Move over, Kardashians, the race between Microsoft and Google for AI dominance is the new reality TV drama! With The New Bing showing impressive performance improvements compared to ChatGPT, it’s like watching the underdog coming out of nowhere to challenge the champ. Meanwhile, Google’s own Bard prototype seems to be taking a nap, proving that even tech giants need a power nap every now and then.
On this week’s episode, Grace and Liel discuss the juicy details of the ongoing AI showdown, predicting how search engines are likely to evolve with these new advancements. They also dive into the legal world, where hair relaxers are causing more drama than a bad dye job. The filing of 57 lawsuits in federal court has propelled this young mass tort forward. And J&J’s recent attempt to wriggle out of talcum powder claims has hit a setback.
Who needs Hollywood when you have tech giants and legal battles keeping us on the edge of our seats?
This episode summary is courtesy of ChatGPT by OpenAI. Welcome to our conversation.
Resources mentioned in our episode:
- The market does not welcome well Bard
- The New Bing is here
- 57 hair relaxer lawsuits have been filed in federal courts
- J&J loses
Enjoy the show? Subscribe and leave us a review! Don’t forget to send us your questions and comments at ask@incamerapodcast.com.
Transcript
Liel: [00:00:00] On Tuesday, February 7th, Microsoft announced the new Being an edge browser powered by upgraded chat API. Microsoft shares rose around 3% on that day. The next day, Google announced its much anticipated AI chat bot bird and they immediately lost 100 million in market value. I’m Liel Levy, co-founder of Nanato Media and author of Beyond Se Habla Español, How Lawyers Win the Hispanic Market. And this is in camera podcast where we hear alarms going off in Google. Welcome to In-camera podcast Private Legal Marketing Conversations. Grace Welcome back. So nice to see you.
Grace: [00:01:04] So great to see you too Liel
Liel: [00:01:05] How’s everything been going? It’s been two weeks, but I must say very happening. Two weeks at least from the I. News cycle, which we’re going to get into in just one moment. But what about another news.
Grace: [00:01:19] And other news besides the AI stuff and a couple of mass tort things we’ll be talking about here. There’s a lot of shows going on. There’s a lot of events coming back that may or may not have ever happened before or that they’re just coming back again or new ones. Like there seems to be just an insane amount of conferences. They just started popping up around this time.
Liel: [00:01:41] I don’t think, well, I am not been following that that much. But weirdly enough, now that you mention it, just today I received an email about a morgan and Morgan put together a conference, something going on. So I’m pretty certain that’s probably one of those that you were talking about. But what else? And also. AAJ Right. Just just took place a couple of weeks ago, right? Right. When we were last recording our episode, I believe that’s when it took place.
Grace: [00:02:07] That’s correct. And then you’ve got La Tiger Summit coming up, which is that’s a client specific one. So it’s slightly different than our usual, I’d say, big conferences or anything like that. Yeah, but it’s still a conference that we’re going to be attending. And then almost immediately after, within about two weeks or so, then there’s TBI Med Legal, which that’s a pretty big one. That happens every year.
Liel: [00:02:30] Yeah. California, correct?
Grace: [00:02:32] Correct.
Liel: [00:02:33] Correct. Yeah. And lo tigers are they’re doing there in Arizona.
Grace: [00:02:37] Yes, that’s correct. They’ll be in Arizona around that area. That’s where they’re based out of. And primarily they do all of their log tiger stuff there. But of course, as you guys know, they’re regional. But yeah.
Liel: [00:02:48] Well, that’s exciting. Grace Yeah, sure. Keep us posted. And if you’ll be attending in person some of those, it will be great to hear how those go down. I’m sure they’re great and we’ll be looking forward to hearing about those. And probably yeah, probably we should get Michael Bloom here back at some point to tell us a little bit about some of the conferences that he’s been attending because he hits all of them. So yeah.
Grace: [00:03:12] He sure.
Liel: [00:03:13] Does. Yeah. There’s no better person to ask, so Grace, let’s get ourselves here on track. And as we were mentioning, there’s a lot that happened over the past couple of weeks when it comes down to the presence of. AI in our lives, right? Just when we thought that nothing can beat Chat GPT. Guess what? The new being, right, as Microsoft is calling it, because it doesn’t really get a particular name other than the new being or as some have started calling it, being GPT is actually pretty powerful. Grace. Very, very impressive stuff. So here’s what happened. Right around two weeks ago, Microsoft announced their first product integrated with Chat GPT, which has everybody expected was the being Web browser. And the way that they are kind of like rolling this out to the market is not necessarily never seen before. Way you can say it’s clever, not clever. It’s a whole different conversation. But basically they’re rolling it out on a waiting list basis. So if you want to be able to use the new being, you need to register your interest. And then Microsoft will tell you, well, if you kind of like want to increase your odds of getting it faster, you need to set up the Microsoft powered Web browser, which I don’t know what it is called nowadays. Right. But that one needs to be your default web browser and then obviously being your default search engine.
