(legal_and_tech _buzzwords) x (networth(judge) - lifetimeincome(judge)) x sum(networth(plaintiffs)) )

Re: Legalist algorithm

[BlackSabbath]

Whoops. Forgot a key factor:

(PeckingOrderPosition(defendant) - PeckingOrderPosituon(judge))

where PeckingOrderPosition is zero based (lowest position).

Saw this in an Analog story in the 80s

[TonyAtWork]

I recall reading a science fiction story in Analog (I think in the 1980s) about judges being profiled as a way to win court cases. Items such as arguments used based on their history, delivery of arguments and review of previous cases and their judgements. The one particular case highlighted that the one judge preferred short, direct arguments, and this was used to help win the case. If I recall, the lawyers etc had earpieces (or maybe briefcases) with a wireless link to a van outside the court which had a data connection back to the office where the computer gave real time updates. I am not sure what the story was called .....

Re:Saw this in an Analog story in the 80s

[HornWumpus]

You think that's science fiction? That's today.

algorithm for Judge to counter automated lawsuits?

[4wdloop]

Since AI could soon outpace many human lawyers...we'd need "Judge" alg to combat these AI and then probably some more Jury AIs with random seeds as well?

'No win no fee' is the problem

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with the legal system is 'no win no fee.'

It lets people do speculative lawsuits for profit at no risk to themselves. It's not that they're righting a wrong, its that they play victim to make profit. The law firm picks the best plots and most plausible actors, with the best tear jerker endings for their lawsuit-business. The pursues those as likely the most profitable.

Meanwhile the person being sued expends a lot of time and effort with no gain to themselves to defend against the suit. They know that even when they win, they will often still be required to pay their own legal fees, and at minimum will still have to pay for their own lost time.

An app to launch the lawsuit (vs a phone call) just lowers the effort to launching a speculative lawsuit. Now they don't even need to pick up the phone and dial that 1-800 number on the TV!

If you launch a lawsuit, there has to be a downside for you if you lose. It can't simply be a risk free way to make potentially big money.

No win no fee, has to end. Instead you could have "no money down", where the law firm lends you the money to sue, and is required to recover that if you lose. That would give you the same ability to sue without having money, but a liability if you lose. If you don't believe in your own lawsuit enough to put your money where your mouth is, then why should the courts?

Re:'No win no fee' is the problem

[Anonymous Coward]

So what is the incentive for lawyers not to lie to their clients then? If the lawyer is guaranteed to get paid, they have an incentive to always sue. And since the legal system is messed up enough that only a lawyer can really evaluate the validity of a lawsuit, they will also be the only ones that can advise people on whether or not a suit should be filed.
Do you expect them to reduce their income just so they don't wreck people's lives?

Re: 'No win no fee' is the problem

[Anonymous Coward]

If you lose you have had to foot an expensive legal bill, and even if you win likely that bill is deducted from hat you recovered unless you the other party shocks the judge and you get awarded legal fees.

Doubling down on plantiffs only makes justice more expensive for the little guy. If company wrongs you for 10 grand and tells you to go screw off, if you had to pay their legal bills and yours if you lost then no one normal person would ever risk sung a big company and justice for the little guy would be truly dead.

  Some listening to faux news about tort reform, it ain't broke.

Re:'No win no fee' is the problem

[TheRaven64]

Someone is still paying. Either the law firm is footing the bill itself, or it has insurance to cover the cost of losing (which will become very expensive if they lose too often). An individual lawyer will still be paid if he loses, but he won't keep his job for long if he keeps taking no-win-no-free cases and losing them.

Re:'No win no fee' is the problem

[Gavagai80]

So you want to make it entirely impossible for poor people to ever sue? Even if you know you're right, you're not going to take the no money down option knowing that some random technicality could bankrupt you. Also, law firms wouldn't be willing to offer the "no money down" option since the people who would take it would be the people who are impossible to collect from if they lose because they don't have money.

