How do I pick a Law School? Disbarment Metric Analysis?

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How do I pick a law school? 

The methods to select a law school are as nearly varied as the reasons for attending one.  Clinic options, professorial notoriety, attractiveness and marriageability of the student body, starting salary, prestige, parental edict, etc., the list goes on. 

However, one metric that I don't hear all that often is "likelihood of disbarment."  Sure, it is not as fun to contemplate the odds that your highly expensive investment in upper-middle class lifestyle preparation will be snatched away due to some fiduciary or ethical indiscretion, but some thought should be given to the possibility. 

Recently, NYS opened up the attorney registration database for programmatic access (meaning you can download and manipulate the fields as a Excel, JSON, CSV and other format types, as well as access the data directly from a web app). Nominally, this will allow you to check your reg status without having to go to your department website, but I digress. 

Of course, the first thing I did was manipulate the data to find out how many attorneys were disbarred who were admitted to the NY State Bar. According to the list, about 1800 people have been disbarred out of 350,000 records going back to 1899. 

The next thing I did was try to chart the data via school. What I got was hundreds of records, some for schools I had never heard of (Northumbria - I am looking at you).

The next problem was that people arbitrarily decided how to write their school (NYU vs N.Y.U vs New York University School of Law).

To solve that, I ran some regex fixes to condition the edge cases I could see. I tried to format the data by stripping out "Law", but when you try to strip out "School" - weird things happen. So there are some duplicate entries (like Brooklyn and Brooklyn School (i.e. stripped out 'Law').  Once I got a super-set, I manually conditioned the data to a top 20 set. Here are the results. 

Yea Alma Mater! 

Now, on its face, Brooklyn is the highest, but I would provide some caveats. The records go back to 1899, and the first Brooklyn Law reference I can find is in 1918. That means that it is possible that the 160_+ disbarment for BLS grads could be amortized over the course of nearly 100 years, the same goes for NYL. However, I am not sure what happens when you are disbarred and then deceased. 

***The data documentation does not give info about current status vs historical stats.  I would suggest that the Brooklyn number represents those persons that are still alive, but I have no way of knowing.***

However, when you restrict the entries to people who were admitted in 2000 or later, you get a different chart.

So what accounts for the difference? 

I mean we could just default to "Touro et al are lower ranked schools, of course their alums get into more problems", but that seams like the intelligent design answer to this science questions.  Maybe the fact that top law school grads in NY go into politics, business and large firms where there is a less chance that they will get into trouble? More lower ranked grads go solo (by choice or by default) and solos always have a higher chance of getting into trouble? 

Who knows. Any Theories, drop them in the comments. 

 t

[Scam] United States Trademark Registration Office

The United States Trademark Registration Office is a scam and you should not give them any money.

"Woah!", you might be thinking. That is a bit of a harsh take on the beloved United States Patent and Trademark Office. What happened, they wouldn't let you register that mark for "Baconnomics" (Ed: Yes, that is true).

However, what I am talking about is NOT the USPTO, but a scam organization that uses phonetic similarity to try to trick you into giving them money. Unlike the actual United States Patent and Trademark Office, the United States Trademark Registration office is a non-government entity, that seams to exist in a P.O. Box in the low rent side of Los Angeles.

Here is a copy of the scam form letter (source: USPTO).

DO NOT GIVE THEM MONEY.

You will be angry. Your IP Attorney will be angry. Sometimes clients openly question why they need to use an IP professional.

Note that the document above (in section 39 USC 3001) explicitly states that it is not a bill from the USPTO, but a solicitation. Clever scammers don't want to get sued or imprisoned, but they do want you money.

Spotting, and protecting you from IP Scams is one of our jobs, one we take seriously. If you ever receive patent or trademark notices from an office not in Virginia, or D.C. proper, have someone check it out, or at least look on this website or on Baselex.com.

Jordan Garner

Access Requirements for USPTO Alexandria, VA Campus

If you are planning on visiting the USPTO offices in VA, and you have a NY License (or one of the other 7 listed below), you are going to need to bring the alternative IDs listed here. 

