Contract Attorneys

Jeb Bush Needs A Contract Attorney

Jeb Bush dumped his emails onto the Internet. He probably should have redacted them first... before he released a bunch of people's social security numbers.

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Looks like someone forgot to call the professionals. No, not Saul, just a contract attorney.

Jeb Bush who you might remember as the son of the first President Bush, brother to the second President Bush, former governor of America’s wang, and the man trying to become the third President Bush in 2016 has made a bit of a boo boo. In an effort to increase transparency Jeb made the calculated political move to release the emails from his time as Florida’s governor.

In the spirit of transparency, I am posting the emails of my governorship here. Some are funny; some are serious; some I wrote in frustration. But they’re all here so you can read them and make up your own mind.

Score one for the little guy. The release of that much information has to be a good thing, right? Not so fast. See they were released unredacted. All of them. So social security numbers, health care identification numbers, credit card numbers and a whole wealth of personal information also got released. “CHECK YOU EMAILS” indeed, as they say around here.

To be clear this information should not have been released. Even though Florida has a broad sunshine law which means any email sent to a public official like the governor is subject to potential disclosure, sensitive information like SSNs should be redacted out. As The Verge reports:

However, social security numbers in particular are protected. As Florida private attorney Richard A. Harrison tells The Verge, social security numbers are “both confidential and exempt” from public disclosure under state law. “They can be released only for the limited purposes specified in that section, of which this is not one,” Harrison says. “It doesn’t matter how an agency or official obtained the information; once obtained it is a public record and the SSNs are confidential and exempt under the law.” But that doesn’t mean the former governor is legally responsible for the data leak. Harrison says the state’s legal custodian of records is charged with ensuring no confidential or exempt information is released.

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I guess Jeb never spent quality time getting yelled at by a client for inadvertently producing consumer information. Whether it be part of loan files, consumer class actions, or pharmaceutical cases any contract attorney that has been in the business of document review for any length of time has dealt with this issue. We may groan at the tedium of drawing boxes to redact out this confidential information — and it is the most boring of all the very boring things that comprise document review — but it’s pretty important. And frankly the hours it takes to draw said boxes pays the bills.

Late last night the unredacted data dump was removed, and Jeb’s website notes the following:

We were informed that some personal information was available in the raw data so we removed these files . . . You may still read these emails on the email calendar link, where we have redacted personal information we have been able to locate.

Yeah. Which is what should have been done in the first instance. Even if, as noted above, Jeb isn’t personally liable (and even the state custodian who is responsible for the release is only subject to up to a $500 fine) it still takes what should have been a positive PR moment (look at me — transparency!) and makes it a bad one (look at me — I don’t understand or care about your privacy!).

Next time, just give me a call Jeb. I am a master at drawing boxes.

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Alex Rich is a T14 grad and Biglaw refugee who has worked as a contract attorney for the last 7 years… and counting. If you have a story about the underbelly of the legal world known as contract work, email Alex at alexrichesq@gmail.com and be sure to follow Alex on Twitter @AlexRichEsq

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