Re:whelll chair coke family

[Anonymous Coward]

So if I agree to bang a retarded gay pedo I'm all good? I think I could live with that.

OMG, a months rent!

[Anonymous Coward]

So basically you are so disinterested in the lawsuit that you wouldn't spend a months rent of your own money. If it was free, you would have launched your speculative lawsuit just to see if you could make some money.

I think the small fee weeding your crappy speculative lawsuit out.

I don't think thats a bad thing, I think that's a very very good thing.

Look at the other person in this, the person you're making an allegation against. They would have to expend a lot of time and effort and money disproving your claim, yet you care so little about it, you'd only do it if it was free and painless to yourself. That's clearly not fair.

To me, honestly, you sound like an asshole making false accusations, you won't even spend a months rent money on to prove.

Re:OMG, a months rent!

[Pfhorrest]

Look here you little shittard, a month's rent is a devastating expense for the vast majority of Americans, who barely have enough to make it until next month. The loss of a month's rent once ruined an entire goddamn year and nearly left me homeless. I'm not in quite such dire straights myself anymore, but I still can't afford to risk that much fucking money; and more to the general point, the vast majority of Americans definitely can't.

As for false accusations, a fucking lawyer with more access to the evidence than anyone except the would-be-accused relative, and an official duty to be neutral to all parties involved, told me that it was extremely likely that my entire family had been wronged, and wanted to file suit to have a judge look at the complete evidence and decide one way or another, but because of his prior involvement couldn't. He tried, he asked the judge to order the relative to produce documents that would have settled the question one way or another, and the judge said he wasn't allowed to file that motion because of his prior involvement in the matter, and that I would have to file it myself.

All I needed was to formally ask the judge "is this apparent grievous wrongdoing against me that's been alleged true?" (because honestly, I have no idea; I barely know the relative in question, and I didn't know that money existed much was was supposed to be due to my family, until unusual circumstances brought it to the involved lawyer's attention, who brought it to mine), but that alone would have cost me a crippling amount of money just to ask that myself, must less to pay a lawyer to ask it in the proper way, and in principle the judge himself might have said "no, I won't answer that question" and that would have been that, wasted a crippling amount of money for nothing, never mind the possibility that he could have ordered the production of the relevant evidence and then found it exonerating.

All the would-be-accused relative, who is already filthy rich with a lawyer on retainer anyway, would have had to do is turn over the documents the judge requested, so he could look at them and make a decision. But because it would cost a crippling amount of money to even ask someone to make her do that, I've just got to take her word for it instead, and probably miss out on the last hope for a hand up out of poverty I'll ever get.

To me, honestly, you sound like some rich asshole who could afford to go on speculative lawsuits for profit, and has no fucking idea how most of the country lives and how inaccessible the barest semblance of justice is to them. You cuntfaced shithole.

Re: OMG, a months rent!

[Anonymous Coward]

Well put. You are wealthy in ways far beyond material possessions. The uphill battle you would most likely face is not worth the time and effort, regardless of the money. Good luck to you either way.

Re:OMG, a months rent!

[Entrope]

You can't manage your own money, so a lawyer should help you figure out if someone in your family couldn't manage it either?

Grow up, stop whining, and stop expecting people to donate a lot of time to help you with a questionable legal theory.

Re:OMG, a months rent!

[DarkOx]

The loss of a month's rent once ruined an entire goddamn year and nearly left me homeless. I'm not in quite such dire straights myself anymore, but I still can't afford to risk that much fucking money; and more to the general point, the vast majority of Americans definitely can't.

False: 83% of American households have some form of subscription television service. 3-4 months of that would cover at least enough of a mid market law firms time to assess the merits of case. What you really mean is most Americas don't believe strongly enough in their own cases to do without the boob tube for a quarter.

