[Intro Slides]
[Tree/fireplace slides . . . ]
Twas the week before Christmas . . . Actually, let’s go back to earlier this year . . .
[Santa on Vacation Slide]
Santa Clause, CEO and HMFIC of Ho Ho, Co., was taking a well-deserved vacation after
another successful international Christmas Eve delivery. Having finally perfected Ho Ho, Co.’s
proprietary delivery route, total journey time was reduced by half and coal delivery to naughty
children hit 100% accuracy. But no good deed goes unpunished.
[8]
Shortly after Santa left for vacation, Ho Ho, Co.’s Chief Transportation Officer and lead reindeer
gave notice that he would be leaving Ho Ho, Co, [9] effective immediately.
Citing Ho Ho, Co.’s efficiencies, he no longer felt he was a cultural fit and had decided to take a
job with the federal government.
Desperate to find a replacement as passionate about efficient delivery as Ho Ho, Co., [10] Santa
posted multiple job ads seeking an experienced Chief Transportation Officer that could quickly
master Ho Ho, Co.’s top-secret delivery route. Ho Ho, Co. was quickly inundated with resumes.
[11] How was Santa ever to find the right candidate? Then Santa had what he thought was a
brilliant idea! [12] Just cyber-sleuth the candidates’ social media accounts! After all, cybersleuthing had proven to be a much more efficient way for Santa to keep on top of his naughty
versus nice list. What could possibly go wrong?
After some digging, one candidate, Rudolf, began to stand out among the rest. A visit to Rudolf’s
LinkedIn showed hundreds of endorsements. Rudolf’s Instagram also showed that Rudolf had a
fabulously shiny, bright red nose, an ideal asset when navigating winter storms. Plus, Rudolf had
a massive Twitter following, an area of social marketing where Ho Ho, Co. was sorely lacking.
To top that off, information on Rudolf’s Facebook account showed that Rudolf was a faithful
believer in the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. As a member of a faith that does not
celebrate Christmas, Rudolf would be available to answer Christmas-day calls from children
inquiring as to why their toy did not come with batteries! (You don’t get what you don’t ask for,
kids.) Santa had found his ornament hanger in a haystack and promptly hired Rudolf.
[Hiring/Firing and SM]
[Rudolf slide]
After only a few months, Rudolf had proven to be an exceptional hire. He had instilled new
energy in the Transportation Department by implementing a reindeer workout schedule. In the
few months he had been posting daily tweets about Ho Ho, Co., Rudolf had managed to take the
company’s Twitter handle from having only a few hundred followers to being the second most
followed handle in the world. Plus, the elves liked him, and the elves never like anybody!
[Eggnog and laptop slide]
Sadly, this ray of sunshine in Santa’s snowy world was not to last. After, one too many eggnogs
at the company Hanukah, Christmas, Kwanza party, Rudolf decided it would be funny to send an
email to Ho Ho, Co.’s entire client database stating that Santa wasn’t real. It wasn’t funny . . .
especially to Santa. Rudolf’s employment was promptly terminated.
But go quietly he would not. Rudolf was devastated to have lost his job over a simple prank.
Spending only a few days in “Denial and Isolation,” Rudolf quickly moved on to “Anger.” How
dare Santa fire him? After all he had done for Ho Ho, Co. He had even gotten the elves to like
him! Ho Ho, Co. had to go!
[Smoogle slide]
As Chief Transportation Officer, Rudolf knew that Ho Ho, Co. stored Santa’s secret route for
delivering toys on its cloud storage provider’s site, Smoogle Drive. Smoogle Drive provided
password protection, and Ho Ho, Co. was careful to only permit certain employees access to the
Smoogle Drive. Immediately upon Rudolf’s termination, Ho Ho, Co. had changed its Smoogle
password. However, Rudolf was able to find a backdoor in Ho Ho, Co.’s Smoogle drive. He
hacked into the account and downloaded a copy of Santa’s secret route for delivering toys.
Rudolf then used that information to create a new company called SantaPrime. By leveraging the
use of drones to follow Ho Ho, Co.’s proprietary delivery route, SantaPrime could deliver toys
10 times faster and at half the cost.
[Cloud Storage Liability Slides]
[Twitter slide]
On top of stealing Ho Ho, Co.’s delivery route, Rudolf also refused to turn over the Ho Ho, Co.
branded social media accounts. Rudolph created the accounts after being hired and ran the
accounts during work hours as part of his official job duties. Rudolph developed a substantial
network of elven toy suppliers, reindeer breeders, and nice-children followers on various social
media sites. However, Rudolf was the only employee who knew the passwords, and he wasn’t
about to give them up.
