♫ Two o’clock in the mornin’,
I’m sleepin’
and something wakes me but I don’t know what it is.
[Computer goes:] “You’ve got mail.”… ♫
Words and music by J. Shin.
In Quebec City at the Canadian Bar Association’s Canadian Legal Conference, I had the opportunity to present on two sessions:
- 90 Tips in 90 Minutes with Richard Ferguson, Pascale Daigneault, Dominic Jaar and moderated by Dan Pinnington, and
The PowerPoints, in Adobe Acrobat format, can be downloaded by following the links above. My thanks to Dan and my co-presenters for making the presentations effortless and to the audience who not only came to listen, but became active participants in the presentations. As a result I very much enjoyed the entire experience as well as the time in Quebec City.
Hopefully we provided many tips to assist in running a law practice better and dealing with the avalanche of emails that we all seem to get these days! And hopefully we have learned to turn off that beep that says ‘You’ve Got Mail!”
♫ Rikki Don’t Lose That Number
You don’t wanna call nobody else
Send it off in a letter to yourself…♫
Words and music by Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, recorded by Steely Dan.
Just having returned from presenting at the American Bar Association’s Annual meeting in NYC and the Canadian Bar Association’s annual meeting in Quebec City, it occurred to me that I had been carrying around cameras, a computer, cell phone etc with no record of any serial numbers in the event that any one of them ‘disappeared’.
The thought came to me that I could capture all these serial numbers and place them in a email that I emailed to my GoogleMail account. If I needed to reference any of these, it would be a fairly simple matter to find an internet cafe and pull up the proper serial number for the police (and also pull up the insurer’s telephone number) if any of them became lost.
For that matter, an email could contain other important information as well…that could be handy when you are miles and miles from home…if your wallet was lost or stolen. Health care numbers, credit card contact numbers etc….sort of an emergency checklist….who to contact and how….
After all, you don’t want to lose those numbers….and the last thing you want to do is start calling people at home trying to find them. Send them off in an email to yourself!
Avoiding being trapped…
♫ A bit too late, to try to turn back now
Make things right, now, lights shine on me..♫
Words and Music by Angels and Airwaves.
Ron Usher (click on the link to see Ron on YouTube defeating a real estate fraud), a real estate lawyer and one who successfully stopped a real estate fraud with the assistance of the police, has passed along these tips to avoid being caught in a real estate fraud as a lawyer:
Characteristics of the Fraudulent Transaction:
1. The deal is a private sale using BCREA (British Columbia Real Estate Association) forms, but no real estate agent is involved.
2. The target property is owned by a single owner with clear title (i.e. no mortgages to discharge)
3. The Vendor – Client is not known to you. They state that they found your firm via the Internet.
4. A 3rd Party (perhaps the vendor’s “son”) calls on behalf of the Vendor and makes all arrangements.
5. The Vendor insists that the proceeds of sale resulting to the Vendor be paid to a 3rd party (usually a company), accompanied by a story that this on the advice of an accountant.
6. The client is vague with regard to the details of the transaction.
7. The transaction involves a large deposit which has allegedly been paid directly between the parties, which may not be in line with the terms of the agreement.
8. It may be stated that the property is a “Rental property” but there are no adjustments for rent and deposit, as would be typical of such a transaction.
9. The address stated for the purchaser may not match the civic address of the actual
10. The caller ID displayed on the office phone on phone calls from the Vendor does not match the Vendor’s name.
11. If you look up the phone number of the Vendor (using www.canada411.com or the phone book, for example) there is confusion when you call and ask for the client and state that you are acting for them on the sale of their property.
12. The ID presented by the purported client (a driver’s licence or Social Insurance Card) is brand new despite the fact that it was “issued” years before.
So how can you best protect yourself?
First, look up the Vendor in the phone book or in Canada411 when a deal comes into the office – and call the name directly *(not using the telephone number listed on the contract of purchase and sale)*. Verify the instructions to act on the sale.
Scan the ID and compare the information with the actual address information in the phone book and/or Canada411.
Insist on the proceeds of sale being made payable to the Vendor and not a third party. Vendors have bank accounts and are perfectly capable of depositing a lawyer’s trust cheque and cutting a cheque payable to whomever if they desire. There should be no need to have the lawyer’s office act as a bank and enable a fraudster to pay the funds to a third party.
Attune your antenna to pick up on vibes that just don’t ‘feel right’. If the transaction appears questionable, then either refuse to act or start asking questions. If you do think you have a fraudulent transaction, contact the Financial Crimes section of the RCMP or the Financial Crimes Section of the Vancouver Police Department. Lawyers in BC have no ethical duty to impostors and indeed, have a positive duty not to act in such a situation. This is in s. 6 of Chapter 4 of the Professional Conduct Handbook:
Dishonesty, crime or fraud of client
6. A lawyer must not engage in any activity that the lawyer knows or ought to know assists in or encourages any dishonesty, crime or fraud, including a fraudulent conveyance, preference or settlement.
[heading and rule amended 03/05; heading amended 05/05]
After all, after the fraud has gone through it is a bit too late to try to turn back and make things right, especially with the all the light being cast on the transaction.
♫ Oh you’re lost baby, and I ain’t funnin.
But oh, when you call to me, well, I’ll come runnin’
Safe to your side…♫
Words and music by Gregg Allman, recorded by the Allman Brothers Band.
Imagine finding your laptop, Blackberry or digital camera stolen. A sickening feeling of loss and invasion of privacy overtakes you..along with the realization that confidential information – personal or professional – may be possibly accessed by the thief. Until recently there was little that one could do other than pick up the pieces, inform the clients whose personal information may have been compromised and try to replace the stolen items. And try to rebuild your faith in humanity.