Sorry life is about choices and the truth is here in the US most people actually do have them. Almost all US household statistics greatly under report the income of the poor. They don't take into account things like the EIT for example. I am not say there are not many people in the US who are struggling, but we are actually talking about a very tiny minority when you want talk about the those who can't scrape $300-$500 together to have someone evaluate a case where they have a legitimate grievance.

We also have these things called public libraries were ordinary citizens like you or I could get access to either online resources or request the reference books needed to get an idea if our case was worth having a professional spend an hour looking at, and we could not afford to chance it based on a guess.

Re:OMG, a months rent!

[RLaager]

If you have a slam-dunk case, couldn't the lawyer call another lawyer and ask them to represent you on contingency?

Re:OMG, a months rent!

[Gavagai80]

Almost all US household statistics greatly under report the income of the poor. They don't take into account things like the EIT for example.

Presuming you mean the earned income tax credit, that's like ~$200 a year for an individual. Not significant.

I don't see income being misrepresented. What I see is a bunch of middle class and wealthy people who manage to live paycheck to paycheck despite their hefty incomes, because they can't comprehend making their own food or exercising without equipment or living without netflix or getting around without a taxi. That's just a cultural issue.

Re:OMG, a months rent!

[DNS-and-BIND]

In the future, please do not respond to Score:0 anonymous posts. Slashdot has been infected by severe trolls from 4chan and they post regularly. They feed off responses, so don't give them any. The best revenge to a stupidly inflammatory response is silence. That's what trolls hate most of all.

Re:OMG, a months rent!

[tepples]

It's not always a matter of not being able to manage one's own money as much as not having a way to earn enough money to manage in the first place.

Re: OMG, a months rent!

[Anonymous Coward]

You really are a true piece of shit.

Re:OMG, a months rent!

[Pfhorrest]

He did. I asked one of the other lawyers I went to talk to to call that first lawyer (while I was there talking to him) who said he'd send over the information and it should be open and shut and a safe bet for the other lawyer. Other lawyer nominally said "OK do that" while I was there getting my consultation, and said he'd be in touch. When I didn't hear back from the other lawyer I called to ask him if he had received the info and what he thought about the case. He said he thinks the info came in a while before but hadn't looked at it yet because I hadn't paid him yet.

Re:OMG, a months rent!

[Pfhorrest]

Or even more to the point, it's a matter of unavoidable expenses levied by those with the power to do so (like paying for the right to just exist somewhere) sucking up so much of whatever money someone can make.

A full time minimum wage job could fund quite a luxurious amount of actual consumption, if it weren't for things like rent sucking up so much of that money before it can even be spent on anything.

Re:OMG, a months rent!

[Pfhorrest]

Like the poor schmuck living in a rented bedroom in someone else's house gets a choice of whether that house has TV or not, or could get a discount off their rent/utilities if they decided to forgo watching it.

Also, $300-$500 would cover the filing fees just to ask the judge a goddamn question pro-bono. Double that to also ask a lawyer whether he would ask the judge that for me in the proper way, to which he still might answer "no". Even if he did say yes, and (on contingency) asked the judge to order the relevant documents produced to settle the question, the judge then might say "no". Even if the judge said yes, and the documents were produced, and the question was answered, the answer might still be "no".

And nothing in a library is going to tell me the odds of that, because that outcome depends entirely on the contents of private documents. Just asking for those documents to be produced, in the afore-described way, which is a best case scenario, is several months' rent. The legal theory behind the case is sound, I'm assured, because I'm only aware of any of this happening because another lawyer brought it to my attention -- he's just not allowed to file the case. I just need someone else to look at his strongly-suggestive evidence, and ask the judge to order the production of definitive evidence. But I can't even get anyone to look at that evidence without paying them a crippling sum, and I can't even ask the judge myself without paying the court a crippling sum.

Re:OMG, a months rent!

