was working behind the scenes with [Harvey] Weinstein — at a rate of $895 an hour — to quash the journalists’ investigation and thwart his accusers. In a confidential memo to Mr. Weinstein that Ms. Bloom wrote in December 2016, which is reproduced in “She Said,” she offered to help him damage the reputation of one of his accusers, Rose McGowan, and portrayed her background as a victims’s rights advocate as an asset.

“I feel equipped to help you against the Roses of the world, because I have represented so many of them,” Ms. Bloom wrote, before laying out a multistep playbook for how to intimidate accusers or paint them as liars. One of Ms. Bloom’s suggested tactics for undermining Ms. McGowan: “We can place an article re her becoming increasingly unglued, so that when someone Googles her this is what pops up and she’s discredited.”

[Alexandra Alter, New York Times; Yashar Ali (text of full memo, including “You should be the hero of the story” quote)]

“You should be the hero of your story, not the villain. This is very doable.” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Discrimination law roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Bruce DePuyt at Maryland Matters reports that Senate Judiciary Chair Bobby Zirkin (D-Baltimore County):

said the 2013 law required that abusive comments be sent to the individual and be part of a pattern of conduct. With the rise of social media, that proved to be too high a hurdle, he said.

Under the new law, “a single significant act can land you in trouble,” he told reporters.

Due credit to the ACLU of Maryland, which called out this dangerous venture in speech regulation:

Toni Holness, the group’s public policy director, said in February that the bill fails to adequately define what constitutes a “true threat.”

Holness also was concerned about other words in the bill that had not been defined: encourage, provoke, sexual information, intimidating, tormenting.

“There’s way too much prosecutorial discretion in these terms that are not defined,” she said.

I criticized the bill in February and noted language from Zirkin suggesting that the Court of Appeals, as distinct from the legislature, would sort out its constitutionality. Before that, I criticized the 2015 law as itself going too far (more). DePuyt reports that Zirkin may approach U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) about introducing a similar bill on the federal level. Let’s hope Raskin says no to that bad idea. [cross-posted from Free State Notes; see also earlier]

Related: an Ohio student has been arrested and faces expulsion over a Twitter account on which he made vicious comments about female classmates; whatever view the law takes of the prospective expulsion of 18-year-old Mehros Nassersharifi by Perrysburg High School, his arrest, on charges of telecommunications harassment, may overstep the First Amendment [NBC24, Hans Bader, Eugene Volokh (reworded to reflect fuller accounts which make clear that the student’s offensive speech went further than simply “rating” of classmates)]

Maryland toughens “cyber-bullying” law yet further is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Privately, though, many of the men interviewed acknowledged they’re channeling Pence, saying how uneasy they are about being alone with female colleagues, particularly youthful or attractive ones, fearful of the rumor mill or of, as one put it, the potential liability.

A manager in infrastructure investing said he won’t meet with female employees in rooms without windows anymore; he also keeps his distance in elevators. A late-40-something in private equity said he has a new rule, established on the advice of his wife, an attorney: no business dinner with a woman 35 or younger.

“If men avoid working or traveling with women alone, or stop mentoring women for fear of being accused of sexual harassment,” he said, “those men are going to back out of a sexual harassment complaint and right into a sex discrimination complaint.”

[Gillian Tan and Katia Porzecanski, Bloomberg quoting Stephen Zweig, an employment attorney with FordHarrison.] For an earlier round of these issues, see this 2015 post.

“For obvious reasons, few will talk openly about the issue.” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Employment discrimination law roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Labor and employment roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Discrimination law roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

February 28 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Banking and finance roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Labor and employment roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system