However, an online article appearing on Reuters on June 6, 2008 entitled: Lost Cameras “phone home” to catch thieves by Franklin Paul, showed a new – and gratifying – aspect of technology. It seems that when Alison DeLauzon’s camera was stolen, the memory card in her camera – that was equipped with Wi-Fi technology – called home. Specifically, it emailed to Alison the pictures on her camera – including the ones that the thieves had taken of themselves. The reason being is the the Wi-Fi card was configured to email the pictures automatically to her home computer using an unsecured Wi-Fi network. Needless to say, this resulted in not only recovering the pictures that she thought were gone forever, but also in capturing the thieves and in having the camera restored to her.
Franklin Paul in his article mentions that GadgetTrak of Beaverton, Oregon sells software that can be loaded onto PC’s, Mac’s, mobile phones, iPods, flash drives, external hard drives, digital cameras, GPS devices and others that helps provide information on its location and aids in its recovery. Technology strikes back against thieves! There are other competiting products as well – but the point is that *finally* smart technology can help not only recover stolen items, but it can help convict those who engage in unlawful activities.
All we have to do is install the software and – hope against hope – that we never need to rely on it. But if the occasion does arise, we can patiently wait for the device to call to us…and we – along with law enforcement – will come running to its side.
♫I want the easy
Easy money
Easy money
I could get lucky
Oh, things could go right♫
Words and music by Billy Joel.
There is a a new and quite clever fraud scam being attempted against lawyers.
Generally, the fraud was attempted by an entity (CreditCo – in this case from Hong Kong) retaining a law firm to undertake a collection against a debtor (DebtCo). The law firm is engaged to write a demand letter to DebtCo on behalf of CreditCo (in this case, for a largish amount of money).
Low and behold a bank draft arrives payable to the firm in the full amount of the claim! This was the first small alarm as the demand letter did not ask for the funds to be paid to the law firm.
The lawyers notify CreditCo that they have the funds and CreditCo gets anxious and states that they want the money wired to them ASAP (second small alarm). In other words, CreditCo wanted the firm to circumvent any normal caution or internal controls regarding the bank draft and any clearing times on the draft.
In this case, the lawyers called the bank at the number listed on the bank draft. Not surprisingly, the telephone number was answered professionally and the bank draft declared to be valid.
Fortunately, the law firm in question did not accept such assurances at face value. The lawyers, out of an abundance of caution, called their own bank and asked them to make inquiries regarding the bank draft and the issuing bank. Not surprisingly, the lawyer’s bank determined that the bank draft was bogus.
The bank draft, it should be noted, was entirely professional in appearance. And the entire attempted scam was conducted in a professional manner. Lawyers are cautioned to put into place proper prudent internal controls regarding retaining funds until they are reasonably assured that any negotiable instruments are indeed valid and will be honoured by the issuing financial institution. There is no assurance that any negotiable instrument, bank drafts included, may not be forged. Fraudsters count on trust – and internal controls are designed to place any transaction – no matter how innocent – under a critical eye. Lawyers should be examining every and all financial transactions with a view towards whether the transaction is indeed what it appears to be.
The increasing sophistication of scams such as this one only reinforces the principle that if it seems too good to be true, if the money seems disproportionate to the services rendered, if the result is just too easy, then the easy money comes with a different kind of price; and the lawyer in question is not lucky when things ultimately do not go right…
♫Don’t take the bait,
Don’t seal the deal,
Don’t buy the hype..♫
Words and Music by The Neighborhoods
The New Jersey Law Journal has posted an article online:
Businesses Hit With E-Mail Blast of Virus-Carrying Pseudo-Subpoenas by Mary Pat Gallagher on Wednesday, April 16, 2008. That article reports that thousands of executives received e-mails on Monday April 14, 2008 purporting to be US federal court subpoenas but which appear to be part of a “phishing” scam to capture sensitive data.
This is another example of a phishing attempt by impersonating a law-related entity, in this case the U.S. District Court. The fake subpoenas bear the seal of the court and docket numbers from real cases, though apparently closed ones, without party names. Mary Gallagher reports that they command an appearance on May 7 before a grand jury in a particular room at the U.S. courthouse in San Diego.
They identify the originating e-mail address as “subpoena@uscourts.com” and contain a link with an instruction to “download the entire document on this matter … and print it for you record.”
“As is typical with these phishing attempts, those who click on the link infect their own computers, and those networked to them, with a virus aimed at gathering passwords, account numbers, credit card numbers and similar information. Matt Richard, of VeriSign’s iDefense Labs, a cybersecurity group, estimates that 1,800 recipients have clicked on the link.”
The phishing emails bear the name of “O’Mevely & Meyers,” a fictitious law firm. But there is a real firm of “O’Melveny & Myers LLP” in LA and the phishing email incorporates the real firm’s address. The name is close enough that O’Melveny has posted a notice on its Web site stating it is not the source of the subpoenas.
Aiside from the usual spelling and grammatical errors, the most significant tip-off was that “federal courts will never send you a subpoena by e-mail,” stated Scott Christie, a former assistant U.S. attorney who once headed up the New Jersey office’s Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property Section.
Gallagher quotes Christie as stating that lawyers should be warning their clients, and because unexpected future variants are likely, people should “review their e-mail messages carefully and if there are misspellings or other indicia of impropriety or fraud, immediately contact their attorney.”
http://www.law.com/jsp/nj
It will only be a matter of time before these attempts spread to other jurisdictions and other courts. Lawyers should be notifying their clients of the proper method for informing them as to real court notices and subpoenas. If they do receive such a notice directly, they should be informed to contact their lawyers prior to clicking on any suspect ‘notice’ sent to them directly to avoid taking the bait of the spear phishers.