Liel: [00:05:01] And then if you do those things, then you may get fast tracked to the waiting list. Now, what we know, though, from the people that have been able to either on the day of the announcement, just do some hands on testing or playing with a platform in the sandbox and people who already have access to it is that it actually is working very well. Sure. A lot has been written as well about some of the complications, some of the deficiencies. Right. You know, it doesn’t work perfectly after you’ve been trying to chat with it for 2 hours consecutively. But it kind of like loses track of what was the conversation initial about initially about. But Grace, here is the thing, right? When you and I first started talking about AI and how it will impact the way that we know legal digital marketing, we both agreed that we do not see these really disrupting much the process of creating quality quality content for websites for SEO ranking purposes. And I stand by it even now today, still stand by it. But what we did acknowledged is that this can actually change the way in which users use search engines, particularly which search engines they use. And what is really at stake in here is Google’s market share.
Liel: [00:06:36] And we’re going to get into that in one moment, because I think it is fair to say that the release of chat of the new being has been received with bells and whistles. People are very happy with it. It’s actually proven to be a very, very, very effective tool. And just to tell you a little bit about it, Grace, like so some of the opportunities and the deficiencies that we were talking about Chat GPT has like, you know, it doesn’t give you sources and the information is not accurate. So some of it is blanked out in. Correct? Right. So what being does when it actually gives you answers is it actually mentions the sources. It cites the sources. And I actually going to share here my screen so you can see how exactly does this look like? But it’s pretty cool. So here you can see Grace like a person searched himself, right? What does him his name is Brody Clark. Think about the release of the new Bing. And you can see here on the query itself. What it actually pulled out. The search engine bing brought in. Clark is an independent NCO consultant and organic growth advisor. And you see that little number one there floating over. There you go. You have there the source, which this was abstracted from data from LinkedIn who has recently got access to the new Microsoft Bing.
Liel: [00:08:15] He seems to be impressed by the chat functionality, which he calls a nice extension of how Chat GPT works to sources. Right. LinkedIn, dot com and Twitter.com. You’re starting to notice something, some sort of pattern there. And he also encourages others to test it out for themselves. We see Twitter again cited there. He has not posted a detailed review of new bing yet, but based on the previous work, he’s likely to provide a meticulously researched audit report with useful recommendations. Right. And then they cited his own website. So, Grace, this is mind blowing. It is really mind blowing. And what really stands out of this is how it actually scrolls and gets information from social media, which is one thing that has never been really well executed in text by search engines. It hasn’t. It has almost been the rule that what goes in social media doesn’t necessarily have a direct impact on what actually ranks or shows up on the search results page. And there here, you know, we are seeing an example of what the actual user sees. So I want to stop here for one moment because I really want to hear your thoughts on this whole new being thing.
Grace: [00:09:36] You know, that that in and of itself does change a lot of the things that we were talking about because 100% I mean, when it comes to citations, right. And actually knowing where this data came from and having sources like that is huge. So I feel like this is a pretty massive. Change in the way the chat GPT was being used and how it’s now being used by Bing and the whole integration. As a matter of fact, as we were speaking, I signed up for the wait list for Bing because, you know, I can’t help myself and I’m yeah.
Liel: [00:10:11] I know you’re probably going to get faster Grace because you, you’re kind of like a microsoft fan. Everything you have is kind of like linked to their suite of products. I have nothing Microsoft other than Office 365. So I’m probably going to be the last person to enter to get access to to this. But I’m pretty certain that you’re going to have access to this by the time that we speak next time.
Grace: [00:10:34] Yeah. And further to that, just so everybody knows on here, you don’t actually. So Microsoft Edge is the name of their browser, by the way, right? Yes. Yeah. But according to this, it says get the waitlist faster. So, yes, I clicked on the Microsoft defaults and what popped up, you’ll be interested to know is Microsoft bing search engine for Google Chrome add in. So it’s not just edge like I’m sure if you put Edge it would be even faster. But I like Google and I’m sorry I will not move away from Google as my search engine, but to have both definitely no problem. So now I have both. I’ve got my ad in for Microsoft Bing search engine as my default so I can get quicker through that wait list, hopefully. And yeah, I’m doing it through Chrome too, so I’ve got both. I like this.
