Legal talk:Legal Fees Assistance Program

Writing

I have to say that this is one of the best-written WMF pages I've ever seen. Tony (talk) 12:05, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

If you mean typographically, there are a lot of uppercase vs. lowercase inconsistencies. ;-) Just kidding, Nemo 07:56, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Termination

The page says: "if those funds are ever exhausted, a decision will be made by WMF whether to renew the program". And if not, will at least the already granted assistance be brought to completion or could this imply interruption of assistance? This is very important to note, changing lawyer in the middle of a trial is probably not fun. --Nemo 07:56, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

I don't think WMF can give an openended commitment. I think the statement above is appropriate. For a case which is expected to exhaust the fund I would expect the grantee and their legal team to discuss this ahead of time with the WMF and for the WMF to take appropriate action - say to launch an appeal for donations and consider renewing the program the before the funds run out so everyone has adequate notice. Filceolaire (talk) 21:12, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

RFC

I want to be sure people are able to find the RFC: Request for comment/Legal Fees Assistance Program --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 12:36, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Could this link please be put on the content page as well? It is not clear from the draft that there is an ongoing RFC. Risker (talk) 06:26, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Transparency

Will there be a public log of who receives aid from this program and why they're receiving aid? This is probably something donors to Wikimedia would want to know about. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 17:40, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi Michaeldsuarez - Such cases are so rare that we will probably handle going public on a case-by-case basis. I can imagine matters where - for reasons of litigation strategy, privacy of the user in a support role, or security issues in certain countries - we do not want to go public. There will be other cases where it does not matter, and we likely would post those cases. Good question, thanks. Geoffbrigham (talk) 22:41, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Payment of opposing sides fees.

"This assistance will not include payment of fines or damages,". What about the opposing sides lawyers fees? I think it would be sensible to specifically exclude payment of those from this fund as part of some settlement.

Part of the objective here is to make suing a WMF volunteer like attacking a hedgehog. It has excellent defences but if you finally break through those defences there is very little meat to be had. Some nutbar wants to sue and talks to a lawyer; promises the lawyer can keep all the damages provided he exacts revenge on those wikifiddlers. The lawyer does a calculation

1. What are the chances his client will run out of money?
2. What are the chances the WMF volunteer will run out of money or can't afford a lawyer
3. If you win then what are the chances the WMF volunteer can pay damages and costs?

When they are doing this calc we want to make it look like the answer to 2 is that the WMF volunteer will fight on and never give up but the answer to 3 is that if you defeat the WMF volunteer in court then you probably won't get much. Filceolaire (talk) 21:38, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi Filceolaire. I agree with you. The legal fees at issue are only for the defense of the eligible user in a support role; the program is not meant to cover damages, including the payment of plaintiff lawyer fees. We may include clarifying language to that effect in the final version of the program provided to the Board (thanks to your feedback). Geoffbrigham (talk) 22:48, 2 September 2012 (UTC)