[david_thornley]

It doesn't take that much around here to consult a lawyer. However, Pfhorrest said he'd consulted a few, and had been told that he'd have to file suit to find out if he did have a case, because that depended on certain documents he'd only get access to during discovery.. You aren't going to start a lawsuit with $500. Seriously.

You seem to think that the facts were laid out, and it was a matter of checking out the law. That is really bad reading comprehension on your part.

Re:OMG, a months rent!

[tepples]

And nothing in a library is going to tell me the odds of that

I think the "library" part comes in when you cancel home Internet and TV for a year, use the Internet at the library in the meantime, and put the money you save toward the two 'crippling sums'.

Re:OMG, a months rent!

[Pfhorrest]

Apparently you didn't even read the post I was replying to.

Re:OMG, a months rent!

[Entrope]

I've very seldom met anyone who didn't spend at least some money each month that wasn't necessary to live. Nobody owes you (or Pfhorrest) a nice apartment in a big city. If you want to live in a big city or on a nice island while making minimum wage, get a roommate or three. Either he couldn't live enough within his means to have a rainy-day fund, or he thought his case wasn't worth dipping into that, neither of which tells a lawyer that his case is likely to turn out well.

Note at all like Thiel

[Actually, I do RTFA]

This is nothing like Thiel's lawsuit. He wanted to hurt Gawker. This is about automating the existing field of bankrolling civil litigation for a cut of the settlement. It happens now, but has human beings estimating the payouts. I mean, the obvious example is attorneys who get 25%-33% of the settlement, but there are also investment groups that do this.

It tends to be a good thing, as they (wanting to make money) only back non-frivolous cases, and help the little guy stand up to the juggernauts. How else can one person sue a billion dollar firm?

Cart before the horse

[Actually, I do RTFA]

This algorithm requires that case to already be assigned to a docket. This behavior happens now, but it's lawyer to applies to the investor group, and their lawyers who evaluate it.

It sounds like several lawyers already rejected your case. That is prima facia evidence to an algorithm it has no merit.

Keep in mind, this isn't "how worthy is this case" but "of my limited funds, where should I invest?"

Re:Cart before the horse

[Pfhorrest]

Why can't people fucking read.

"Rejected" and "wouldn't look at without payment first" are not the same thing.

Makes me think of a video on software patents

[Britz]

Lawsuits as a business. The last time I heard about that, I saw it in this video on software patents:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

If you haven't seen it, you should, because it could very well be about you. And this startup may make this even more likely to be the case.

Another mark of a failing economy

[Opportunist]

We used to invest in businesses, who then provided goods and services to customers. That's a thing of the past, simply because the number of people who actually have money left to buy crap isn't enough to make this investment viable.

So the logical next step is to invest in lawsuits. Here you needn't provide a service someone wants, you can actually force him to pay.

Re:Another mark of a failing economy

[Anonymous Coward]

This.

Champerty

[Anonymous Coward]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... an illegal agreement in which a person with no previous interest in a lawsuit finances it with a view to sharing the disputed property if the suit succeeds.

This scheme is by "Harvard Undegraduates". Please tell me they are not from the Harvard Law School. BAHAHAHAHAH!

This only PROVES the legal system is broken.

[Anonymous Coward]

This only PROVES the legal system is broken.

So...

[ThatsNotPudding]

But just the filing fees, never mind attorney's fees, would be about a month's rent, and I can't risk that kind of money just to find out whether there's a lot more money due to me or not. I asked several lawyers if they would look at the facts of the matter (neatly packaged by the involved lawyer), decide whether it seemed likely that they would win the case, and take it on a contingency basis if so, but none would even consider that.

Payday Lawsuits? "Come on down, and let's sue somebody!"

Now every billionaire can attack those peckyslaves

[SadButResolved]

Now every billionaire can attack that pesky media. You really need to understand this is a "fund my hitjob." It has nothing to do with helping anyone but these fellows to line their pockets as the rich have a simple way to invest and stifle those pesky peasants. Fricken Harvard should have a flash flood and wash all thier shit into the street so you can see what those people are doing.

well and truley screwed

[Anonymous Coward]

I can make $1.40 on every $1 I invest in lawsuits?!?! WOW! Sign me up, that is way better than the DJIA.