[Control of SM Accounts]
[Gambini slide]
Desperate to regain control of Ho Ho, Co.’s social media accounts and enjoin Rudolf from using
or further disclosing Ho Ho, Co.’s delivery route, Santa again turned to the internet, this time to
find a lawyer experienced in representing fictional characters. In an online search, he stumbled
across the website of attorney Vinny Gambini. The page indicated that Gambini was very
familiar with practice in the courtroom of Judge Herman Munster.
Gambini’s business website included a link to a “publicity” page and a “Follow us on Facebook”
link.
[past clients slide]
Further investigating, Santa reviewed Gambini’s “past clients” link and Facebook page. The
Facebook page contained photos of Vinny hanging out with such characters as Frosty the
Snowman, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, and many more. The “past clients” link displayed
a page of prominent fictional characters. Unbeknownst to Santa, they were photo-shopped fakes
and images stolen from the internet.
[SM & Publicity Slides]
[Jackie Chiles slide]
Having been served with a lawsuit for trade secret misappropriation, breach of contract,
disparagement, etc., etc., etc. Rudolf needed a defense attorney. Searching on LinkedIn, he saw
that attorney Jackie Chiles had numerous endorsements for Trade Secret litigation. Rudolf
immediately hired Jackie to defend him.
[LinkedIn Endorsement Slides]
[Jackie Chiles logo slide]
Thinking Rudolf may have a wrongful termination counterclaim, Jackie Chiles asked Rudolph to
prepare a memo detailing the events that led to his firing. Rudolph provided the memo to Jackie
at their first face-to-face meeting. After reading the memo, Jackie handed it to his assistant and
asked her to scan it to PDF and upload the file to his account at Silver Lining Storage Cloud
Services. Jackie also asked the assistant to put the hard copy in the file cabinet in Jackie’s office.
[Storage of Client Documents Slides]
[Judges Slide]
As the trial date approached, Santa was thinking about which judge he hoped would hear Ho Ho,
Co.’s case. However, Ho Ho, Co.’s attorney was busy worrying about his Facebook-friend
status with one of the judges.
[SM & Judges]
[Yukon Cornelius Slide]
Preparing for trial, Santa thought it would be a good idea to find witnesses who could
corroborate Ho Ho, Co.’s case theory. The company was able to locate Yukon Cornelius, an
unrepresented third party and would-be gold miner.
[Contacting Unrepresented Third Parties Slides]
[Hary and Marv slide]
The day before voir dire began, the judge released the names of the jury panel to each party’s
attorneys. Santa’s attorney hired jury consultants, Harry and Marv. Harry and Marv noticed that
Buddy the Elf was listed and thought he might be a great jury member because Rudolf had
worked so hard to befriend the elves when he worked at Ho Ho, Co. However, they wanted to
dig into Buddy’s life a bit to learn more about his potential biases. What actions are Harry and
Marv ethically allowed to take in researching Buddy the Elf?
[Social Media & Jury Pools Slides]
[Where Does That Leave Ho Ho, Co. vs. Rudolf, et. al.? slide]
So, where does that leave our parties? Christmas Eve is less than a week away and they’ve only
now begun jury selection. With a TRO in place, Rudolf can’t use Ho Ho, Co.’s delivery route to
deliver to SantaPrime’s customers. And with Ho Ho, Co. unable to access its social media and
CRM accounts, Santa’s having a hard time notifying the public that he IS real. It’s shaping up to
be a not so merry Christmas. At this point, Santa needs a drink. Wandering into the Whoville
Watering Hole, he comes face-to-face with his adversary, Rudolf. Rudolf apparently had needed
a drink as well . . . hey, who doesn’t at this point? After a couple of very boozy egg nogs, their
not-so-grinchy-with the bourbon bartender, the Grinch, convinces Santa and Rudolf to settle the
lawsuit and save Christmas.
[Drone in Santa hat slide]
By settling and joining forces, the parties are able to offer multiple Christmas Eve delivery
options: SantaPrime for those that want their gifts delivered quick and on the cheap and Santa
Retro, for those that want that classic, personalized experience.
[Group photo]
From team 3, we hope you’ve enjoyed our Christmas story . . . and George says to say “hello.”