Why is Signal, a company that prides itself in being tech-centric, allowing lawyers to send DMCA requests without consulting anybody?
You could argue that it's a trademark issue, except that if it was, this makes a DMCA request illegal as it's not a tool to enforce trademark issues. And in addition, while the AGPLv3 has allowances for trademark carve-outs, Signal makes none.
It's not a good look for the lawyers to be completely in the dark on an issue so core to their company's business.
> ... a company that prides itself on being tech-centric ...
I can't see why this matters. Wouldn't it also be a worthy question for $NOT_TECH_COMPANY if their lawyers send a DMCA takedown request in such a manner?
It's bad in any case, it's worse when you're uninformed on an issue core to your entire mission. This is an area their lawyers should be exceptionally experienced and informed in, where it'd be potentially easier to forgive a lawyer completely green on FOSS making a mistake on something they thought was straightforward.
To clarify, any lawyer working for any company with a publicly available, physical (read: non-software or computer hardware) product or service that I've heard of should never make this mistake. That's why I wouldn't think it's especially weird that the company in question is one who offers a software product.
Anyway, you do otherwise make a good point. I can understand that someone sees it that way. (And thanks for explaining your perspective!)