Plus! When you get punched by Bob Barker…
Fake Love
The NFL season starts on Wednesday, and we know this weekend will be a big one for fantasy football drafts (and not just because one of us is participating in three…).
But instead of sharing some fantasy football advice in this portion of the email (well, here’s one bit: you can afford to wait on QB until at least round 6), here’s a bit of advice inspired by a football fantasy.
It’s the story of Daejon Love. According to the internet, Love was a player for the San Francisco 49ers.
You could Google him.
There were pictures of him in 49ers gear. Videos of him training. His LinkedIn profile listed him as a receiver (well, “reciever”) for the National Football League.
There was video of him catching passes on a beach…wearing a Niners helmet. There was video of him blowing out the candles on a 49ers themed-cake. Why wasn’t there video of him training with the team? He was dealing with a pinkie injury. You know how it goes.
Ask any AI or search engine who he was and, according to federal investigators, most of the time it would tell you the same thing:
Daejon Love was a pro football player.
One minor problem:
Daejon Love has never played for the San Francisco 49ers .
Or any NFL team.
Last week, federal prosecutors charged Love
and an alleged accomplice, Taylor Jamie Chan, with wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud in connection with an absolutely bonkers scheme authorities say defrauded at least 26 women of roughly $1.3 million.
Love allegedly met many of the women through dating apps, where he presented himself as either a wealthy professional football player or (because apparently one fake résumé wasn’t enough), a wealthy real-estate developer who owned a Gucci store “on Saks 5th Avenue.”
To support the football version, investigators say Love wore 49ers gear, posed in what appears to have been a replica helmet, posted football videos, surrounded himself with luxury goods and cars, and curated his socials in a way that made the whole thing seem real.
Or at least real enough.
He also allegedly bought followers, likes, and views…as well as prop money to complete the illusion.
Investigators say he used an app that’s literally called Fake Bank Account Pro to show victims fictitious balances, including one purported account containing more than $30 million.
Subtle!
But perhaps the craziest part is what happened when some of his alleged victims did exactly what you’re supposed to do when something doesn’t smell right:
They Googled him.
According to the FBI affidavit, Love’s false social-media presence had polluted the information environment enough that search engines and artificial intelligence occasionally identified him as a legitimate 49ers player. Investigators searching “Daejon Love 49ers” in January found results that appeared to corroborate his story.
Love’s lie had generated enough evidence of itself that machines began treating all the falsehoods as proof of his ruse’s truth.
Frauds aren’t new. Impostors aren’t new. Fake credentials, fake experts, fake lawyers, fake financial advisers, fake profiles…people have been pretending to be things they aren’t since long before anyone could ask ChatGPT to inflate and distribute their résumé.
But manufacturing credibility has gotten easier.
Bots can create the illusion of an army of followers or fans, or generate fake emails that look like they came right from you.
To wit: One of our writers recently received an email offering an opportunity to sign with one of the world’s most prestigious independent publishers. It was…not real.
But it looked real! Read as real. Or real enough, when you examine the visuals through the rose-colored glasses that come with any exciting opportunity.
AI can create photographs, biographies, articles, reviews, videos, voices, and identities. And once enough bad information exists online, the machines we increasingly use to separate real from fake can sometimes ingest that information and confidently hand it right back to us.
For lawyers, this makes your online presence about more than marketing.
It’s becoming a form of authentication.
If someone searches your name, what do they find?
Does your firm’s website clearly identify who you are?
Does your LinkedIn match your bio?
Do your bar profiles, directories, articles, videos, reviews, social accounts, and other legitimate sources reinforce the same basic identity?
Have you published enough under your own name that someone trying to determine whether you are actually you has someplace authoritative to look?
We spend a lot of time telling lawyers to establish an online presence because it helps prospective clients know, like, and trust them.
But the rise of fraudsters, and what will surely be an overreaction to them, gives us another reason to reinforce the practice: It helps others know you’re real.
The internet is rapidly becoming the place where people—and machines—decide who you are.
What are you doing to introduce yourself before someone (or some thing) does it for you?
Four Quick Email Ideas: Adam Sandler Edition
The star of some of the most formative comedies of our staff’s collective young adulthood turns 60 on Wednesday, September 9. And since you could probably build an entire year of law-firm emails around Billy Madison alone, here are 4 ideas inspired by some of his other work…
Happy Gilmore
Happy’s entire golf career begins because his grandmother owes $270,000 in back taxes and her house is seized. Estate-planning, elder-law, bankruptcy, and tax attorneys: You’re welcome. Everyone else: What’s a problem you’ve seen become enormous simply because someone ignored it for too long? Or: What are the potential damages you could pursue if someone as well known as Bob Barker punched you in the face repeatedly during a celebrity golf pro-am?
Big Daddy
Sonny Koufax unexpectedly winds up caring for a five-year-old, pretends to be the child’s biological father, then eventually finds himself in court trying to remain part of his life. Family lawyers have approximately 47 emails available here. For everyone else: When have you taken on a responsibility you were wildly unprepared for? What did you learn once someone else’s well-being depended on you?
Punch-Drunk Love
Barry Egan discovers that a pudding cup promotion awards frequent-flyer miles at a value far exceeding the cost of the pudding required to earn them, so he buys thousands of cups, a plot point inspired by a real promotion. What’s the most surprising loophole, clause, technicality, or unintended consequence you’ve encountered? When does cleverly understanding the rules become exploiting them?
Uncut Gems
If you’ve ever wanted to know what Cortisol: The Movie would feel like, watch Uncut Gems. Sandler’s Howard Ratner spends the entire movie being given opportunities to stop making a bad situation worse. He…declines. Every time. When have you had to stop a client from playing themselves? Have you ever represented someone who could have walked away with a perfectly good outcome but simply could not stop doubling down? How do you counsel a client when the greatest threat to their case is…them
Laboring The Point
As we gear up for Labor Day, one thing we know for certain (beyond the fact that traffic will be a nightmare no matter where you’re heading for the weekend), is that law firms across America are about to send a very important message to their email lists:
Happy Labor Day!
There may be an American flag emoji in the subject line. Possibly a gavel. Maybe a photograph of several smiling stock models (some of whom might have AI-fingers) staring into the middle distance.
And beneath all that, a message:
From all of us at Firm Name and Sons, we hope you and your family enjoy a safe and relaxing Labor Day.
And while we feel this message is a nice way to stay top of mind in your clients’ inboxes, it’s also a huge missed opportunity.
One of the things we talk about regularly with our clients is that there’s a difference between having a reason to send an email and having something worth saying.
And Labor Day is an easy avenue into the latter since the former is low-hanging fruit…Labor Day has great name recognition. You do not need to explain what it is or why it matters or why someone should have a happy one.
Instead you could:
Write about your first job.
Or the worst boss you ever had.
Or the reason you decided to become your own boss.
Tell us about your father leaving for work before you woke up every morning, or the challenges/triumphs you recall your mother experiencing when she returned to the work force after a few years at home.
Tell us about the worker who’s been with your firm for 17 years. Or the one who just started.
Employment lawyers shouldn’t have much trouble finding an angle…but neither should anyone else!
PI attorneys could talk about workplace injuries. Estate-planning attorneys could write about protecting all the things decades of work have helped accrue. Business lawyers could talk about hiring your first employee and realizing you were suddenly responsible for somebody else’s paycheck.
It’s not that the possibilities are endless…it’s just that there are so so many it seems like a waste to send the same message as every other firm in the country.
Enjoy the weekend. And when you’re back in the office…you can write about what you did.