Hacker News Reader

Comment by chc | Hacker News Reader

The point is that the firms themselves were not behind SOPA. If you're suggesting that we shouldn't deal with any businesses that employ anyone who supports SOPA, I think you're a little off the rails here. That won't help anything and just makes us look unreasonable.

View on HN

These aren't just employees who signed these letters independently. They were asked by a client to sign onto the letter which agrees with the clients interests. They sign these precisely because the client of the firm paid them to. While I was at a firm we signed onto letters or drafted our own for clients all the time (and it was precisely b/c it helped get the laws through, so call it what you want -- i know I don't mind "support" though I can see how some object to the technicality). In laymen's terms, client shows up and says "we need this law to go through we'd like to hire a lawyer to write an independent legal opinion letter to the court to help them make their decision. Or maybe you guys can sign on to this guy's already written letter? We'll pay you for it, of course."

The techdirt article points this out too. When there's a law up for debate which a client wants to get through they try to get these letters in to make it more likely the law will pass. And yes this is different from official "support" which is saying "we the law firm want this law to pass." This is more like "our lawyer looked at this for our client and he does not think it's unconstitutional though this is not the position of the entire firm." To me, that's still bad but I completely understand if others are okay with it. Reasonable men can and do disagree about a lot of things.

Law firms aren't supposed to take on clients with conflicting interests. If a firm has helped one of their clients lobby in support of SOPA, they shouldn't accept clients who depend on fair use or DMCA Safe Harbor.

well should is a strong word. and if you are a startup it's very possible that you don't depend on a fair use / DMCA Safe Harbor argument now but will in the unpredictable future so it's unlikely a client will ever get rejected for that potential conflict.

Is it really wise to get in bed with ESPN in the first place? that's all I'm saying. I am not and will not be the first to argue that sharing lawyers with those on opposite sides of important legislation with you is a bad idea.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com