Terms of Use

These Terms of Use are effective as of April 8, 2023. Last updated: April 8, 2022

SUPER IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER

We are attorneys, but we are not your attorneys and this is not legal advice. 

Here are some things you should know:

 

Lawstodon.org a website and application owned by Andrew Leahey based on code developed by the Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corporation. 

This policy constitutes a legally-binding agreement ("Agreement") governing the terms of providing you with our service. Throughout this document, the words "Lawstodon," "us," "we," and "our," refer to us, the Fourth Estate, or this website, Lawstodon.org, as is appropriate in the context of the use of the words. Likewise, the words "you" and "your" refer to you, the person who is being presented with this document for your agreement.

Throughout this Agreement, we may use certain words or phrases, and it is important that you understand the meaning of them. The list is not all-encompassing and no definition should be considered binding to the point that it renders this Agreement nonsensical:

"Agreement" means these Terms of Use;

"Lawstodon" refers to the business which owns this website, our Site, or our Service, depending on the context of the usage;

"Service" refers to the services that we provide through this Site, including but not limited to any assoicated apps or services;

"Site" refers to this website, Lawstodon.org;

"User" refers to you and any other person who uses our Service, or visits our Site, whether they are a registered accountholder or not;

"You" refers to you, the person who is entering into this Agreement with Lawstodon. Please, if we have to explain this oneto you you really need to consult an attorney (and maybe a psyychologist) before you agree to anything here.

 

When using our website, you will use Mastodon and/or other fediverse platforms to log in to your account. This means that you will need to give us certain information, such as your name, username, and e-mail address, so that you can log in using those other websites. Please, keep in mind that we don't own Mastodon or other fediverse sites, so any information that you share with them is their responsibility, not ours. Additionally, because you use your Mastodon and/or other fediverse accounts to use our Service, we may have access to certain information in your accounts based on your privacy settings at those websites.

In addition to the above, you must be at least thirteen years of age because the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act requires us to not collect info from people younger than thirteen. If you're under thirteen, we're impressed that you care about news and journalism, but unfortunately we cannot let you use our Service.

 

We don't make the content on Lawstodon.org – we don't even publish it. In fact, we're so lazy that we just kind of sit back while other people share posts  on Mastodon and/or other fediverse platforms, which you can discover on Lawstodon.org . Because of this, we can hardly be expected to be responsible for the reliability of the news linked to from our Site. As such, you release us from any liability for injury, financial loss, hurt feelings, or any other harm which may arise from using our Site.

 

Look people, We must have a few reasonable rules governing the use of our Site and Service. 

So, you agree that you will not:

Although the content, profiles and news that gets aggregated on our Site are actually posted on some other website, we may have original content on our Site. You therefore agree to not copy, distribute, display, disseminate, or otherwise reproduce any of the information on our website, or our website itself, without our prior written permission. 

This includes, but is not limited to, copying the arrangement of links that we have on our Site.

We base much of our Service on user-contributed content. Because of this, we have to ensure that Users who use our Site know that they're letting us use their content, and that we can't just remove it whenever they want. You therefore agree to grant us a universal, perpetual, irrevocable, commercial and non-commercial, sublicensable right to use and display any content which you contribute to us or is made available to us. You also warrant to us that you have the right to grant such a right to us when contributing content, and that you will indemnify us for any loss as a result of a breach of this warranty.

"Fourth Estate" is a registered trademark used by us, Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corporation., to uniquely identify our Site and our Service. You agree to not use this phrase anywhere without our prior written consent, or that of a Papal (not PayPal) Decree AND a supermajority vote of both houses of the U.S. Congress. Additionally, you agree not to use our trade dress, or copy the look and feel of our website or its design, without our prior written consent.

"Verified Journalist" is a service mark that we plan to use and exploit to the maximum benefit at some later time!

If you believe that your copyright has been infringed, please stop complaining and instead send us a message which contains:

You must sign this notification and send it to our Copyright Agent that you can find in the DMCA Designated Agent Directory at (copyright.gov/dmca-directory)

WE MAKE NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES AS TO THE MERCHANTABILITY OF OUR OR OUR GOODS OR SERVICES OR FITNESS FOR ANY PARTICULAR PURPOSE. YOU AGREE THAT YOU ARE RELEASING US FROM ANY LIABILITY THAT WE MAY OTHERWISE HAVE TO YOU IN RELATION TO OR ARISING FROM THIS AGREEMENT OR OUR PRODUCTS, FOR REASONS INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, FAILURE OF OUR SERVICE, NEGLIGENCE, REALLY BORING NEWS, OR ANY OTHER TORT. TO THE EXTENT THAT APPLICABLE LAW RESTRICTS THIS RELEASE OF LIABILITY, BECAUSE SOME POLITICIAN DECIDED YOU COULDN'T BE TRUSTED TO READ YOUR OWN CONTRACTS, YOU AGREE THAT WE ARE ONLY LIABLE TO YOU FOR THE MINIMUM AMOUNT OF DAMAGES THAT THE LAW RESTRICTS OUR LIABILITY TO, IF SUCH A MINIMUM EXISTS.