Liel: [00:11:23] That’s absolutely right. And true to what you’ve said, we also need to compartmentalize here and remember that the search engine is not necessarily the browser you use. You can use whichever browser you want and have access to whichever search engine you you want. Right? So obviously, that’s going to be a thing that doesn’t change. But right now, during the rollout period, obviously Microsoft is leveraging their upper hand and they’re trying to get people to spend more time. Yes, spend more time using their software, spend more time using their search engine over anything else that they may be using. So, Grace, let’s now talk a little bit about how does this work, because you may be puzzled a little bit. So so what does it mean? Like you get to Bing now and when you type in a query instead of getting results, you get kind of like an answer from a bot and you have the option. Yes, one of them could be same similar interface of chat GPT. You go there, you type in your query and then you get kind of like a response in a chat sort of format, right, Which is what we just went through. Now the search version of it is one where you actually still get a page of search results and on the other on, on the other half you start getting a summary of information on the topics that you on the topic that you’ve searched about.
Liel: [00:12:46] Right. So it kind of gives you both options and what is very, very cool Grace And I think if you ask me, probably one of the most impactful things that are going to come out of it is that now there is also the capability for you to in the in the form kind of like as a as a as an extension to your browser. You can activate the Bing GPT, if you may, while you are inside of the other websites like for instance, say you Facebook and they have a function that is called compose that will allow you to start creating a post on Facebook using their AI. Right? So it’s kind of like an editing tool that does the work for you. And here is the one where I think it’s even more powerful. It’s the one that allows you to go to any website and through the chat function it can summarize for you the information inside the page, or you can ask for it to find information inside the website. And it basically allows users to go into a site and kind of like skim the information they want very easily, very easily, very effortlessly, without having to navigate much to remove kind of like the effort of having to explore inside a website.
Grace: [00:14:24] That’s really interesting because I you know, I’m wondering how that’s going to affect things from like everything from bounce rates to entry pages to that kind of stuff, those types of metrics that will be interesting to see how what happens with those when it’s really just summarizing things from what you land on. Right. Which could be the home page.
Liel: [00:14:44] Yeah, but you know what, Grace? I think for many it will help them because how many people? They don’t have a ton of content on their website, but the UX and the UI is a piece of shit, right? And people. Will just bounce right out because they don’t want to have to deal with it. But now, hey, you have a tool that’s actually going to allow them to just at least try and see, you know, what, These ranks high. Maybe there is some value in here, but I don’t have any time here to go around and mess around searching for stuff. Can I actually find the information that I need in a smarter way? And so there is that. Right. But at the same time, I think kind of like more objectively looking at the importance of actually having content in your website, this is going to help put, you know, create a very, very clear precedent of your website has content or your website does not, because the answer is going to be I did not find any information with regards to that here or substantial information about here or you know what? There is a ton of information here and these are the highlights that you should know or start off with. So I think it’s tremendously exciting to see these new tech deployed in this way.
Liel: [00:16:08] To no surprise, the announcement of or the release of the new being. Took the Microsoft stock up. Right. People felt confident about it. Not a tremendous growth, but the market responded very well. Now, what happened with Google just the day after Alphabet, the parent company of Google. Released their chat bot which is the respond to chat GPT. Mind you chat GPT not to the new being to chat GPT there is still catching up with Egypt. They released their new chat bot, which they named Bard. Bard. Now Grace. Obviously the optics are already terrible for Google, right? They’re coming there now. They now look like a dinosaur in comparison to what Microsoft and Chat GPT and Open AI are doing. So the optics are not good. But then, all right, finally, like they’re coming up with their own chat bot and they put it a very I don’t know what are your thoughts on the name, but I like what’s happening with the way that we see things nowadays. Yes, it’s terrible, right? Honestly, like but we come up with good names anymore. Like what happens with the series and the Alexis and all of those great names that we used to put for voice assistants. Now we’re just settling, like for the for the worst of them all anyhow.
Liel: [00:17:44] So they release Bard and during the release keynote, right. Like the presentation, the livestream, this, you know, everybody’s watching. They test the tool and the tool spits out wrong information. And don’t ask me what it was about the question. I know it had something to do with the satellite that took the first pictures of stars, something. Right. And the information was incorrect. All right. Grace Not only that’s tremendously embarrassing. Google on that day alone lost $100 million of market cap write of value. Their stock plunged significantly 9% on that day alone. That’s how the market feels about Alphabet’s answer to chat GPT. Not good. Not good. So alarms are ringing at Google. They’re under pressure. They’re under pressure. And here is the thing, right? This is just kind of like their first attempt at creating a consumer based product at AI, but they’ve not yet even shed light into when is this actually going to come to their search engine. And so they’re certainly feeling the pressure and what’s happening here. And that’s going back to what I was saying earlier in the conversation, is that what’s really at stake here is search market share being for the first time are going to have an opportunity to potentially.
