On Tuesday, June 13 at 1:00 p.m. Eastern, Seyfarth attorneys Kristine Argentine, John Tomaszewski, and Paul Yovanic will present at the Association of National Advertisers webinar, “Emerging Issues Surrounding Privacy Class Actions and Compliance in 2023.”
The webinar will address the recent surge in consumer class actions, compliance considerations, and recent developments
You may have recently seen press reports about lawyers who filed and submitted papers to the federal district court for the Southern District of New York that included citations to cases and decisions that, as it turned out, were wholly made up; they did not exist. The lawyers in that case used the generative artificial intelligence (AI) program ChatGPT to perform their legal research for the court submission, but did not realize that ChatGPT had fabricated the citations and decisions. This case should serve as a cautionary tale for individuals seeking to use AI in connection with legal research, legal questions, or other legal issues, even outside of the litigation context.
In Mata v. Avianca, Inc.,[1] the plaintiff brought tort claims against an airline for injuries allegedly sustained when one of its employees hit him with a metal serving cart. The airline filed a motion to dismiss the case. The plaintiff’s lawyer filed an opposition to that motion that included citations to several purported court decisions in its argument. On reply, the airline asserted that a number of the court decisions cited by the plaintiff’s attorney could not be found, and appeared not to exist, while two others were cited incorrectly and, more importantly, did not say what plaintiff’s counsel claimed. The Court directed plaintiff’s counsel to submit an affidavit attaching the problematic decisions identified by the airline.Continue Reading Use of ChatGPT in Federal Litigation Holds Lessons for Lawyers and Non-Lawyers Everywhere
In a January 11, 2023 op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal, President Joe Biden urged “Democrats and Republicans to come together to pass strong bipartisan legislation to hold Big Tech accountable.” He warned that the “risks Big Tech poses for ordinary Americans are clear. Big Tech companies collect huge amounts of data” about
Ransomware attacks have become one of the most common and pervasive cybercrimes perpetrated against U.S. companies. A bad actor, often from overseas, will gain access to upload malware onto a company’s network storage or application platforms that encrypts all files it can access. A message or text file is usually left with instructions on how to contact the attacker to pay a ransom for the decryption key. In the worst case, a ransomware attack can freeze the business operations by effectively removing access to the company’s critical systems and rendering them useless. Aside from the business impact, what legal implications are created by a ransomware attack?
The greatest legal concern is one of privacy. By definition, ransomware attacks gain access to the internal systems maintained or owned by a business. However, not all ransomware attacks are created equal and privacy obligations differ from one attack to another.Continue Reading Ransomware Attacks – Harmless Annoyances or Catastrophic Events?
We have seen a market driven push for companies to embrace diversity and inclusion (D&I) policies over the last few years, which reflects a key shift in social and cultural norms for many organisations. Increasingly, consumers, staff and senior business leaders expect proactive steps to be taken for D&I objectives. Research demonstrates a strong business case for promoting diversity, although some suggest that viewing it through a lens of fairness is more effective. Regardless of the rationale, there are very sound reasons for companies to be embracing a diverse and inclusive workforce.
In pursuit of this objective, global businesses might assume that diversity reporting obligations apply in Australia in the same way they do in other jurisdictions and that overseas policies will be suitable for use here. With the best of intentions, following guidance from reputable external organisations focussed on general strategies to promote D&I, businesses might default to policies and practices designed overseas.
So what’s the problem? Many companies are unaware of the local compliance issues in Australia that need to be met when collecting diversity data and implementing these programs:Continue Reading When Good Intentions Fail: Is Your D&I Policy Inadvertently Unlawful?
Seyfarth Synopsis: On May 12, 2021, President Joe Biden issued a very broad, 34 page “Executive Order on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity.” The Executive Order, or “EO”, can be found here. This order comes six months after the notorious SolarWinds attack, and mere weeks after other high-profile attacks have invaded our networks, and shut
There have been seminal events in the cybersecurity space since 2012, but there has likely been no event in recent times bigger than the SolarWinds attack which was first announced in December 2020. Though it likely had “nation-state” origins, the SolarWinds attack raised a number of serious issues for US companies and indeed the US
From court closures and the way judges conduct appearances and trials to the expected wave of lawsuits across a multitude of areas and industries, the COVID-19 outbreak is having a notable impact in the litigation space—and is expected to for quite some time.
To help navigate the litigation landscape, we are kicking off a webinar
California, home to more than 40 million people and the 5th largest economy in the world, has passed the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), its omnibus consumer privacy law. The law creates sweeping new requirements concerning the collection, maintenance, and tracking of information for both employees or customers who are residents of California. Many aspects of the implementation and enforcement are still being finalized by the California Attorney General. However, companies with employees or customers in California need to take stock of the information they are processing that could qualify as “personal information” for California residents, and they need to begin establishing mechanisms for compliance before the end of 2019.
Continue Reading The California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018: What Businesses Need to Know Now
At the end of June, the California legislature passed its Bill 375, the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018. The Act contains a number of concepts that would be familiar to those who are working to bring their companies and organizations into compliance with GDPR. The new law defines a category of “Personal Information” that