Edelson PC is a class action law firm that specializes in suing tech companies for alleged privacy violations. The firm has sued pretty much every big tech firm you’ve heard of — Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix — so Silicon Valley hates them.
And now they can hate them a little more. Last week, Edelson announced it was opening an office in San Francisco, the firm’s first office outside its Chicago headquarters. It is a natural expansion since many of their cases are litigated in the Bay Area.
Edelson and its founder, Jay Edelson, were profiled in The New York Times in April. Some of the firm’s recent cases include a suit that alleges Twitter is snooping on direct messages between users. Another, detailed in The New York Times story, claims Facebook has “secretly amassed the world’s largest privately held database of consumer biometrics data.”
Rafey Balabanian, Edelson’s head of litigation, will run the San Francisco office. Mr. Balabanian has led privacy cases against several Bay Area companies, including Netflix, LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.
“We look forward to sharing a home with the tech companies that have such a profound impact on our daily lives,” said Mr. Balabanian in a press release announcing the move. “We hope that our presence alone will serve as an important reminder that Silicon Valley’s entrepreneurial spirit should not give way to consumers’ rights.”
It’s a good bet that exactly zero technology firms feel the same way. Mr. Balabanian admitted as much in the interview, noting that there was “a bit of sarcasm” in his canned press release comments.
“It’s like, I’m sure they’re pumped to have us out here,” he said.
Mr. Balabanian is bringing along two other attorneys from the firm’s Chicago office, and in an interview he said he would like the office to have eight lawyers by next summer.
Edelson will face a major test next year. Early this month the firm argued one of its highest profile cases, against a people searching service called Spokeo, in front of the Supreme Court. Edelson’s suit alleges that Spokeo violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act by posting false information about consumers.
The case is being closely watched by tech giants — Google and others have filed amicus briefs in support of Spokeo — because it deals with the issue of “standing,” a technical legal argument in which a defendant more or less says they can’t be sued for violating the law if nobody lost money or got hurt.
That defense is tech firms’ go-to weapon in privacy cases, where it is hard to show how people are injured when companies look in on their emails or other data, usually for the purpose of selling ads. Thus, the Supreme Court’s decision will play a huge role in determining how much larger Edelson’s firm — and, by extension, the growing class action privacy industry — can get.