Latest / The Jon and Marc Podcast / How Mark Lanier Beat Facebook, Instagram and YouTube (And What Happens Next)

Transcript

How Mark Lanier Beat Facebook, Instagram and YouTube (And What Happens Next) · The Jon and Marc Podcast

• 0:00
  I am against the largest social media company in the world and
• 0:06
  in the history of civilization. And the judge looked at me and I
• 0:08
  said, your honor, look, Facebook's done you a dirty,
• 0:12
  Instagram's done you a dirty, and Meta's done you a dirty.
• 0:15
  They don't want people to know that it's 11:27 in the morning
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  on Thursday April 16th. We filmed our first episode
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  actually 8 months ago. At the.
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  Linear at. The Linear Trial Academy.
• 0:39
  How applicable. We're waiting for Mark Lanier to
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  come upstairs. Jen's walking him over to make
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  sure that he's not just getting crowded with everybody who wants
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  to talk to him, which happens every time he speaks.
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  VP of Client Services and bodyguard.
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  Yes, a phenomenal human. And then we're going to sit down
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  and we're going to talk to Mark. And I don't know what we're
• 1:01
  going to talk to him about, but it's going to be amazing.
• 1:03
  We're on our way to go get Mark Lanier.
• 1:07
  He's going to be on the podcast, so we got to rush you over.
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  We don't have a lot of time, but we're going to make it work.
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  Exciting. All right, now I'm getting a
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  little nervous. It's like I'm meeting Santa
• 1:21
  Claus fix. Your hair.
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  John and Mark are ready to talk a lot about a lot of stuff, but
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  we got 10 minutes. We're not.
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  Going to have that much time, but we are still getting time
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  with Mark and then he's going to be whisked away and get on a
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  plane and back to Houston he goes so.
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  Can't wait, I'm so scared now. Do you know how hard it is right
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  to ask the right question when you only get 10 minutes?
• 1:45
  Hello. Hello.
• 1:48
  Hey, Mark, I'm Alec. Alec.
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  Good to see you. Glad to have you on the podcast.
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  Hey, glad to be on the podcast. Let's be fun, yeah?
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  Here we. Are in Vegas getting ready for
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  the podcast to end all podcast. The number one legal marketing
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  podcast as they. Said yeah, and then second is so
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  far distant you can't see them. All right.
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  The number one legal podcast in the universe in the history of
• 2:19
  humanity. Let's go.
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  Welcome to the John and Mark podcast today.
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  It's the John and Mark and Mark podcast with the one and only
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  Mark Lanier, which is remarkable that we would both be here.
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  So Mark just got ushered off stage where he spoke about the
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  social media addiction trial. He spoke about the upcoming
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  litigation that they are pursuing in the AI space and he
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  is here to talk to us for a few minutes before he has to go rush
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  back. We had a laundry list of
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  questions to ask you, and then we made it very short, you know?
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  You didn't need to because we're filming this on a Thursday and
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  that's laundry day for me, so the laundry list would have been
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  fine. No, I'm ecstatic to be here.
• 3:01
  I thank you guys for having me on.
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  You really do have one of the most compelling podcasts out
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  there for legal marketing issues and legal issues, what's going
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  on in the world. We really appreciate.
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  It well done. Thank you very much.
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  And I will say like you guys aside from your trial work, you
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  run a top notch operation. Your people are amazing from
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  Dara to Dwana to Rebecca, you guys do a great job.
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  Yeah, and and Kevin overseas so. Much of this.
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  And these folks have been with me for so long that they're,
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  they're just, it's, it's a very tight knit circle and it's, it's
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  been a blessing to get to work with them.
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  We did have a whole bunch of questions to go through, but I'm
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  going to ask you the one without the warm up.
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  I want to know how you feel about the fact that Facebook
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  came out publicly and said we're not going to allow lawyers to
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  pursue more claims against them by advertising on their
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  platform. Yeah, that's kind of, I guess
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  that kind of tells you that they have their tail between their
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  legs and they feel like they've been kicked pretty hard, which I
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  guess they did, but they had it coming from for them.
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  And and realistically this gives you a glimpse into who they are
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  because you know, if the litigation is as poor as they
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  say it is, they should not fear lawyers advertising, they should
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  not fear jurors deciding. But they know internally that
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  this litigation illustrates there many of their flaws and
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  many of their calculated works to take advantage of people.
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  And so they don't want that word out there and they don't want
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  lawyers freely telling people that, look, Facebook's done you
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  a dirty and Instagram's done you a dirty and Meta's done you a
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  dirty. They don't want people to know
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  that. Peculiar timing on that one.
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  We started doing marketing for this for Matt Bergman from the
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  beginning. Four years ago when you started,
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  I remember sitting down with John.
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  I was like, there's no way in heck they're going to let us run
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  these ads four or five years later.
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  They finally after right after the decision came down, they
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  decided maybe this isn't a good idea.
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  Yeah, they didn't think they were going to lose.
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  They thought they thought they had this in the bag.
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  Their strategy, Remember, they've targeted young kids from
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  the beginning in the trial. They were still targeting.