As of April 21, the following states do not meet the REAL ID standards:

·         Alaska

·         American Samoa

·         Arizona

·         Kentucky

·         Louisiana

·         Maine

·         Massachusetts

·         Minnesota

·         Montana

·         New York

·         Oklahoma

·         Washington

Visitors to the USPTO with state issued identification from these states must present alternate forms of identification to facilitate access. Three of the states listed above offer an Enhanced Driver’s License that is identifiable by an American flag on the license; they are New York, Minnesota, and Washington. USPTO will accept the Enhanced Driver’s Licenses from those states.
DHS currently accepts other forms of Federal-issued identification in lieu of a state-issued driver’s license, such as a:

·         Passport

·         Passport card

·         DoD’s CAC

·         Federal agency HSPD-12 ID

·         Veterans ID

·         Military dependents ID

·         Trusted Traveler card – Global Entry, SENTRI, or NEXUS

·         Transportation Workers Identification Credential (TWIC)

For visitors using state-issued ID to access the USPTO, only driver’s licenses or identification cards from states that meet Federal standards will be honored. USPTO will continue to accept other forms of government-issued identification, including Federal employee badges, passports, military identification cards, or Enhanced Driver's Licenses as noted above.
If visitors do not have acceptable identity documents, the person to be visited at USPTO will need to provide an escort in order for the visitor to access the USPTO. The visitor must be escorted at all times while in USPTO secured areas.

For additional information about the REAL ID Act, please visit www.dhs.gov/secure-drivers-licenses.

Don't use Invention Assistance Companies until you check the PTO

Short Post: 

There are a lot of entities out there that want to help you get your idea off the ground. From venture capital firms, to Kickstarter, to your cousin's Persian rug connection, there are people well placed who want to see your idea succeed and share in the profits.  
There is nothing wrong with bringing a few fellow travelers along with you for the ride. In fact it is good practice to have a couple more heads to put together when the going gets tough. 

One group that does not have your best interest at heart are "Invention Assistance" companies.  You seen the ads on late night T.V. They will help you patent, market, and sell you idea to major companies! 


Why go to a moldy patent attorney who has ethical obligations?  Hitch your wagon to a business that knows what good ideas look like, and will escort you through the process from conception to showers of riches.  </sarcasm>

While it is entirely possible that these companies do help the odd inventor. It is much more likely you will exit the process will poorer, both in terms of actual money and patent rights. 

We could walk through all the way that Invention assistance companies upbraid your future patent having happiness, but the Patent Office has already compiled a list of complaints as depressing as they are informative.   

Here is an excerpt of a complaint sent to the PTO regarding an Invention Assistance Company: 

Name of mass media invention promoter advertised in:  Mail Advertisement

Invention promotion service offered to be performed:  To market and license my invention.

Explanation of complaint between customer and invention promoter: 
I am filing a complaint against this company.  I paid them $25,270.00 completed last payment May 2011.  On November 6, 2012, received a letter they closed their business so I got ripped off.  In year 2007, I lost $5527 – to another companyXXXX., XXXX, XXXX, XX 07004.  That makes it (two) almost $31,000.  How can I trust anyone to market and license my invention.  I don’t’ have the money anymore. I research on the website on the XXXX before paying any money.  Who are the trusted companies who will follow through and assist new inventors?  These companies had a bad reputation with the BBB and FTC.  What am I doing wrong?  What do I look out for?  I need help to get my money back and market my invention.

You can read all the complaints for various Invention assistance Firms, here. 

Patent Lawyers, and law firms in general, will not assist you in taking your idea to market. That is generally a task best left for yourself.  However, if you must use a company to help you, understand what you are getting yourself into. 

More importantly, check the company out, and due your due diligence. It is not enough to review the BBB, but check the PTO, and the FTC. If your idea is worth thousands of dollars, then it is worth the time to make sure you are protecting it right. 

Jordan Garner 

What should be in my site's Privacy Policy?

A client recently contacted me in a panic. They had seen the recent FTC settlement (see here) with Snapchat and were concerned about their own App's privacy policy. We talked through their concerns and determined that their privacy policy was sufficient to cover current usage of their App.