Liel: [00:19:29] Obviously, they’re not going to wipe out Google from the map. That’s not going to happen. But, you know, there may potentially jump from 3% to 3% because that’s the market share they held up until now to, who knows, go to 15, 20 or something. And if you keep in mind that Google was already coming from a very painful last quarter, like based on what they reported on the earnings call, this is not looking good for them. It’s not looking good for them. And if you’ve been playing and if you’re spending some time around blogs and chats that relate with the Google Ads ecosystem, there is a lot of angry advertisers about the way that Google’s been going on, about their automations pushing up expanded display network into campaigns and, you know, really saying that they’re in that they’re lowering cost per acquisitions. But in reality, yes, they’re lowering the cost per acquisitions with very shitty leads that are worthless. Right. So, yes, you’re getting lower cost per conversions. But guess what? Those conversions are not valuable. They do not necessarily bring any real business opportunity to your business. And so there is that and it’s all packed up together in the same package. And things are not looking very great for Google right now.
Grace: [00:20:55] And Google is not in a good place, you know, And, you know, it’s sucks, honestly, because I personally, I love Google. I really do when it comes to what all their products and how everything works. I have Google Home like I’m such a Google head when it comes to all this. Totally get it.
Liel: [00:21:11] But you’re an Android gal.
Grace: [00:21:12] I am. I am. And you know how much I love that stuff, so I totally get it. But they are definitely late to the game and this is not a good look, you know? I mean, they’ve known to be for so long. They have so many developers on staff, so many people that do so many things, Semantic language, AI, they’ve been known to be the forefront of all of this. So this is not good and it’s not a good look for them. And I don’t see it getting any better unless they completely reverse what they’ve done because no, yeah, they have all focus groups. They have the, the ability to find out if that name was even something that anybody would like.
Liel: [00:21:55] So yeah. Mark all marketing aside, even even for Microsoft, it’s like, come on guys. But anyhow, with Microsoft, you maybe you can understand it a little bit with them wanting to retain being as, as the name, kind of like to, to be able to maybe retain what they’ve already have and then kind of like, you know, to me it almost feels like they just wanted it to claim merit and victory under under that one name that it didn’t take them to have to change the name of the product for it to succeed. It sounds like there is some some ego going on in there. But I’ll tell you one thing raised, just as what you’re saying, right, is, is that like, it’s not like they don’t have the resources. And the thing with Google, that’s probably a really, really painful for them to see is that they had a lot of leeway when it came down to AI innovation. They had a lot for years they held they’ve been leaders at it.
Grace: [00:22:51] Exactly.
Liel: [00:22:52] They just kind of like, you know, like I’m going to quote here one of the authors. His name is Jo Jo Luria. Sorry. He’s saying, you know, they have fallen asleep on implementing this technology in their search product. Right. And so this is now how it looks. Microsoft shares around rose around 3%, Google lost 9%. And the bottom line is that what their product is is not compelling enough for people. And I think, you know, it sends a very clear mark like the markets. Why do we do look at them? Because I think it sends a very good message of what’s the sentiment around, what’s the potential that being carriers and what’s the potential that Google care is? And I think people are disappointed. With Google, it’s like, try harder. And with being it’s like, okay, you got our attention. We’re listening, right? And so I think this is tremendous times. I think yes. I don’t think this is a fad. I don’t think this is something that’s going to come and go. I do think this is going to change the way that we use search engines. I think it’s still too early to say whether it’s search engines, whether a chat sort of feature can replace the search results page.
Liel: [00:24:10] One thing that the search results page is having that ability for you to with more transparency, if you may see relevancy and decide for yourself what speaks to you individually rather than letting a machine kind of like decide that for you, you know, even though that was what algorithms were already doing, but they were still giving you a choice, whereas here it’s kind of like one answer, no. So I think we’re still early in the days there. I don’t think it’s going to be a definitive of one or the other. I think when I see like this co pilot feature that goes with you into the websites and helps you out like that, to me, sounds more like what users are going to want to do. And then there is the thing here. Grace All all up until now, these are products that seem to be very desktop oriented. How will they translate for mobile users? And the thing there will be will this be kind of like the final piece in the puzzle for the transition to speech search? So that’s kind of like I think we’re heading we’re.
Grace: [00:25:18] Going to tie.
Liel: [00:25:18] All of this, but it’s it’s really, really interesting. If I had to summarize this into an early or a premature or a premature takeaway to tie it up to the whole legal marketing thing, well, you care about these things because you all rely on Google here for everything, right? So it’s still things that are kind of like an Asterix. It’s going to be the local P&G. How what will happen? You know, how does this come to play with the local P&G? So far, we’re not seeing these necessarily addressing or solving or anything around those lines. Of course, GPT can give you an answer as to which ones are the closest and best law firms around you. So, you know, I think this is this is great, but I just think you need to feed you need to feed the algorithms, right? Gpt is going to work based out of what they see on your website and what they see being said about you on other outlets, whether those are news, whether those are directories. And as we’re learning now, your own social media channels, so super, super important times to continue and to focus your efforts into making sure that you have great information about you and about the work you do and your areas of expertise online, because that’s what’s going to make you discoverable. Any final thoughts on this?