WE ARE NOT LIABLE FOR ANY FAILURE OF THE GOODS OR SERVICES OF OUR COMPANY OR A THIRD PARTY, INCLUDING ANY FAILURES OR DISRUPTIONS, UNTIMELY DELIVERY, SCHEDULED OR UNSCHEDULED, INTENTIONAL OR UNINTENTIONAL, ON OUR SITE WHICH PREVENT ACCESS TO OUR SITE TEMPORARILY OR PERMANENTLY.

THE PROVISION OF OUR SERVICE TO YOU IS CONTINGENT ON YOUR AGREEMENT WITH THIS AND ALL OTHER SECTIONS OF THIS AGREEMENT. NOTHING IN THE PROVISIONS OF THIS "REPRESENTATIONS & WARRANTIES" SECTION SHALL BE CONSTRUED TO LIMIT THE GENERALITY OF THE FIRST PARAGRAPH OF THIS SECTION.

For Jurisdictions that do not allow us to limit our liability: Notwithstanding any provision of these Terms, if your jurisdiction has provisions specific to waiver or liability that conflict with the above then our liability is limited to the smallest extent possible by law. Specifically, in those jurisdictions not allowed, we do not disclaim liability for: (a) death or personal injury caused by its negligence or that of any of its officers, employees or agents; or (b) fraudulent misrepresentation; or (c) any liability which it is not lawful to exclude either now or in the future.

IF YOU ARE A RESIDENT OF A JURISDICTION THAT REQUIRES A SPECIFIC STATEMENT REGARDING RELEASE THEN THE FOLLOWING APPLIES. FOR EXAMPLE, CALIFORNIA RESIDENTS MUST, AS A CONDITION OF THIS AGREEMENT, WAIVE THE APPLICABILITY OF CALIFORNIA CIVIL CODE SECTION 1542, WHICH STATES, "A GENERAL RELEASE DOES NOT EXTEND TO CLAIMS WHICH THE CREDITOR DOES NOT KNOW OR SUSPECT TO EXIST IN HIS OR HER FAVOR AT THE TIME OF EXECUTING THE RELEASE, WHICH IF KNOWN BY HIM OR HER MUST HAVE MATERIALLY AFFECTED HIS OR HER SETTLEMENT WITH THE DEBTOR." YOU HEREBY WAIVE THIS SECTION OF THE CALIFORNIA CIVIL CODE. YOU HEREBY WAIVE ANY SIMILAR PROVISION IN LAW, REGULATION, OR CODE THAT HAS THE SAME INTENT OR EFFECT AS THE AFOREMENTIONED RELEASE.

It's possible that a User may do something insane and stupid which could result in some class-action lawyer chasing after us with a giant money vacuum. So we must require that anybody who uses our Service promise if they do something insane and stupid to compensate us for any of the dumb stuff they do that could get us into trouble.

You hereby agree to indemnify and hold us harmless for any claims by you or any third party which may arise from or relate to this Agreement or the provision of our Service to you, including any damages caused by your use of our Site or the products or services ordered from it. You also agree that you have a duty to defend us against such claims and we may require you to pay for an attorney(s) of our choice in such cases. You agree that this indemnity extends to requiring you to pay for our reasonable attorneys' fees, court costs, and disbursements.

In the event of a claim such as one described in the above paragraph, we may elect to settle with the party/parties making the claim, and you shall be liable for the damages as though we had proceeded with a trial.

This Agreement shall be governed by the laws in force in the State of Florida. The offer and acceptance of this contract is deemed to have occurred in the State of Florida.

In order to limit the costs and complexity of legal proceedings against Fourth Estate, you agree that any dispute naming Fourth Estate or a party acting for or on behalf of Fourth Estate arising from or relating to this Agreement will be heard solely by the small claims system ("Small Claims Court") in Palm Beach County Florida, United States of America. You agree that even if you may be entitled to a monetary, equitable, or other remedy exceeding the jurisdiction of the Small Claims Court, you will waive your right to that remedy and still bring your action within the Small Claims Court.

If the subject matter of a dispute includes multiple claims, at least one of which is eligible to be heard in the Small Claims Court, you will release us from liability for the ineligible subject matter and will instead proceed with the eligible subject matter within the Small Claims Court.

If, after the application of these Forum of Dispute provisions, your claim is still ineligible to be heard in the Small Claims Court, you agree that the dispute shall be heard in the next most summary manner available in a court of competent jurisdiction.

If you bring a dispute in a manner other than in accordance with this section, you agree that we may move to have it dismissed, and that you will be responsible for our reasonable attorneys' fees, court costs, and disbursements in doing so.

 

You agree that in a case brought within the Small Claims Court, the awarding of costs, attorneys' fees, and other expenses shall be governed by the rules of the Small Claims Court.

You agree that in a case brought outside of the Small Claims Court, the prevailing party in any dispute will be entitled to claim from the unsuccessful party the entire amount of the prevailing party's reasonable attorneys' fees, costs, and disbursements in relation to the dispute.

