Twitter believes Tom Mars used material from mgoblog
November 10th, 2023 at 1:36 PM ^
I'm not a litigator so I can't speak to that world (and I would suspect at a certain level there would be actionable plagiarism there), but in the world of contracts, I think the goal is different than in the world of academia. Presumably, in the academic world, the goal is to communicate a new thought and therefore no one should take credit for such new thought (or even any incidental statements relating thereto). In the contracts world, the goal is to manifest accurately the agreement of the parties. It turns out that in most cases humans like to enter into remarkably similar agreements in respect of the particular type of transaction. So, a seller of a house tends to have the same interests and concerns as the next seller of another house. Obviously, there is room for customization and creativity (otherwise everyone would just use Nolo for everything) but even then rarely is something getting invented truly for the very first time (although we lawyers like to fancy and fool ourselves for saving deals with unforeseen novel solutions).
November 10th, 2023 at 2:15 PM ^
You're correct on citing in academia. But in the legal profession, if you're basing your case on a precedent, you'd cite that precedent or...your case would have no legal basis. If you quote some prominent thinker, like MLK or Gandhi, in a legal brief, I'm assuming you'd toss in the cursory "In the words of [famous person's name]". The concept isn't unknown. That's what I was thinking of, rather than a boilerplate contact thing.
November 10th, 2023 at 3:22 PM ^
Yes, I'm with you, and that makes sense. In the contract world, very little citation tends to be necessary, and in my line of work, it's usually to federal statutes or regulations, in which case, all parties want the "citation" therein, and no plagiarism issues are implicated.
November 10th, 2023 at 1:19 PM ^
Agreed. Defer to Inernet Raj, but I expect he'll report that some of the worst transactional malpractice has come from someone cutting and pasting. Starting to see some fairly egregious litigation whiffs coming from AI as well.
November 10th, 2023 at 1:27 PM ^
Someone should ask Raj if he remembers JJ White and “liquidated damages”...
November 10th, 2023 at 1:41 PM ^
That name triggered a memory. This goes back many years, but I remember reading a Res Gestae interview with Professor White. His description of a popular racquet sport: "Racquetball is squash for stevedores."
https://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1032&context=res_gestae
November 10th, 2023 at 2:03 PM ^
In a now infamous case, a lawyer used ChatGPT to write a brief. It did not go well.
In short, ChatGPT cited fake cases by real judges, and the lawyer didn't do any due diligence to look into the citations.
November 10th, 2023 at 2:19 PM ^
More than just citing opinions that didn't exist, the chatGPT wrote the brief AND the fake opinions.
November 10th, 2023 at 1:14 PM ^
Mars should have used the RPS from the UFRs as well. If only to see Buckeye Twitter's head explode
November 10th, 2023 at 1:56 PM ^
This implies that a Buckeye would be willing to read 10 pages.
November 10th, 2023 at 12:55 PM ^
Did they consider the possibility that the referenced mgoblog poster IS Tom Mars?
November 10th, 2023 at 12:56 PM ^
Brian denied it on Twittex
November 10th, 2023 at 1:34 PM ^
I prefer Xitter over Twittex. Pronounced like Exeter.
November 10th, 2023 at 1:52 PM ^
However you pronounce it, the site formerly know as twitter smells like sh*tter.
November 10th, 2023 at 2:17 PM ^
in other words, the more things change, the more they stay the same?
November 10th, 2023 at 12:57 PM ^
OP did mention that he is not licensed in Michigan and not a sports law expert. But he could just be trying to throw us off the track...
November 10th, 2023 at 1:02 PM ^
I know I sent him some of Erik in Dayton's stuff and Ghost of Fritz's stuff and he thanked me for the information.
What's really funny is that I saw some BuckNuts mocking that a lawyer like Mars would use something off of a message board. Because of their own frame of reference, the education or lack thereof of their own posters, such an idea sounded comical. They fail to grasp that many MGoBlog posters didn't go to Michigan to play school, they applied themselves and earned law and other professional degrees.
November 10th, 2023 at 1:09 PM ^
That's awesome. And very likely this is what happened: you sent them stuff, they read it, realized it was good, and read more. It's really... pretty smart.
November 10th, 2023 at 1:03 PM ^
Or not Tom Mars, specifically (which has been refuted by Brian), but rather someone on his team. It's not like law firms don't have other lawyers. That said, my response is this: so what if it were?
November 10th, 2023 at 12:55 PM ^
It's not a bad place to get information.
November 10th, 2023 at 1:13 PM ^
Michigan: You fuck with one of us, you fuck with all of us.
November 10th, 2023 at 3:14 PM ^
Some may even call us a vast network of sorts....
November 10th, 2023 at 12:55 PM ^
If I was a betting man, I would bet he did.
November 10th, 2023 at 12:55 PM ^
The author of that post mentioned that in a comment in the thread about Mars’ letter, and he said “cool, glad I was able to help out.”