Grace: [00:26:44] Grace Content is still king, no matter how many tools there are out there. You need to come up with thoughtful, good content. And this just keeps proving our point every time.
Liel: [00:26:55] That’s one.
Grace: [00:26:55] That’s right. The last thought on.
Liel: [00:26:56] That’s right.
Grace: [00:26:57] Before I takeaways later.
Liel: [00:26:59] Yeah, 100%. All right Grace now you know we need to also create some time here to get some updates on mass torts because as much as AI and marketing are just ongoing changing and we’re not even touching here on the on the looming recession that’s still lingering around, there’s so much that could be said about how all of this is impacting the market as a whole. But I think what is really valuable for us to spend some time looking into is the development of mass torts, because also within this last couple of weeks, new things have happened. So why don’t you give us a quick rundown of updates that you think are game changing?
Grace: [00:27:39] So we’ll start with kind of one of the, in my opinion, kind of hot to trot. And I think it’s going to affect a lot of people in a lot of areas. And that’s the hair relaxer lawsuit. We mentioned it a little bit, I think on the last call, but not a whole lot because it was just kind of an emerging litigation at the time. However, it has now over more than 100 hair relaxer lawsuits have been filed as research continues to link uterine cancer, ovarian cancer and other injuries to the chemical hair relaxer use. A judicial panel will be will consider consolidating these this month. So my understanding is they’re pretty comfortable believing it’s going to form an MD deal. And obviously, for those of you who an MD deal is Multidistrict litigation, I know that we say that a lot of times on here, but I just want to be clear that people understand the quick path of mass tort lawsuit. Obviously, there’s multiple jurisdictions. Usually you have to be licensed in a particular state in the case of a mass tort. It’s just having to do with consolidating all the cases across different states, and then they have to form the MDL. In this case, the MD was actually formed quite quickly, if you ask me, because a lot of times they take a little bit, write a little bit of time for that stuff to happen because they start listening to certain information. But enough information has come together to say that we’re going to be hearing oral arguments on well, they just did. They passed already and heard some oral arguments on January 26. So they’re they’re going to decide whether the MDL has formed or is going to form or not form, according to one of our attorneys on staff. She mentioned that she believes that the MDL is going to form almost for sure, and that’s if it hasn’t already happened, it’s going to happen within the next few weeks at most.
Grace: [00:29:34] So it’s everyone keeps saying the same thing in terms of hair relaxer. So it’s going to happen and it looks like it’s going to move forward. What happens next is basically bellwether trials and stuff like that to take and see what how serious some of these cases are, what kind of cancers come out of them. And that’s going to develop what the compensation is going to look like, right, for these litigants. So I for those of you who don’t know what a hair relaxer is or what it does, I think I know I said it last time, but it’s important, right, Liel? I would think to mention. Yeah. Okay. So recently researchers discovered the tie in between chemical hair relaxers and uterine cancer risk, particularly among among black women, because that’s predominantly who uses it. I’m personally I am Latin. You know, many of us also use hair relaxers. As a matter of fact, I’ve used keratin, which is another version of a hair relaxer. What they’re talking about is not necessarily keratin. It’s the again, it’s not lye based anymore, which is the way they used to have these products was lye based. Now it’s a different chemical that they use in the hair relaxer. What it does is it takes your hair and essentially breaks the proteins to make it straight. So if your hair is curly, you use hair relaxer, it’s a chemical and it releases the proteins so that your hair becomes straight instead of curly. Those chemicals after prolonged use or using it constantly throughout a year or more, I believe it’s four times or more per year.
Grace: [00:31:19] Which.
Grace: [00:31:20] If anyone has used any products for your hair, including even hair dye, you know that every couple months when the new growth comes out, you’ve got to reapply. It’s the same thing for a hair relaxer. So three months even, it could be right. It could be two months. It just depends on the hair growth. They they’re reapplying reusing these chemicals that’s absorbing into their skin. And they have linked it currently to potential uterine cancer and other issues in that area.