This is how civilization ends, not with a bang, not with a whimper but with a million assholes filing suits

Re:well and truley screwed

[sexconker]

Not only that, 1.40 on 1 is somehow equal to 1,000,000 on 75,000!

Gawker was a blog

[Anonymous Coward]

Gawker was a blog. Nothing of value was lost. There was no original content (other than comments).

lesser evil?

[DriveDog]

"That's the kind of thing we're staying away from here." The company will supposedly be focusing on commercial and small-business lawsuits, and will not be backing lawsuits by individuals.

Because patent trolls and the like are better???

Investing in lawsuits?

[ilsaloving]

Wait what now?

You know the law has become meaningless when lawsuits become an income stream rather than a mode of redress.

Outlaw this crap

[doggo]

Isn't it bad enough we have rich people influencing our politics, now we have to worry about rich people influencing our justice system (more than they already do)?

Bad analogy

[bigsexyjoe]

Peter Thiel intentionally bankrupted Gawker. He didn't probably didn't make money from the deal. The founder explained this is completely different.
This start up helps you beat the game that a big company that gets sued plays in which it drags out the lawsuit causing the litigant to drop the case, even if their lawsuit is rightful. Nothing about the strategy is to bankrupt companies.

When cable TV

[tepples]

83% of American households have some form of subscription television service.

And they pay negative dollars per month for this service. Many local cable companies charge less for a bundle of Internet access and the lowest tier of subscription television service (local channels, C-SPAN, public access, and home shopping) than for Internet access alone.

3-4 months of that would cover at least enough of a mid market law firms time to assess the merits of case.

3 to 4 months of negative? Or are you implying that Internet access is not a necessity to find and/or keep a job?

We also have these things called public libraries were ordinary citizens like you or I could get access to either online resources

Good luck with that when the public library has closed for the night or for the weekend by the time you would have arrived there from work.

Re:When cable TV

[DarkOx]

And they pay negative dollars per month for this service. Many local cable companies charge less for a bundle of Internet access and the lowest tier of subscription television service

Citation please! I have never seen a case where the bottom tier internet only subscription is priced above that plus bottom tier TV bundle. Sometimes the spread is so small I will admit it might not really make sense to not take the TV subscription if you purchasing Internet access otherwise but not the point. There is no reason at all one needs home Internet service either unless they work from home. Again if you are that close to the edge you can't cough up $300-$500 for something unexpected but important you should be uses the library and other public resources.

$50+ monthly so you can facebook in your underwear on the sofa probably isn't an appropriate allocation for you.

Re:When cable TV

[tepples]

Citation please! I have never seen a case where the bottom tier internet only subscription is priced above that plus bottom tier TV bundle.

I've been collecting anecdotal reports from other Slashdot users about cable companies charging less for a bundle of Internet and limited basic TV than for Internet alone:

Anecdote
Anecdote
Anecdote
Anecdote
Anecdote
Anecdote
Anecdote
Anecdote

$50+ monthly so you can facebook in your underwear on the sofa probably isn't an appropriate allocation for you.

It may be cheaper than the lost wages from taking time off work every day so you can get to the public library and check your email before it closes for the night at 6 PM. (Source: front door of Little Turtle branch, Allen County Public Library, Fort Wayne, Indiana)

Jail time for a vegetable garden; bus hours

[tepples]

because they can't comprehend making their own food

That or they can comprehend being threatened with imprisonment when city codes ban gardens.

or exercising without equipment

That depends on weather and on how strict the local police are about giving children priority on public playgrounds.

or getting around without a taxi.

