Disturbed Spammer Targets Law Firm

A San Francisco law firm has found itself the target of a disturbed spammer. A woman named Leslie Brodie has been spamming a “petition” to law firms and law students across the country. The petition claims to be part of a campaign to “End racism/sexism in U.S. law firms” and slams the small firm of Kerr & Wagstaffe and partner James Wagstaffe, who also teaches at UC Hastings Law. Brodie’s spam claims the firm favors white males for lawyers and partners and attractive white females for associates.

When a Berkley law student received the spam and demanded to be removed, citing the CAN-SPAM rant, Brodie sent off a rant to the school’s dean claiming free speech and that she was being harassed, and also that the CAN-SPAM Act did not apply to her because she was not selling anything. She also threw in some racist slurs for good measure.

          Also, the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 (the “ACT”) applies only to emails which are commercial in nature. It is obvious that the email which was sent was not intended to sell any goods or services, but rather was political in nature. As such, Ms. PERFECTLY-REASONABLE-BOALTIE also misrepresented the content of the ACT in order to trick and deceive me as to the state of the law in order for the unsolicited email to stop . This attempt to mislead and trick an opponent as to the content of the law is a very serious misconduct which also reflects negatively on her moral character.

Please instruct your students/faculty/staff at Boalt Hall to refrain from making any more threats concerning unsolicited emails which they receive via the U.C. email system. That system does not belong to them, but to the People of the State of California.

She then turned around and spammed her rant to even more firms, law schools and legal blogs. What makes the whole campaign even more bizarre is Brodie’s reasons for launching the spam attack: She received a bad grade in James Wagstaffe’s CivPro class. That’s right. It’s all because of a bad grade! Unbelievable. Not only that but her identity is shrouded in mystery. UC Hastings has no record of law student by that name, nor the does the California State Bar.

This case is a good reminder that it isn’t just hackers and scammers that spam. Sometimes disgruntled employees, customers, or vendors will launch a vindictive spam campaign like Brodie did. Has this ever happened to your company? Let us know!