Liel: [00:31:50] Thanks for the reminder on that, Grace. And it’s really interesting, right? I’ve been tracking this like from well, for sure there’s been earlier stages than when we started talking about it, but still really interesting how things are moving forward and how, you know, how things are increasing. And I guess here’s where also, you know, the awareness that is generated through the content, the advertising that the law firms generate is actually, I think, up to a certain extent, what helps a lot, expediting the process and a very, very critical component on really enabling mass torts to become or to stand a chance, because if not enough people know about it and not enough people are actually signing up, then you know, it won’t take a chance. So I guess this kind of gives the perspective of why it’s never too early to enter into a mass tort, because if you wait by the time when things are to advance, you are going to probably challenged at finding new clients to sign up, or your cost per acquisition is going to be significantly higher, which may still be worth it. Not to say that it won’t, but it’s going to be significantly higher in the market is going to be more saturated. And what’s very interesting here, Grace, is I just went very quickly to the social media tracker of cost per cases. for mass torts, and they’re currently showing up $500 cost per case on Hair Relaxer, which is down from where we last review it in quite significantly. I would say maybe almost only almost a 30% drop. If I’m not mistaken, it was around 700. So, yeah, very, very significant drop. And I’m not going to jump into conclusions. I don’t think that there is not enough interest. I just think there is enough law firms who are holding back making investments now in certain areas.
Grace: [00:33:48] Well, I think you’re right. And I think, you know, just to do a little bit of a analysis on that situation, from my own perspective and dealing with this, I believe that they did that because, well, yes, there’s not enough interest in that particular mass tort. But also, I think there’s a very recent burn for people on Zantac when that happened. Right. Because a lot of people were involved in it. It seemed like almost it was going to happen no matter what. And then all of a sudden, the judge decided to throw every single case out. So a lot of people lost out on Zantac. And that can happen pretty regularly as as much as I don’t want to say that, but, you know, you don’t know what you don’t know until the discovery comes about. Until the science comes about, there’s a lot of stuff that goes into a mass tort. So, you know, I think that people are, one, a little burned on some of the previous torts that came out. And too, I don’t think enough people are invested in it necessarily, you know, because like I said before, I don’t necessarily believe that you should get into a mass tort, unless it means something to you.
Grace: [00:34:55] Yeah. Why? Because you can be a better attorney to your client by believing in it. And the reason you became an attorney was to help clients. So, you know, unless this is something that’s personal to you, I don’t necessarily see that many people getting into it. And truthfully, how many black attorneys are there? There’s not a lot. You know, And so, I mean, whereas in my opinion, you know, there’s while there’s not a ton of people that have dealt with Paraquat as an example, Paraquat something that, you know, it’s not specific to a demographic per se, right? So it’s a little easier, I think, for people to be more invested in things that make sense to them versus something that like hair relaxer. A lot of people don’t even know what it is. So as an attorney, I don’t know that I would get involved in something that I don’t even know what what it does or how it works.
Liel: [00:35:48] Well, I think there’s I think there’s many things. Grace some of that could be what you’re saying here now. I think, you know, overall, as I was just opening up here, the whole master segment, we have the the the unstable economic climate, people not necessarily feeling that confident. Right. Putting money in things that not that they don’t necessarily seem very necessary at this point. And so I think that also has in place a role. But what you’re saying about Zantac is so important, right? I mean, it’s so important because it’s it’s not it’s it’s not over until it’s over, as you’ve just said, grease and just, you know, picking up from there, we’re going to move on into our last master that we’re going to be reviewing today. But that’s Johnson and Johnson, because this is a tremendous example that how it is not over until it’s over, because it says a federal appeals court on Monday rejected a bankruptcy filing by Johnson and Johnson subsidiary, dealing a setback to the company’s attempt to limit exposure to floor of lawsuits over the talcum powder products. I remember last year like the lawyer that was representing them, right. Got an award, got an award from being able to save Johnson’s and Johnson’s ass because this was already something that kind of like, was like, yeah, okay, fine. You you get to file bankruptcy and it’s being reversed.
Grace: [00:37:23] So insane Insanity. What’s happening here? The Texas step, no more.
Liel: [00:37:30] That’s right. And how great, how hopeful, Right. I mean, for everyone, for the victims, primarily. But I think this is this is great. And, you know, a great reminder also of the mindset of of the of the on. Unpredictable trajectory that just mass torts have and the importance of the of the litigating work that’s happening. Right I mean like this is not a it’s not didn’t happen by you know by a chance like there’s amazing lawyers here making these things happen.
Grace: [00:38:08] A ton of them involved in this and making sure that they’re only putting up, quote unquote, the best cases that have the best chance of making sure that those who were negligent or are liable for these products that they’re, you know, are harming people. There’s a ton of work on each and every one of these cases, not to mention an MDL, which has its own set of tons of work that has to go into it. So, yeah, when it comes to this, I’m so excited. I was so happy when I heard it. It came out not that long ago, but they threw the bankruptcy out. And it’s funny because at the very not funny, ha ha. But like funny as in I can’t believe this is happening. At the very beginning they were talking like the the judge that was presiding over the bankruptcy is a bankruptcy judge. They’re not mass tort judges. They’re different. So that judge had to be told and understand what this came from, how this came about, where this came from. But the judge was not the type is not a mass tort judge. So they’re under completely different rules and regulations that they have to abide by. And so that the judges or the attorneys that were working with the cases then had to go higher and learn bankruptcy law.
