lystn

Nasir and Matt cap off the week by discussing how ATaT's legal counsel failed to appeal a decision and the costly consequences that resulted. Full Podcast Transcript NASIR: All right. Welcome to our podcast where we cover business in the news and add our legal twist to the podcast that we record, and my name is Nasir Pasha. MATT: And I’m Matt Staub. Hey, I had something, I thought you would think this is funny. This is a good start to Friday. I saw this commercial. NASIR: I’m already laughing. MATT: I saw this commercial last night. It’s not LegalZoom, but it’s something like that. I forget the company, incorporation.com or something. Good domain. NASIR: Yeah. MATT: It’s like cheap filings for incorporating businesses and their quote in here was, “Incorporating can be the difference between making a fortune and losing everything.” That doesn’t make any sense at all. It’s like, well, if you incorporate, you’ll become rich. But, if you don’t, you’re going to lose everything. It’s like, incorporating is not going to depend on the success of your business. NASIR: No, that’s all you need to do. It’s like, “Yup! I’m incorporated!” No, but it’s true. You know, businesses in general – or I should say “business owners and entrepreneurs” – kind of put this, especially for the first time that they’ve formed an entity, it’s almost like this unattainable, this kind of, like, prestigious thing to incorporate and it kind of is because, you know, it’s the same thing of putting your shingle out for the first time and entering into that business lease and basically making a commitment to your business so I understand that. But then, that kind of catchphrase is kind of exploiting that kind of sentiment, for sure. MATT: It can make the difference between making a fortune and losing everything. NASIR: Yeah. MATT: Even if you don’t have a good business model. NASIR: Yeah. At the end, entity forming is – I guess, from a lawyer’s perspective – it’s different. But, even those business owners that have been in business for a while, it’s a formality. It’s just something that you have to go through. In a sense, if you think about it from a legal perspective, it’s almost a joke. Like, just because I file this piece of paper now, I have limited liability and what’s up with that, you know? And, the day before, I did not. It’s kind of funny. Well, that’s how the law works and that’s why you have to pay us a billion dollars to perform legal work for you. MATT: Especially if you’re the in-house counsel for ATaT because they might be in some trouble here. NASIR: I don’t think they’re paying their lawyer that much this time because of this. MATT: I also assume they probably – I’m going to go on a limb and say – they probably have more than one lawyer. NASIR: Oh, they definitely did. I think they had 18. Was it 18? Yeah, 18 lawyers and assistants who basically messed up. MATT: Oh, that’s the actual number? NASIR: Yeah. MATT: Well, yeah. So, they had this, you know, they’re probably involved in many lawsuits, some of which are frivolous but, yeah, there’s this patent infringement case and, essentially, they missed the deadline to appeal a jury verdict. So, ATaT lost this case and they were going to appeal. They had 30 days to do so and they didn’t figure it out until 51 days after and, yeah, they missed their opportunity and now they’re saying they could be on the hook for this $40M payment that resulted from this lawsuit involved with Two-Way Media, LLC. NASIR: Yeah. So, let’s break down how this exactly happened. Basically, there’s a docket notice that is sent out every time something is filed with the court. Like any kind of index of anything, it’s like a table of contents. All you see is the title or a very limited description of what the document is. If you want to read the actual order, then you just click on the link or, if it’s a state court, then you download the document or you’re notified accordingly.