What should they do instead? Ride the bus? Buses in my home town don't operate at night, on Sundays, or on major holidays. Under the "employment at will" principle widespread in the United States, employers can and do exercise their rights to fire employees for notifying them that they aren't available at those times. Many, such as Walmart, also have a "must be available on weekends" policy of refusing to hire applicants who mark down that they aren't available on Sunday.

Re:Jail time for a vegetable garden; bus hours

[Gavagai80]

That or they can comprehend being threatened with imprisonment when city codes ban gardens [time.com].

I didn't mean growing your own food in a garden. That's taking economy way further than 99.9% of people need to. I meant buying food from a grocery store and preparing it in your kitchen instead of eating out at restaurants, which are a prime way that many middle class people waste thousands of dollars a year.

That depends on weather and on how strict the local police are about giving children priority on public playgrounds.

It really doesn't, if you're simply trying to lose some weight and not training to be a pro athlete. Your body is capable of moving without spending a cent or even going outside. There's plenty of exercises you can do in your living room. Personally I've never set foot in a gym in my life.

What should they do instead? Ride the bus?

The vast majority of the middle class people I'm talking about have a car. They can choose to not go out drinking unless they have a designated driver (bars themselves are a big waste of money too). I've never taken a taxi in my life. If you're too poor to get a $1000 loan for a car and that causes you to have to take taxis to work which cost you thousands over time, then you're a genuinely poor person caught in a trap... but that's a rare situation.

Re:Jail time for a vegetable garden; bus hours

[tepples]

Your body is capable of moving without spending a cent or even going outside. There's plenty of exercises you can do in your living room.

Agreed: body weight squats and push-ups work many of the body's long-bone muscle groups. But the opposing motion to pull-ups is chin-ups, which require a bar (which can be found on the playground), and walking requires either a treadmill or a sidewalk or trail and tolerable weather.

The vast majority of the middle class people I'm talking about have a car.

Unless they gave it up to save the monthly payment on fuel, insurance, and parking.

If you're too poor to get a $1000 loan for a car

You'd still need a license to drive it. In jurisdictions that mandate a particular number of hours of supervised driving on a learner's permit, doing supervised driving with an instructor can cost thousands of dollars:

Kids whose own parents don’t drive face bigger hurdles. They face a staggering $6000 bill for driving lessons if they were to do all their hours through a standard driving school.

Re:Jail time for a vegetable garden; bus hours

[Gavagai80]

walking requires either a treadmill or a sidewalk or trail and tolerable weather.

Or a mall. Mall-walking is pretty common, I hear.

In my part of the USA, gas and insurance are actually a lot cheaper than taking a bus. Perhaps someone in a big city who never intends to go outside the city would find a bus pass more economical though.

What's your theory for how people with incomes way above the poverty line end up living paycheck to paycheck? Is it entirely tens of thousands of dollars of taxi rides to work and the need to spend $30 a month to do pull ups?

Re:Jail time for a vegetable garden; bus hours

[tepples]

Some of it is that some people's incomes aren't in fact above the poverty line. There are reports of hardship for residents of U.S. states that successfully sued to opt out of Obamacaid. They don't qualify for a Marketplace subsidy because they don't make more than the poverty level, and they don't qualify for original Medicaid.

And some of it is that the federal poverty level is uniform throughout the lower 48 states, even though some areas have a far higher apartment rent level than others.

Re:Jail time for a vegetable garden; bus hours

[Pfhorrest]

"Preparing it in your kitchen" like the poor schmuck renting a bedroom in someone else's house has full kitchen privileges and can just cook whatever they want whenever they need to.

Re:Jail time for a vegetable garden; bus hours

[Gavagai80]

According to google, 14.5% of Americans are below the poverty line and 56% of Americans have less than $1000 in savings. I'm talking about the people in that gap, not the people below the poverty line. That's a very, very, very wide gap to explain. Medical expenses sound like a likely cause for a good fraction of that, maybe half, but I can't see it being the majority unless Americans are sicker than I realize.