Grace: [00:39:23] That was insane. I heard this whole conversation right when this happened in one of the conferences I was at between the attorneys that were dealing with it, that were on the plaintiffs steering committees, they’re like, Oh, my goodness, now we’ve got to go and find bankruptcy attorneys. Now we’ve got to go learn bankruptcy law, because now we’ve got to go through bankruptcy court to deal with these cases and get our clients the compensation they absolutely deserve. We’re going to get it for them some way somehow. And if it’s through bankruptcy, okay, then that’s what we have to do. But we’re going to do our damnedest to appeal this situation because nobody believes that this is right except for the manufacturer, Johnson and Johnson. Yeah, nobody believed it was right. Plaintiffs. You know, the only defendants thought that this was the right thing to do because it was saving their money, saving their ass. And I don’t know why they thought this could save face, but it definitely didn’t. I don’t think anybody was believing anything that they did. And nobody believes Johnson and Johnson was bankrupt. I mean, come on.
Liel: [00:40:22] So that’s such a joke.
Grace: [00:40:23] Grace It is. It is. This gave me I’m not an angry person, but this infuriated me for for the firm, for the people, for everyone, hurt by these by by this product. So this is a win for the good guy. This is a win for justice, in my opinion. And this teaches other manufacturers, well, you can try and go and do this because apparently arrow of the three earplugs manufacturers went ahead and did it right after these guys did. I believe that was thrown out almost immediately. However they tried it because guess what? Johnson and Johnson did it. So everybody goes by the law. And what’s been happening, seeing that this has been thrown out. Good luck trying it again.
Liel: [00:41:05] Yeah, Grace. That’s absolutely. You know, one of our takeaways here, Justice prevails, right?
Grace: [00:41:13] Yes.
Liel: [00:41:14] Yeah, it is. It is Grace. It’s very hopeful. And obviously, this being one of the mass torts that well, I got to market for it and and be involved in it. And obviously, you know, it feels it feels closer to heart also. So you’re very well know talcum powder had a massive impact amongst the Latino community. And so yeah it’s it’s good to hear that there is a new window here that just been open for that. So Grace. Thanks for updates. You know, there’s so much to cover. There’s so many things to look into. But we’re going to have to stop here and pick up where we left in our next conversation. But before we go, let’s come up with some good takeaways because there is a lot to go for here.
Grace: [00:42:05] So I think for me, the first takeaway is a reminder really more than even a takeaway, and that is content. Whether you use tools or other kinds of tools or whatever’s out there is going to be key. And you can always use chat GPT. And now this new Bing search and, you know, aggregator of content is going to help you continue to do your job. But keep an eye, as I’ve always said before, on new software and new things coming out, Try it out, use it for your use, but just know that good quality content is and always will be the most valuable thing that you can have as a firm, as a company. And if anything, I think chat GPT, as a matter of fact, and this whole Bing thing proves that right, because it’s only going to pull content. You made a perfect point, Liel, and I think that’s one of the most important points, which is it can only pull content if the content is there. So make sure their content is there and it’s thoughtful and good content.
Liel: [00:43:07] It is is a wonderful it’s a wonderful point, Grace and one that even if you start researching more in the topic, those are the things that really Google and Microsoft and Open Eye obviously they’re very, very, very aware of is that the lack of credibility, of the accuracy of the content. And so I think that even though we may see some improvements, it we’re all going to have to come down to sourcing out things, to being able to pinpoint where is this information being subtracted, because nothing is going to be able to reassure users more than knowing where the information is being pulled from. So I will I’m going to go with take away that is about leveraging technology, right? Like, I don’t think there is anything wrong with finding creative ways that you can use GPT or you being in your operations just like you were saying. Great. Just be smart about how you use it. I think it can be a fantastic source to kind of like get you started on writing a blog article that it can give some structure, some ideas, maybe even find some, some, you know, if you want to have at some point or another. Some some some particular tone added to it because, you know, that’s the one thing that chat GPT do is kind of like adding a particular personality into your text. And so you can do that, right? You can actually create your content and run it to charge and ask it. Make this text witty and see what it comes out with.
