e-mail

Unethical CYA Trick Hall Of Infamy Inductee: the Phantom E-mail

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

Has this happened to you?

My firm submitted materials for a presentation to a client weeks before it was scheduled, sending them to the contact’s assistant, and asking that if there were any problems, to let us know. The day before the presentation, I received an urgent e-mail from the assistant, reading, “I am copying you in on this because I had not heard from your partner. The materials you sent may need revisions, as I informed her in my previous communication, and we were getting concerned because the revisions had not been received by us.” CC’d on the message were the assistant’s supervisor (my contact), and other firm members. Not my partner, however.

Panic ensued at ProEthics. After checking all phone logs, e-mail files and spam-blockers, it became abundantly clear that no such message about revisions was ever sent to my partner. Continue reading →

When Does A Nasty E-Mail Exchange Constitute Punishable Unethical Conduct?

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

Now we know—at least when Florida lawyers are concerned.

Tampa lawyer Nicholas F. Mooney  and Palmetto lawyer Kurt D. Mitchell received suspensions from the Florida Bar and the Florida Supreme Court after an escalating e-mail exchange that  continued over six months.

A lack of civility is considered a breach of professionalism in all jurisdictions, but not an ethical violation calling into question fitness to practice law—the standard for bar discipline—unless it is extreme, and usually not until there have been warnings issued. Apparently this particular spat was just too much for the Bar to take, perhaps because it reflects badly on the entire profession. Continue reading →

Karen Owen’s “Fuck List” and the Rutgers Sex Video Suicide: Not So Different

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Karen Owen is a recent graduate of Duke. Either they don’t comprehend the nature of the internet at Duke, or are graduating more than their share of cruel, thoughtless, reckless dolts, because Owen decided it would be a hoot to make a faux “senior thesis” Powerpoint presentation documenting her sexual activity with thirteen Duke athletes, none of whom gave consent to be named in her “study”. She classily dubbed it her “fuck list,” but it was unofficially titled “An education beyond the classroom: excelling in the realm of horizontal academics.”  (“Horizontal academics…get it?) Then she e-mailed the file to three “friends,” and, as you’ve probably guessed, one  or more of them sent it around to their friends, who eventually made it viral. Soon two websites decided to maximize the harm to all concerned, as websites are prone to do…especially websites called “Deadspin.” Continue reading →

The Right Lesson From The Rutgers Sex Video Suicide

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

The tragedy can be blamed on moral luck.…bad moral luck. The two Rutgers students who humiliated a classmate by secretly taping a gay sexual encounter between him and another young man and live streaming it onto the internet couldn’t know that their sensitive victim would jump off a bridge to his death in despair. Most students would not react this way. Some might have a breakdown; some might seek revenge. Some might not even care. Raunchy teen hi-jinx gross-out comedies often feature equally awful “jokes” or worse, depicted as just part of the carefree, amoral life among uninhibited youths. This time, however, the prank killed. Everyone will look at students Dharun Ravi and Molly Wei as monsters now, because of the unpredictable result brought about by their cruel violation of a fellow student’s dignity and privacy. Continue reading →

The Ethics Of Harvard’s “Racist E-mail” Scandal

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

The whole sad, sordid story of a Harvard Law student’s racially provocative e-mail that is now circling the web like the deadly virus in The Stand can be read over at Above the Law. The simple facts are these: At a dinner discussion at Harvard Law School, a law student expressed openness to the possibility of future research showing that blacks were, as a group, genetically inferior to whites in intellectual ability. After dinner, she made a fateful decision to elaborate on her views in an e-mail to two “friends” who had been involved in the discussion.

The e-mail said, in part…

“…I absolutely do not rule out the possibility that African Americans are, on average, genetically predisposed to be less intelligent. I could also obviously be convinced that by controlling for the right variables, we would see that they are, in fact, as intelligent as white people under the same circumstances. The fact is, some things are genetic. African Americans tend to have darker skin. Irish people are more likely to have red hair…” Continue reading →

So Much For “Don’t Be Evil”: YouTube and Google Ethics on Display

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

The Business Insider has posted evidence gathered by Viacom in its lawsuit against Google, consisting primarily  of e-mails and instant messages. It is far from conclusive on the legal issues, which revolve around YouTube and Google’s unauthorized use of copyrighted material. It is very conclusive, however, regarding how often any ethics alarms went off with various Google and YouTube executives as they contemplated bottom line issues: rarely.

Here is a startling example.  In a 2005 e-mail exchange YouTube co-founder Steve Chen reasoned thusly: Continue reading →

Protest Ethics: Christmas, the ACLU, and Ignorance

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

A silly e-mail is circulating again, as it has this time of year since 2005, encouraging recipients to engage in a pointless and ignorant protest against the American Civil Liberties Union.

It reads: Continue reading →