You have to listen to more than the Supremes!

[Anonymous Coward]

> Thing is: Gawker didn't know that and thought they were on firm legal ground.

Once the court tells you "don't do this" you DON'T DO THIS. That's true ESPECIALLY if they're wrong.

You DO IT, then sort it out with an appeal. You DO NOT ignore them.

You CAN get punished for that, EVEN IF they were wrong!

This is very, very basic legal knowledge. I'm going to assume their lawyer told them this and the client was stupid, because they might get disbarred for giving legal advice that was bad enough.

Dangerously wrong. Stay bad orders, don't ignore!

[Xenographic]

This is wrong. Dangerously wrong.

If a judge gives a bad order that will hurt you, you file for a stay of that order pending appeal. Ignoring the order leads to punishment, as happened here! The Supreme Court has limited jurisdiction, they are simply going to ignore almost all of the petitions for a writ of certiorari sent to them. And it you will still get punished for just ignoring the order even if you were right! You can't just wait for orders from a higher court to comply. If the judge refuses to stay their order while you appeal it, you have to comply. Period. If they were wrong, well, you'll have to convince the courts of that on appeal. You don't get to just ignore everyone but the Supreme Court because you don't like an adverse ruling, it simply does not and hasn't ever worked that way.

I can't believe people modded this up, because it displays utter ignorance of legal process. Seriously, at least a few of you should have read Groklaw. You can go back and find that even SCO knew better than to flat-out ignore a court order like that. You can find many times where they asked for stays, plenty of times where they sent surreplies and dug in their heels at every opportunity to avoid complying, but not so much where they simply ignored the order.

So let that sink in for a moment: Gawker sunk below SCO's level here.

I tend to blame the client here, because I have to believe anyone could have made it through law school if they were giving advice that bad. If not, they're free to explore a legal malpractice claim against their own lawyers. Because what they did is so mind-bendingly stupid that you have to be willfully ignorant of legal process to think it makes any kind of sense that you can ignore anyone lower than the Supreme Court.

Winning not always worth the investment

[Anonymous Coward]

...if you can't collect. Using the Gawker case as an example was interesting as I don't think Thiel funded it as an investment. You can have a slam-dunk case and still not find an interested lawyer to take it because there's no money to be collected. No, I didn't read TFA but I'm guessing that's one reason why they limit it to businesses and probably only businesses who can pay, even after they go bankrupt.

I have a friend whose business brought suit against a Kardashian business venture. Thought he was going to retire on the winnings and found a law firm to take it on contingency (they all have their 'algorithms'). Lawyers got paid and he got chump change.

I like the idea but...

[WolfgangVL]

It sounds like this is designed to extract money out of the legal system by "backing" lawsuits, like as investments. IANAL, but this sounds so wrong on so many levels.

I might have cheered for this sort of thing, had it been offered as a low cost app or service to individuals seeking redress against big powerful companies with armies of lawyers, but instead, its looks like just another weapon for the army of lawyers.

Patent trolls are smiling.

Proportions...

[junkgoof]

I think you are overestimating the cable bill and underestimating the rent of most people. 4 months of my cable bill would not pay my monthly mortgage and I have an oddly extensive and expensive cable package and a relatively small mortgage.

Champerty...

[MercTech]

This sounds like an algorithm for champerty kind of like a FICO score for real property mortgages. The rub is that that champerty is unlawful in many states. Champerty is so rare in the U.S. that the term only comes up in legal dictionaries. http://dictionary.law.com/Default.aspx?selected=171 Basically, champerty is a term for "investing" in someone else's lawsuit with the expectation of a big payday when they win. A third party taking a fiscal interest in a lawsuit is different from a legal professional contracting for a "contingency fee". Way back when; the ruling class would take a champerty share in a case then pressure the judges to rule to their profit. (You really don't want to know why I know this term.)