Liel: [00:44:41] Right. And some of it you may want to keep, some of it you may want to throw it away, but it’s good. It gives you that opportunity of just extending expanding your creative reach in a way that you may have not been able to do that to do it before. So that’s why I think it’s cool If you want to see examples of how does this look like in action, I’m starting doing it for all of our episode descriptions. I allege chat GPT we write them, we write them, but then I alleged, try to do something with it, right? Whether it’s making it funnier, making it witty, making it sophisticated and is just fun. So have fun with it. Use it in a way that it could actually help you take some burden away from you use it as a way of summarizing content that you need to you need it to be summarized. There are things that you can use it for that don’t necessarily going to have a negative impact or that are going to put you at a high risk of using something that’s been just created from zero from the platform. And I think, you know, it’s it’s great and looking forward to see which other ways this is going to be improving the way that we search online and the way that we interact with websites and everything else that comes with it. So that’s my take away leverage technology. Have fun with.
Grace: [00:45:57] It. I love that idea, by the way, and I’m going to start using it for us where I’m just going to feed the wonderful content manager person. We have her articles in there and just tell her to play with it and see if it gives her other tones. Right. Formal tone or this tone or that tone more serious.
Liel: [00:46:14] So and you actually gave a great example last conversation. You said like going that go put up your content and say, write me a couple of social media posts on this. And it does it and it’s you know, it’s great.
Grace: [00:46:27] It’s brilliant. Yes. With hashtags that are of value. Ha.
Liel: [00:46:32] Yeah, exciting. But always double check. Look, make sure that it’s there. Don’t fire your social media person because you still need them, right? Someone still needs to make sure that the content gets there. Go back and respond to the people that are actually commenting, interacting with it, or strategically go and finding out which places or which chats, which conversations may benefit from what you are creating or contributing, and go and proactively add to the conversation by participating. Right? So do not treat your social media strategy as a checkbox, as a as a list with checkboxes that it’s just a matter of, you know, posting every single day and that’s it. There’s more to it. So I’m just going to leave it there because that’s a segue into a whole other conversation. But I do want to give the social media managers the acknowledgment for the work that they do, and it’s not something that can be replaced with a chat GPT technology. Yes. Okay. Moving on.
Grace: [00:47:39] So for me, the last takeaway obviously has to do with mass torts, and that is you never know what’s going to happen. Right. So keep an eye on it and get into the litigation early or those cases early organically if you can. If not, you know, because as Liel said, the later it gets, the harder it will be to get cases because there’ll be less of a pool of people and the more expensive it most likely will be because again, less pool of people. So if you see something, do something about it. If it’s something a tort or a litigation that is of interest to you, get in on the early times, grass roots it, you know, and really just put yourself out there and get involved on the community side of it, because that is my best advice to anybody that wants to get involved in a mass tort and really, truly get cases that not only speak to them, they’re firm, but also not as expensive. Right. Because when you’re able to get that word of mouth and that grassroots going, it will be significantly cheaper than just straight out buying cases that are further in the litigation. So keep an eye on things. You know, make sure you pay attention. Listen to our podcast on new and emerging litigations and yeah, make a move sooner rather than later.
Liel: [00:49:01] I really like what you said. Grace. It really kind of like is humanizing the mass tort, right? And you’re so right about the fact that, you know, one of the reasons why you should be getting into a mass tort is because it means something to you is because it goes beyond just the potential economic impact that it can have on the return on investment that you can get. Right. Something that you need to know when everything is said and done, whether it was successful or unsuccessful, that you felt that you were doing the right thing at not just a financial level, but at a personal level as well. Write something that professionally meant something for you because it aligned with your personal values. So I think it’s it’s it’s very important. And you’re even bringing it home more, more, more in a more elevated way by actually saying, if you care about it, you’re going to be talking about it, you’re going to be active on it, and you’re going to potentially encounter yourself in a situation where you’re generating more cases on it because it’s just in your nature. You’re just living it with passion. So it is. And it’s the true right when if you take that approach, you’re going to see completely different results than if you take the approach of putting money down and investing. And I’m not saying that there is anything wrong with just doing it as a as an as an investment alternative. I’m just saying that if you are, to a certain extent sceptical about doing it just for the investment purposes, then probably yes. Finding out something that really speaks to you that you you believe in and then have that drive to work and to fight for it, it’s going to potentially make a difference in the way that you go through the whole experience. Grace Really, really good stuff. Great insights, exciting times, stressful times as well. A little bit, right, with things going on. But we’ll stay positive and we’ll come back here with another conversation in a few weeks.
Grace: [00:51:02] That’s right. Liel, thank you. As usual. This was a great one. All right.
Liel: [00:51:05] Very different. Take care. Bye bye. If you like our show, make sure you subscribe till your coworkers leave us a review and send us your questions at: ask@incamerapodcast.com. We’ll see you next week.
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