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  They were just targeting her in the courtroom instead of to get
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  her on the media. And they tried to attack her and
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  they thought they could win by attacking the plaintiff.
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  And the problem is the jury understood the truth and the
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  truth was damning for them. A lot of people in the public
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  sphere know about you and about the firm from this trial.
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  But the firm itself has so much going on.
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  It's such a large operation and while that one case that you won
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  is going to be a huge game changer for that specific
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  litigation, you've now set the framework for this is how these
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  trials are going to go. You also have a miso operation
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  that you've been operating for a very long time.
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  The work that you guys are doing in Libby, Montana is incredible.
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  The work that you have are are pursuing on behalf of the states
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  in the Google antitrust litigation.
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  There's just so much going on. How do you look at your firm and
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  balance your trial work with the day-to-day operations and the
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  other cases that you are continuing to pursue?
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  Well, we have 65 or 70 remarkable lawyers and we've got
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  support staff of 100 plus. And they do an incredible job at
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  not only preparing and shepherding these cases into the
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  posture where I can try them, but they also do a wonderful job
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  themselves of trying some of the cases.
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  They do a wonderful job of interacting with all of the
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  courts and all of the lawyers that are out there.
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  You know, I referring lawyers or people that some want to just
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  refer it and get the mailbox money, but many others want to
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  refer it and also keep involved. And so they're really good at
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  trying to make sure that the referring lawyers have a level
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  of involvement that they're happy with.
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  And so they do a great job working it up.
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  And you're right, we've got different teams.
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  So we have a business litigation team that's pursuing not just
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  the Google antitrust case, but a number of different business
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  type cases, insurance fraud cases, all sorts of cases like
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  that. And then we've got another unit
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  that just does general torts. I mean, we've got people we
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  handle car wrecks, we handle trucking accidents, we handle.
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  Slip and falls, we handle Uber cases, ladders that break.
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  Then we've got maritime work where we represent you.
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  We've just settled out one of the defendants in the bridge
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  case in in Maryland. We represented the state of
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  Maryland against the shipping company that collided into the
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  bridge and just settled that for a couple of billion dollars.
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  We have different units that do all of this work.
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  We have an asbestos unit that that is just incredible at
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  handling those cases, whether it's mesothelioma or, or the
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  talcum powder cases with the ovarian cancer and, and so many
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  others. And then we've got the social
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  media team and then we've got the, the, the general pharma
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  team. So we, we love it.
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  We're we're diverse. It's I'm just saying you've like
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  jumped the cultural. My wife knew that we worked
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  together for a long time and then but when the trial started,
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  she was like bugging me for updates like inside scoop of
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  like how things were going. She's like, when's the verdict
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  going to come down? Are they going to win?
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  She was like every day following online like asking me for
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  updates. I was like, I don't know
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  anything and I'm not making that phone call, but she was like
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  invested. She.
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  Should have been asking me Mark, but like you shouldn't have said
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  hey. Here's her girlfriends.
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  We're all like texting updates because they're like they want
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  they wanted to see be the result of this.
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  Yeah, well, it was interesting that the media, the judge had to
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  limit media passage because there was too many people wanted
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  in and not enough room. And so the court limited how
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  many of the lawyers could bring in the parties, how many of the
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  media could bring in and how many visitors could come in.
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  And then there was press set outside the whole time.
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  And, and you, it was, it was quite a press circus.
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  Interesting note that nobody knows about the second or third
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  day. I had gone outside and they
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  press wanted to talk to me. So I did a quick press
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  conference and I made some statements about this, that and
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  the other that I thought the lawyers had cherry picked
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  evidence and I was going to look forward to showing it and some
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  things like that. The next morning I come in and
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  one of the legal teams on the other side met a lawyer, gets up
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  and tells the judge, I can't believe Mr. Lanier has done
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  this. He's talked to the media about
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  this case. That's outrageous.
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  And, and da, da, da, da, da. And the judge looked at me and I
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  said, your Honor, I am against the largest social media company
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  in the world and in the history of civilization.
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  If you don't think for a minute that their PR department has put
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  out statements that they are carrying information on their
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  own social media that is available and going out to a
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  billion plus people compared to me talking down on the sidewalk
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  with a reporter. I said this is not the pot
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  calling the kettle black, this is the ocean complaining about a
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  thimble of salt water robbing it of its glory.
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  I said this is this is absurd. And the judge said, Ed said,
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  what are you suggesting? I said, if they are upset about
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  this, then let me do discovery on them.
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  Let me do discovery to find out what they're putting out in
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  their press reports. And at that point they were kind
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  of like, well, this isn't that big a deal and they never talked
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  about it again. What do you think is eventually
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  going to happen? Let's Fast forward like 2-3
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  years to potential resolution. They've got the documents are
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  too bad. Now, they may try and win a
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  couple of cases first to try to drive down the dollars, but
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  they're going to have to come to grips with this.
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  They purposefully addicted a lot of people, in my opinion.
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  And that's what the jury found. And the jury found they did it
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  maliciously. But So what, aside from the
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  legal side, what are they going to do?
