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Scott Frost shares his insights from our newsletter: I think we’ve gotten the wrong idea about “work-life balance.” The way people talk about it, you’d think it was a perfectly level seesaw. Work on one side. Life on the other. Never tipping too far in either direction. Which, now that I think about it, would make for a pretty lousy seesaw. Real life moves. Sometimes work gets more of you. Sometimes life does. And when I’m in trial, work gets a lot. Trials can mean weeks away from[...]
Artificial Stone and Silicosis: How Workplace Exposure Can Cause Severe Lung Disease
Medical research, workplace investigations, and a growing number of diagnosed workers have linked artificial stone and silicosis. Workers who cut, grind, drill, polish, or install engineered stone countertops can inhale extremely fine crystalline silica particles without realizing how much dust is reaching their lungs. California has become the center of the problem in the United States, particularly around Los Angeles County and the San Fernando Valley. But workers in Nevada and Hawai‘i can handle many of the same engineered quartz products and perform the same dusty fabrication work.[...]
From the Newsletter: A Cancer Vaccine
Scott Frost shares his insights from our newsletter: “That’s a good problem to have.” People love that phrase. Your garden produced so many tomatoes you’re leaving bags of them on your neighbors’ porches. Your team keeps winning and now you have to rearrange your October plans. Good problems. But sometimes good news creates a problem with much higher stakes. Researchers are making genuinely exciting progress with cancer vaccines. Despite the name, these aren’t vaccines designed to keep you from getting cancer in the first place. They’re designed to[...]
From the Newsletter: Not His Suitcase
Scott Frost shares his insights from our newsletter: ChatGPT can write your kid’s book report. It cannot make your kid read the book. The report may be passable. But your kid still has no idea what happened in chapter four. I use AI regularly, so this isn’t an anti-AI rant. It’s a great tool. But getting the answer and understanding the answer are not the same thing. I watched a lawyer demonstrate that pretty spectacularly in a California trial. He was using what’s known as the suitcase argument.[...]
From the Newsletter: Aerator. Thermocouple. Mesothelioma.
Scott Frost shares his insights from our newsletter: There are some words you can go most of your life without thinking about. Aerator. Serpentine belt. Thermocouple. Then something goes very wrong with your faucet, your car, or your furnace, and suddenly you know how to spell them, pronounce them, and explain them to your relatives. Mesothelioma is one of those words. This Saturday is Mesothelioma Awareness Day. And I’ll admit, “awareness” is an interesting word from where I sit. Because I think about mesothelioma every day. I talk[...]
Supreme Court Expands Potential Liability for Freight Brokers
There are many links in the supply chain that provide the goods you find in the grocery store or that are delivered by a site like Amazon. It all starts with the trucking industry. Wherever something is made, packaged, or shipped in from overseas, a truck has to pick it up and take it to its final destination, whether that's a store shelf or your front door. One way the trucking supply chain is maintained is through freight brokers. Think of freight brokers as a kind of trucking[...]
From the Newsletter: The Hot Wash
Scott Frost shares his insights from our newsletter: The judge says, “Court is adjourned.” For everyone else, that means the day is over. For a trial lawyer, not so much. Especially when the trial could last another three weeks. There are witnesses to prepare. Arguments to rethink. Exhibits to review. And usually at least one thing from that afternoon I want another crack at tomorrow. But before my team does any of that, we head back to what we call our war room and do something I learned[...]
From the Newsletter: The Car Remembers
Scott Frost shares his insights from our newsletter: It only takes about five minutes for an argument to develop two completely different histories. “That is NOT what I said.” “That is EXACTLY what you said.” Both people are certain. So naturally, they resolve this by saying the exact same things again, only louder. The neighbors may learn a lot. But neither person’s memory gets any more accurate. Now imagine the argument is over what happened during a car accident. Screeching tires. An airbag going off. A two-ton vehicle[...]
Using ChatGPT for Legal Questions Could Affect Your Case
Artificial intelligence chatbots like ChatGPT are reshaping how we communicate and conduct business. It is also affecting our judicial system, but not always in a helpful way. Courts across the country have been sanctioning trained attorneys for filing briefs containing citations imagined by AI chatbots. If licensed lawyers are getting caught by this, the risk to someone researching their own claim is worse. You don’t have a lawyer checking the citations, and you might not learn that answer you depended on was wrong until a deadline has[...]
From the Newsletter: It Worked
Scott Frost shares his insights from our newsletter: It's hard to imagine a kitchen without aluminum foil. A garage without duct tape. Or a bathroom cabinet without Band-Aids. Some things become so useful that eventually they're just everywhere. For much of the twentieth century, American industry had something like that. It was cheap. Durable. Fire resistant. A remarkably good insulator. Ships used it. Factories used it. Automakers used it. Builders used it. I'll give you one guess what that material was. Asbestos. (Shocking, coming from me, I know.)[...]