

According to this article in California Watch, the tutoring company Academic Advantage has fired the law firm of Lazar, Akiva & Yagoubzadeh over its ridiculous legal threats against Boing Boing.

For those of you who missed it, Lazar, Akiva & Yagoubzadeh sent us a letter alleging that we had caused "possibly irrevocable damage" to the reputation of its client, Academic Advantage, by publishing a blog post that contained the phrase "academic advantage" and, later, in one of the comments, the word "scam." Neither the original post nor the comment were related to the Academic Advantage tutoring service, and besides, US law clearly places responsibility for message-board posts on the poster, not the people who put up the message board. Lazar, Akiva & Yagoubzadeh's threat was one of the sloppiest, most careless piece of lawyering I've ever seen, a breathtaking example of depraved indifference and bullying.

David Silver, spokeman for Academic Advantage, said the comments published by pop culture site Boing Boing were not libelous and that the LA firm representing the company was wrong to say they were… Academic Advantage has severed it relationship with the law firm of Lazar, Akiva & Yagoubzadeh. The letter that the law firm sent to BoingBoing claiming that libel was committed on BoingBoing's website was a mistake.

I'm glad to see that Academic Advantage is getting shut of its hopeless lawyers. Perhaps they, or LAY, would consider making a good-faith donation to the Chilling Effects project, a clearing house that works to document and prevent the use of threats to censor the Internet?

K-12 company fires law firm over blog spat

(Thanks, Hagrid!)