November 10th, 2023 at 12:57 PM ^
Yup, here's the comment:
Parts of pages 4 and 5 of Mars’ letter are plagiarized verbatim from my diary post the other day, right on down to the language I italicized in B10 Rule 32. No worries — the point of my post was to contribute to the cause, and it appears to have worked!
November 10th, 2023 at 1:05 PM ^
Hmmm, I told the commissioner to “go feast on a satchel of richards”, but somehow that didn’t make it into either of the legal response letters.
November 10th, 2023 at 1:14 PM ^
rym can just say he authorized the use of his language to Mars.
November 10th, 2023 at 1:19 PM ^
This guy needs to WD post Brandon treatment. That work should put him at the top of the all-time MGoPoints standings.
November 10th, 2023 at 1:21 PM ^
I am not sure but I think Brian owns the content on this blog.
November 10th, 2023 at 1:00 PM ^
Its all a deepfake. The MGOBlogger who wrote the post probably is Tom Mars, and was just test-driving the analysis to see how intelligent, thoughtful people (that'd be us) would react before getting out the official version. Sorta like how movie studios prescreen movies to gauge the audience reaction before making some final tweaks before the official release.
Just a theory, but a darned good one.
November 10th, 2023 at 1:04 PM ^
Petitti should have thought to try that.
November 10th, 2023 at 1:10 PM ^
Honestly, not a bad thought. It would be much akin to how trial lawyers test their arguments with jury consultants and mock jurors.
November 10th, 2023 at 1:25 PM ^
NO--those are signed up to nonconfidentiality obligations, and, you make sure no one with an adverse interest is hearing/seeing it. Throwing something onto an unregulated public forum is completely different.
November 10th, 2023 at 2:09 PM ^
I'm enjoying how you mixed together "nondisclosure" and "confidentiality" into something unintended!
November 10th, 2023 at 1:22 PM ^
No, it would be a serious ethical issue, and expose unraveling of protection of the work product doctrine, to float a draft on a public blog.
November 10th, 2023 at 2:23 PM ^
There was a comment on the original diary that said something like, ‘I’m researching this and coming up with similar analysis. Would you care to discuss further?’ I wonder if that was the lawyer who wrote that section of the letter.
November 10th, 2023 at 1:02 PM ^
I like how the tweet tries to make it scandalous though, by adding, "...without credit of course".
Not this time, Tony!
November 10th, 2023 at 1:06 PM ^
Is this even the type of thing that would get attribution in legal work, though? In a law review article, sure, but in a letter, where the actual legal sources are properly attributed, I don't think so.
November 10th, 2023 at 1:12 PM ^
People disagree about whether plagiarism is even a thing in legal briefs.
I and most lawyers I know don't think there's any expectation in legal briefs that the author attribute where they have lifted material from other briefs, blogs, etc. (The signing lawyer absolutely does have an obligation to check the reasoning and citations to make sure the lawyer can stand behind them, of course.)
There is a sizable minority who think lawyers *do* have an obligation to cite the original author, however. I think one of Trump's lawyers got in trouble for plagiarizing her own earlier work, if I recall correctly, but most of the commentators I read were surprised by the ruling.
November 10th, 2023 at 1:18 PM ^
Thanks! I honestly couldn't remember - it's been way too many years since I've needed to ever think about this or look at Bluebook (and my wife - who would have known - isn't here to ask). Appreciated!
November 10th, 2023 at 2:02 PM ^
It's absolutely an issue in legal academic writing, and I don't have an authority to cite to so maybe others would disagree, but most lawyers I know think that court briefs are functional so there is no obligation to disclose authorship. Most lawyers lift from earlier briefs written by others at our firms or even opponents all the time.
November 10th, 2023 at 12:55 PM ^
MGoBlog: the internet's Michigan Football CliffsNotes.
November 10th, 2023 at 12:55 PM ^
Well maybe we just found Tom Mars' account.
November 10th, 2023 at 1:14 PM ^
Let's flip it. The twitter account belongs to an MGoBlog poster.
November 10th, 2023 at 12:56 PM ^
Could be the other way around...
November 10th, 2023 at 12:56 PM ^
I'm just happy we're able to help 👍🏽
November 10th, 2023 at 12:56 PM ^
The author made a point that Mars didn't give credit. Is it even a thing to give credit to sources in a legal response or filing? I would imagine it's not like a term paper.
November 10th, 2023 at 1:03 PM ^
The dude's still running a pseudonymous account on Twitter in November 2023. It's all about the dunking opportunities.
It's particularly ironic that the Twitter account didn't bother linking to the author's MGoBlog comment noting the plagiarism, posted hours earlier. Just independently discovered it, I'm sure.
November 10th, 2023 at 1:07 PM ^
Exactly. I don't believe so.
November 10th, 2023 at 12:56 PM ^
its called crowd sourcing