It is important for a Start-up developer to know the purpose of a "Privacy Policy" and its cousin "The Terms of Use."  They are not simply "make work" hassles for lawyers, or something to be copied blindly off of a Git repository. {Ed. Except if it is a Privacy Policy template from www.Baselex.com}.

The purpose of both can be summarized as the contractual obligations of each side, the user and the App provider, that exists when the App is used. {Ed. For our purposes, App covers any minimally interactive website.}

Terms of Use
The Terms of Use are fairly straight forward and mostly deal with the User obligations. In an effective ToU, the App Provider lays out some explanation of the functionality that will be encountered in using the App (such as forums or comments) and a code of conduct that the users agree to be held to when using the App. For example, many apps have a "non-harassment" component to their Terms of Use. Users that violate this, generally find themselves on the wrong side of the "Ban Hammer".  The Terms of Use are similar to an End-User License agreement, and tend to contain similar language. ToS, when effective, provide a User of an App with a clear list behaviors, rights, and obligations (such as honoring Intellectual property) that exist when they use the App.  

Privacy Policy
Privacy Policies differ in significant way from Terms of Use and generally lay out how the App Provider will use the data of the User. The goal of any effective Privacy Policy is to highlight the ways that a User's personal identification and data might  be used by the App Provider. Aggregated stats, geolocation, and preferences for Ad-Targeting are all pieces of data that an App Provider might collect about individual or collective users. There is no explicit rule in the U.S. that limits the data that an App provider can collect to specific categories. (with the exception of various HIPPA relevant issues which are beyond the scope of this brief post.)

What is required is that the App Provider lay what those pieces of information that are being collected. A well drafted Privacy Policy provides enough scope to the App Provider to modify their data collection practices based on market need, while not deceiving or misleading Users as to the scope and extent of the data collected.

Where SnapChat ran afoul of the FTC was in failing to abide by this primary role. The Snapchat Privacy Policy (according to the FTC) provided explicit statements on what data was and what was not collected through the use of the App. Specifically, Snapchat claimed that the communications sent to recipients was ephemeral to the recipient and not stored in any database or server.  Through a series of hacker data breeches, it became clear that not only was this not true (there were vast databases of Snaps retained by Snapchat) but the data was not ephemeral to the recipient. The recipient of a Snap could, through various technological methods, obtain a permanent copy of the snap.

 Furthermore,  the Snapchat privacy policy explicitly disclaimed the storing of geolocation data. Again, after a review of the data stored by Snapchat, it became clear that geolocation data was being stored for future use.

As a result of these revelations, it became clear that the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use for SnapChat's app was woefully deficient and confusing. The natural outcome when consumers feel deceived and confused about the true nature of a product is an investigation by the FTC.

Therefore the first thing to ask when crafting a privacy policy is what does your app or website seek to accomplish, and how does it use the user data in order to accomplish task?  There is no benefit in making a statement about specific functionality and features if these features are not present. Quite the contrary, there is a significant downside to telling App users one story about functionality, while the truth tells another. Likewise, if you need geolocation data, or contact lists, explicitly state that you need them and use them in your privacy policy. It is better to lose a few privacy adherents in the early use stage then have potentially millions of potential plaintiffs in a class action suit based on deception.

As final matter, Privacy Policies should not be drafted and locked in a drawer under the TOS/PP file folder in your server root.  Every iteration of the App, from customer feedback, to posts, to direct messaging might change what type of data you need to collect from your users. Similarly, if you are changing revenue models, you might need to update your privacy policy to indicate the structural change in how you are using the data (from purely analytic, to a data broker model). A quaterly review of both the ToS and PP are a good way to ensure that you are not providing inadvertently misleading information to your Users about the App and their privacy.

Jordan Garner

Start-UP Failure and IP

Quick post:

I have been filling my free reading time with stories about how different start-ups fail. My inquiry is not limited to "Tech" or "Software", but to restaurants, shipping companies, mines and other small and medium businesses that found themselves suddenly with more liability than assets.

Obviously, I am not a business manager, so my opinions should be taken with a healthy grain of salt. However, a reoccurring theme appears to be that companies often fail because the business plan that failed to accurately match reality.  It should be noted that reality is a hard thing, it changes and morphs over time. Having a business model that consistently matches it is very difficult.  There are very few conceptual frameworks for making money that have not be changed by the advent of new er better technology and information, (agriculture? Prostitution?), trying to keep pace is difficult.