 

You agree that we are not responsible to you for anything that we may otherwise be responsible for, if it is the result of events beyond our control, including, but not limited to, acts of God, war, insurrection, riots, terrorism, crime, labor shortages (including lawful and unlawful strikes), slow news days, embargoes, postal disruption, communication disruption, disappearance of the Interwebs, failure or shortage of infrastructure, shortage of materials, or any other event beyond our control.

Sometimes, a judge or a legislature may decide that even though you and Fourth Estate entered into a voluntary agreement, they're gonna rain on our parade and tell us that we can't do something in our contract. In the event that a provision of this Agreement is found to be unlawful, conflicting with another provision of the Agreement, or otherwise unenforceable, the Agreement will remain in force as though it had been entered into without that unenforceable provision being included in it.

If two or more provisions of this Agreement are deemed to conflict with each other's operation, Fourth Estate shall have the sole right to elect which provision remains in force.

In the event of a breach of this Agreement by you, or other actionable conduct, we may not take action against you, either knowingly or unknowingly. Such a failure to act on our part against you, or anybody else, for actionable conduct, should not be considered a waiver of our rights under this Agreement or under any applicable laws.

We may terminate your account or our provision of services to you, without explanation, though we will strive to provide a timely explanation in most cases, unless we did it because you didn't play by the rules and breached our Rules of Conduct or something, in which case we might just block and ignore you.

This section is here to tell you that you may not assign your rights and/or obligations under this Agreement to any other party without our prior written consent. We may assign our rights and/or obligations under this Agreement to any other party at our discretion.

We may amend this Agreement from time to time. When we amend this Agreement, we will post the changes here. You may refuse to agree to the amendments, but if you do, you must immediately cease using our website.

Pursuant to California Civil Code Section 1789.3, any questions about pricing, complaints, or inquiries about Fourth Estate.com must be addressed to our agent for notice and sent via certified mail to: Jonathan Abrams, 665 3rd St. Suite 150, San Francisco, California, 94107, United States.

Lastly, California users are also entitled to the following specific consumer rights notice: The Complaint Assistance Unit of the Division of Consumer Services of the California Department of Consumer Affairs may be contacted in writing at 1625 North Market Blvd., Sacramento, CA 95834, or by telephone at (916) 445-1254 or (800) 952-5210.

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Q: What is Lawstodon.org?
A: Lawstodon.org is a tool and directory for discovering and verifyingattorneys, lawyers, legal academics and other jurists on Mastodon and other federated social media platforms.


Q: Who qualifies for listing and verification?
A: Working and retired attorneys, lawyers, legal academics and other jurists, and others who are clearly law-related professionals. 


Q: What are the requirements:
A: To be eligible for verification, an account must meet specific criteria. First, it must be authentic and belong to a real individual or organization. Second, the account should be complete, with a profile picture, header image, bio, and a minimum number of posts. Third, the account must not distribute intentionally false or misleading information and must comply with the community guidelines of the platform to which it belongs. These guidelines prohibit hate speech, spamming, or any other inappropriate behavior.

Q: I am a lawyer and want to get listed and verified, but I don't have a Mastodon account.
A: Joining Mastodon is quick, easy and free.  Find your preferred community at: https://joinmastodon.org/servers


Q: Who is developing Lawstodon.org?
A: Lawstodon.org is being developed by the team at Honeytree Technologies, and it is an official project of the Fourth Estate® and collaboration with Newsie.social.

Q: What is the purpose of Lawstodon.org?
A: The purpose of Lawstodon.org is to helpattorneys, lawyers, legal academics and other jurists link their Mastodon account to a verified profile, promoting transparency and trust on the platform. It also assists readers in discovering and following verified lawyers, on Mastodon, boosting discoverability and traffic.

Q: What are the benefits of linking my Mastodon account to a Lawstodon.org profile?
A: By linking your Mastodon account to a Lawstodon.org profile, you can establish your credibility, legitimacy, and responsibility, promoting transparency and trust on the platform.


Q: Why do you need me to connect my Mastodon (fediverse) account?

A: We need Read-only Access to verify your Mastodon account and Follows Write-Only access is optional for easy following on Lawstodon.org. We won't post, change your info, or make modifications. You can revoke permissions anytime.

Q: Is Lawstodon.org available for use?
A: Yes, Lawstodon.org is available for use, but it is a beta application in its very early stages, so expect bugs, changes, and occasional breakages.

Q: What is the next version of Lawstodon.org?
A: The next version of Lawstodon.org, currently in development, will focus on addressing challenges in federated social media and improving the discoverability and usefulness of news content and articles.

Q: How can I contact the team behind Lawstodon.org?
A: For updates, feature suggestions, or complaints, you can follow @andrew@esq.social


Q: Is there a cost to use the service or get verified as a journalist?
A: Access to the site and tool is free.  There is currently no cost to get verified, however we do ask that you make a monetary contribution to Newsie and support ongoing costs and development if you have the means.


Q: I am attorneys, lawyers, legal academics, judge. How can I get listed?
A: You can request to be added by clicking the "Suggest New Listing" button at the top of the page.


Q: Is the source code for the Lawstodon.org application available?
A: We will make a basic version of the code available as the Mastodon Finder in a couple of weeks.

Have a question.  Direct Message  @andrew@esq.social