Would You Hire These Lawyers?
Nice site. Mind if I steal it?
Like taking steak from a wolf, stealing from a law firm seems a tad dangerous. Via LegalMatch law blog, the Law.com story of a Florida firm which discovered an unknown British counterpart lifting its website wholesale.
The aggrieved Florida firm, Gordon & Doner, is apparently a well-known personal injury firm. The offending party allegedly lifted the design and photos of Gordon & Doner, making some changes but leaving the bulk of the site unchanged. An attorney at Gordon & Doner discovered the chicanery after doing a search for himself and finding his doppelganger at a British law firm in Manchester, England. Gordon & Doner has filed action against the host of the offending site, GoDaddy.com, as well as the yet-undetermined British party.
The motivation to do something so stupid is a mystery. While only a law firm would seemingly have the incentive to build a site by stealing from another law firm, could a firm in a profession as risk-adverse as the legal profession actually be so reckless?
Gordon & Doner’s attorney for this matter, Michael Slavin of McHale & Slavin, has apparently speculated that the copying may have been done to game Gordon & Doner’s ranking on Google. But why take the trouble to host the site in England?
If it is a law firm that is ultimately found to be the culprit, it obviously is a little light on intellectual property expertise.
(Hat tip: Nils Montan)
UPDATE: Gordon & Doner has dropped the case after uncovering the apparent motives for this unusual identity threat. According to this March 3 press release, Gordon & Doner had initiated litigation against the unknown perpetrators and host GoDaddy, only to determine that the perpetrator had used an alleged stolen credit card traced back to Nigeria. The sham corporation behind the fraudulent website, Gentleiyke LLC, had also been the owner of several domain names hosting other fraudulent sites, all of which had been shutdown.
According to attorney Michael Slavin, who represented Gordon & Doner in the matter, the motive for the theft appeared to be one of adding legitimacy to an international scheme involving internet users, perhaps even to entice potential litigants to employ fraudulent lawyers.
“[I]t is our hope that no one in the general public was harmed,” said Slavin.