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  What do you think is going to happen or what should they do to
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  protect children to death? Jonathan, Because I'm, I'm
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  worried that they're going to put a Band-Aid on a bullet
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  wound. They're really good at
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  pretending. To fix something to fix.
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  Something while internally as, as one of their own employees
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  said publicly, our PR is saying we're fixing this, but
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  internally we're doing cartwheels to avoid fixing this,
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  even though we know we could fix it if they would just let us.
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  Yeah. So I hope they'll cross that
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  threshold. Also, not only your statement,
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  we're talking about Facebook, you know, as it's been, you're
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  also against Facebook and Google because it was YouTube.
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  Not like one giant, but two giants that control.
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  Snapchat and TikTok if you didn't want to show face against
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  you. Yeah, yeah, all.
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  The entire media that controls all the information in the world
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  versus the linear firm and the rest of the trial team.
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  Yeah, it was. It was, it was somebody said,
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  was it like David versus Goliath?
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  And I said, I don't think so. I don't think that we were even
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  David. I mean, we that's a step up.
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  You know, this was the the fly buzzing around David's head
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  versus Goliath. You know, they had us
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  outnumbered, outmanned, outspent out a eyed out, everything but
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  truth came out. Thank God.
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  One of the things that you spoke about at the Trial Academy last
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  year was your use of AI in your processes.
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  And you're a big proponent of this.
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  You're very vocal about it. I know for those of you who are
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  going to watch this, you wanna go to the Trial Academy and you
• 13:10
  wanna see Mark talk about how he uses AI and also.
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  Is about June 22nd. Through the 25th Houston, TX
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  laniertrialacademy.com In addition to talking about your
• 13:24
  use of AI, it's very interesting that now there are cases that
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  you are developing against the AI platforms.
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  Can you talk about how you can safely use it, but also have
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  these ongoing lawsuits against an an open AI or looking at
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  things that Gemini is doing? Yeah.
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  So there are ways you can create shells and you can use layers.
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  So there is a company called, it's got a weird name, Boodle
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  box, BWB, double ODLEBOX, Boodle box.
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  Boodle box is a conglomerate of 20 plus different AI.
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  And so you've got we, we're able to set up an account with them
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  where everything that we send and everything we get back
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  doesn't have an address. So it's not traceable.
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  So we're siloed, We're protected, our knowledge is
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  protected, what we upload is protected.
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  And then we're able to use Gemini Perplexity clawed all of
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  the different AI engines that are out there with full
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  protection. Very interesting.
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  I know you're in a rush. You have to get to the airport.
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  Very want to be very respectful of your time.
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  Yeah, no, we're we're good for another 2 minutes.
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  I'll take it. Let's hit a home run for the
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  end. Let me think about this one.
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  With two minutes left, what is the one question that I want to
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  ask Mark Lanier? We have one minute left.
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  The cases that that you are now pursuing the future of the
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  linear law firm. You, you guys have historically
• 14:52
  targeted companies that are either medical devices or
• 14:57
  environmental exposure. You're continuing to pursue
• 15:00
  those litigations, but now you have these platform based
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  litigations. Where do you see mass torts
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  continuing to evolve as technology becomes essentially
• 15:09
  the target in mass tort litigation?
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  I think you're going to see more litigation in areas that have
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  previously been cloaked in secrecy because AI can Pierce
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  some of that cloak of secrecy. So you're going to see a lot of
• 15:22
  litigation against insurance companies because they've been
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  cheating everybody forever in a day, but most people can't
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  figure out how. Yep.
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  Court of public opinion. No one likes them anyway, no.
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  Nobody likes them. Absolutely everybody knows you
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  get cheated by the insurance company.
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  And so I think you're going to see those areas that that have
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  historically been able to do wrong, but do it in secrecy
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  because people don't know enough to know how they're doing it.
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  And I think AI is going to help open that up.
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  Very interesting. Very interesting.
• 15:55
  Hey guys, Thank you for letting me be on your show.
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  Thank you for coming. Thank you.
• 15:59
  Thank you so much Mark. This is the John Mark podcast
• 16:02
  with the one and only Mark Lanier.
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  Head to the trial Academy, hear Mark speak and follow him.
• 16:09
  Interestingly enough, Mark's personal social media is super
• 16:12
  interesting. Go find the chess video where he
• 16:15
  went and talked about Magnus and and the chess scandal.
• 16:19
  Yes, cheating, yeah, or not cheating.
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  A very, very well educated, well travelled person as as well as
• 16:26
  the best trial lawyer in the world.
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  Thank you for joining us, Mark. Thanks for having me.
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  That was a whirlwind. He's he's the past two hours of
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  like my emotional roller coaster.
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  It started off with Gents or Kevin saying it's not happening.
• 16:42
  Yes. And then us pivoting, saying
• 16:46
  we'll interview him in the car ride to the airport.
• 16:49
  As soon. As I got that text, I was like,
• 16:51
  I listen. Like I said, sometimes you got
• 16:53
  to shoot your shot. We talked to me so.
• 16:56
  Yeah, a little bit probably. And he's always going to
• 16:59
  remember because we gave him some chips.
• 17:01
  Thank. God.