That being said, what I have also noticed is that very few (say less than 1%) of the companies I read about failed because of IP infringement. Sure, there are some tech start-ups that fail because they step on the toes of a competitors IP (esp in the trademark and copyright space), but it is generally not how start-ups fail.

However, there is a pernicious perception in some quarters of the start-up world is that accusations of infringement are a) rampant and b) driving companies who would otherwise be profitable, off of a cliff.

The reality, much like business plans, must have some facts and analysis to support those conclusions. A significant quantity of IP suits filed in 2014 were directed against large profitable business and instigated on the behalf of non-practicing entities.  It is rare for any company to receive a cease and desist letter from a patent holder. It is rarer still for them for the target of a suit to be a un-profitable start-up.

For the curious, here are some post mortums of various tech start-ups:

http://www.cbinsights.com/blog/startup-failure-post-mortem


http://successfulsoftware.net/2010/05/27/learning-lessons-from-13-failed-software-products/

The point is that businesses have a lot of things to worry about, and a limited amount of time to worry about them. Worry less about IP infringement, and more about your business model and odds are you will have made the right choice in your focus.

A Modest Proposal: Bitcoin + Kickstarter +PMCs = Brave New World

I am looking for my razor....

Unless you have been living in a cave, or actually fighting the Shining Path in the jungles of northern Peru, you are aware that Boko Haram, an Islamic fundamentalist organization, has kidnapped more than 200 schoolgirls. Their stated purposes was to sell them into sexual slavery, their unstated purpose was to sow general mayhem.  If you want to read more, then feel free to check out excellent coverage here.

The Nigerian government has offered the equivalent of $300,000 for information leading to the whereabouts of the missing school girls. In an age where random kickstarters for pointless, useless crap raise millions of dollars, the international community (not governments, but actual "global" citizens - i.e. you) can probably do better than a bit over 1000 per kidnapped schoolgirl.

This brings us to the intersection of a number of internet technologies and recent global developments. Currently, there is no technological barrier to use a Bitcoin based crowd funding site to hire a private military contractor (UN speak for "Mercenaries") to locate and rescue the girls. There would be obvious implications for territorial sovereignty for the Nigerian Government, but they appear to already have a problem with territorial sovereignty.

How would this work in practice? Poorly. However, it is the logical outgrowth of technologies currently available.

The way bit coin works is to render anonymous the commercial transactions using a finite (but infinitely divisible) resource stock . Libertarians and others find this particularly beneficial because it removes the threat of "fiat" currency fluctuations (of course it introduces other types of currency fluctuations, but that is not the point here ) and allows for transactions to occur outside government control and inspection. This
combined with a crowd-sourcing model would let denizens of the world contribute to a fund anonymously.  Millions of dollars worth of Bitcoins could be electronically transferred to a holding entity that was the point of contact.  This aggregation of resources could use a crowdfunding model, one well developed over the past few years, to solicit and explain the purpose of the holding entity.

During the United States' decade and a half worth of combat in the Middle East, PMCs have increasingly been used to guard kep individuals, do recon, and even engage in combat. (The nightmare that was Fallujah started because some PMCs went looking to settle a score with insurgents).  Now, they comprise an international shadow military active in almost every conceivable military role. They have their own equipment, weapons, command structures and PR teams.

In our scenario, once the funds were amassed, they would be used to hire a PMC outfit to retrieve the girls.

People might cheer or wring their hands, but no one should assume that this in not possible today. These three technologies combined form a platform.  Lets call it an "Anonymous Crowd-Sourced Conflict Management" or ACSCM platform (and API!).  Once it is successfully deployed, there would be no reason to think that other enterprising individuals wouldn't use the platform for more nefarious ends. One could envision Dark Nets full of Terrorist Groups pleading and copying other groups request for crowd sourcing (which raises a interesting question out IP theft among various terrorist groups) to fund their particular plots.

We are constantly told how new technologies will change the world. The problem is that we always default to that change being only beneficial. All technologies have the capacity to use and misuse in ways their original creators never intended.