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WHAT WE'RE WATCHING

BIG LAW BATTLEGROUNDS - You've heard of the East Coast-West Coast rivalry. But you may not be aware that there's also a turf war being waged between Californian law firms and Washington, D.C., natives. And while it hasn't produced quite as many hip-hop classics, it's shaking up legal services in both markets. On one side of the battle lines, traditional tech law firms from the Golden State are positioning themselves as regs experts in the nation's capital. On the other, Washington law firms—with long histories of regulatory prowess—are proving themselves to be formidable competitors in the tech market. Because of their pedigree and specialisms, Beltway and West Coast firms in the past have often been strong collaborators. For instance, Covington & Burling was co-counsel with Cooley on the Uber initial public offering. But, as Law.com's Bruce Love reports, they are now fierce rivals encroaching on each other's home territory. "The maturation curve for the tech sector on regulatory issues is a lot steeper than it has been for other industries," Covington partner James Garland said. "When I started out in law, the tech sector in California was seen as a foreign land that didn't care at all about Washington. And that is not the case anymore. Washington is extremely relevant to tech now—as are all the regulatory capitals in the world: Brussels, London, Beijing."

ARTIFICIAL CLAIMS - The last few years have seen strides in artificial intelligence capabilities and importance—tech partnerships to facilitate the development of AI solutions, lawsuits to name machines as inventors, and even talent shuffling within the legal industry spurred on by AI companies. Yet, as Law.com's Isha Marathe reports, artificial intelligence is still the shiny new toy in the legal tech stack that doesn't always live up to its hype. Recently, Killer Whale Strategies founder Zach Abramowitz opined that a large round of layoffs within legal tech company Lawgeex was likely due to their AI tool not living up to its marketing. To be sure, that wouldn't be the only time AI-based e-discovery has fallen short of expectations. Attorneys and experts have pointed to misleading marketing that touted AI's "silver bullet solutions" as the culprit for poor technology-assisted review (TAR 1.0 and TAR 2.0) adoption. Mary Mack, the CEO and chief legal technologist at Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM), said vendors often claim their AI was a "one-button" solution, and that is a bit of an overstatement. "Because AI appears like magic, it's probably more susceptible to those kinds of claims," Mack said. "For a while, e-discovery companies were saying, 'You just press one button and everything happens.' That's just not true. It's getting closer to true with every year that we automate more, but it's not quite there yet."

WHO GOT THE WORK?℠ - David Aronoff and Joshua Bornstein of Fox Rothschild have stepped in to represent actor Zac Efron, Darin Olien and two production companies in a pending trademark infringement lawsuit in relation to Netflix's docuseries "Down to Earth." The complaint was filed July 22 in New York Southern District Court by Dichter Law and the Law Offices of Peter J. Glantz on behalf of Down to Earth Organics, a producer of health-related media content, health-focused iced teas and clothing. The complaint contends that the defendants have created actual confusion as to the origin of 'Down to Earth' due to the defendants' unauthorized use of the phrase. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Nelson Stephen Roman, is 7:22-cv-06218, Down to Earth Organics, LLC v. Efron et al.  >> Read the filing on Law.com Radar and check out the most recent edition of Law.com's Who Got the Work?℠ column to find out which law firms and lawyers are being brought in to handle key cases and close major deals for their clients.

ON THE RADAR - Shopify, a Canadian company that offers ecommerce tools to online merchants, was sued Friday in California Central District Court for negligence in connection with a 2020 cyber-intrusion. The court action was filed by Hansen Law Firm on behalf of My Choice Software, a Shopify customer. According to the complaint, a customer service vendor hired by Shopify infiltrated the plaintiff's network and stole data. The suit additionally alleges claims against TaskUs Inc. and Tassilo Heinrich for violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Counsel have not yet appeared for the defendants. The case is 8:22-cv-01710, My Choice Software, LLC v. TaskUs, Inc. et al. Stay up on the latest deals and litigation with the new Law.com.   

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