Monday, June 8, 2015

GAVIN BELSON WOULD NOT TOLERATE THIS NONSENSE: We frequently bash shows for their lack of legal realism around here, so I want to give immense credit to a show you might not expect for getting it right--HBO's Silicon Valley.  A major plot thread this year has been an IP theft case between plucky (yet only semi-competent) startup PiedPiper and behemoth Google Hooli.  Impressively, we haven't had any "dramatic" courtroom showdowns, but much more of the drudgery that litigation often involves (including stressing over fees and fee management, massive document dumps, and the like).  Yes, there is still some dramatic license (there is a "smoking gun" e-mail) and the idea that a case could go to "binding arbitration" as quickly as depicted by agreement of the parties is unrealistic, but you have to respect a show that doesn't show a case being resolved overnight.

9 comments:

  1. I think this show made its case for six-seasons-and-a-movie treatment in their S1 finale. The entire "middle-out" sequence is molecular gastronomy in comedy form -- taking a very basic comedic ingredient and elevating it to something we've never seen before, reshaping it as they went.

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  2. I feel this show is way underrated. As usual with Mike Judge written shows, the comedy is understated and subtle. I love this show more and more with each episode. I especially love Martin Starr's Gilfoyle character.

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  3. Joseph Finn12:41 PM

    I'm about three episodes behind, but I'm still impressed that the case hasn't just gone right to trial or anything silly like that.

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  4. AV Club rightly pointed out that a bottle episode with Starr, Nanjiani and Woods would be a great thing.

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  5. Adam C.2:58 PM

    We just started S1 this weekend as one of our Summer Catch-Up Shows, and I'm already in lurve. I expect we'll be mainlining it over the next week or so (also plowing through The Americans S3 and just started Wolf Hall, aiming for Fargo, Transparent and Togetherness after that.)

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  6. Matt, was the central substantive legal point in last night's episode (that __'s use of __ to __ results, legally, in __) accurate?

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  7. It would depend on the terms of ______'s employment agreement, but that's pretty standard language in most tech-type companies, as I understand. There was a pretty blatantly inaccurate professional responsibility issue in there--if an attorney were disbarred, they couldn't practice in an arbitration.

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  8. Marsha4:48 PM

    Come back after you've watched the ep referenced by PaulTab above - "Optimal Tip-to-Tip Efficiency." The central scene of that episode was so brilliant and loomed so large in my mind that when I re-watched it before S2 premiered I was shocked at how short it was and how much else happened in the episode.

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  9. Yeah, that part I just forgave as intended for comic effect. Clearly not accurate. (And thanks on the other point!)

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