Bad Review? Anti-SLAPP Law & the Ethics of Suing the Client
Date: Oct 9, 2024 12:00 p.m. – 1:40 p.m.
Location: Online
Areas of Law:
Earn up to 2 credits, including 1.2 in Ethics! (More Information)
Keynote
Moderator
- Bruce S. Rosen, Esq.
- Pashman Stein Walder Hayden, P.C., Hackensackis a Partner in Pashman Stein Walder Hayden, P.C. in Hackensack, New Jersey. He has been a media lawyer for more than 25 years, following a career as an award-winning newspaper reporter and editor. He has been associated with high-profile First Amendment litigations related to free speech, media law (including defamation, access to courts and open public records) and religious freedom. More recently, Mr. Rosen has been involved with crisis management, web defamation, workplace privacy, appropriation of image and data theft. He also represents public corporate clients as well as individuals who own and/or manage private businesses, and has extensive experience in complex and standard commercial litigation, including employment litigation and counseling, environmental law and insurance coverage, business disputes, class action defense and public-school issues, as well as web defamation, workplace privacy, appropriation of image and data theft.
Mr. Rosen is admitted to practice in New Jersey, New York and the District of Columbia, and before the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey and the Eastern, Northern, and Southern Districts of New York; the United States Court of Appeals for the Second and Third Circuits; and the United States Supreme Court. A Fellow of the American Bar Foundation, he is a member of the New Jersey Supreme Court Committee on Attorney Advertising, the Association of the Federal Bar of New Jersey, the Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers-NJ and the Editorial Board of the New Jersey Law Journal. Mr. Rosen is a founding member of the New Jersey Media Lawyers Association, has been a member of the Defense Counsel Section of the Media Law Resource Center and is Past Chair of the Media Law Committee of the New Jersey State Bar Association. He is a former member of the New Jersey Supreme Court Criminal Practice Committee and serves on the United States District Court Criminal Justice Act Panel.
Professor Rosen has been an adjunct professor of Law and Mass Communications for Rutgers University School of Law-Newark since 2003. His articles have appeared in the New Jersey Lawyer, the New Jersey Law Journal and other publications, and he has lectured for a number of organizations and CLE providers.
Professor Rosen received his B.S. from Georgetown University School of Foreign Service and his J.D. from Seton Hall University School of Law, where he served as an editor of the Seton Hall Legislative Journal. He clerked for the Honorable H. Lee Sarokin, United States District Court for the District of New Jersey, in Newark, New Jersey.
Presenters
- Erin Friedlander
- Public Relations and Communications Professional
Kessler PR Group - Roger Plawker, Esq.
- Pashman Stein Walder Hayden, Hackensack
“A law firm that filed a libel suit against an ex-client appears to be the first litigant to feel the force of New Jersey’s new anti-SLAPP law. A Mercer County judge has dismissed a libel suit filed by a law firm finding the case falls under the new law, also known as the Uniform Public Expression Protection Act. The judge said the firm will have to pay legal fees expended by its ex-client in defense of the libel suit.”
– New Jersey Law Journal.
Join Bruce Rosen, the attorney for the victorious party in the suit, along with Roger Plawker, Chair of Pashman Stein’s Attorney Ethics and Professional Misconduct Practice Group and Erin Friedlander, a public relations professional who specializes in crisis communications and reputation management, as they take you through an analysis of the current anti-SLAPP law, what it means for your practice and your clients, and ways to ethically – and practically deal with negative online reviews without running afoul of the anti-SLAPP statute or ethical prohibitions.
The Uniform Public Expression Protection Act, otherwise known as the Anti-SLAPP Law, became effective in October 2023. The purpose of the law was to protect people, from meritless lawsuits intended to intimidate them for exercising their free speech rights. Whether that includes complaining about a law firm online is still a matter for the appellate courts.
Most lawyers, if they have been practicing long enough, will have at least one dissatisfied client and that client might complain loudly, rudely and on social media. Register now to learn about the details of the anti-SLAP law and steps you can take to ethically preserve your firm’s reputation without suing the client and possibly finding yourself a defendant in an anti-SLAPP counterclaim.
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