Is You Taking Notes On A Criminal Conspiracy?

Zoomers' fear of talking on the phone is going to make for some really spicy legal documents.

I have a hobby where I read long and particularly annoying legal documents, and then I tweet snarky little things about them. These documents aren’t generally annoying in the sense that they’re complicated or dense, or even hard to read. They’re annoying because the people within them do incredibly stupid things. These people are sloppy, they’re egotistical, they do things like “write down their crimes”, and they make jokes that I am certain are not nearly as funny when you have to read them in court.

In my time reading these documents, I’ve learned a lot. I’ve also found a lot of things that make me so upset I’ve considered going to law school, just so I can yell these things at people. Here are some of the things I would like all potential future clients to consider:

1. Putting the words “don’t put anything in writing” in writing is not a smart idea.

2. Saying “idk” and “such is life” will not absolve you of any responsibility for anything. Neither will ignoring your finances, even if you label your transactions as “ask my accountant”.

3. Do not, under any circumstances, joke about Hamas (or any other terrorist organization) doing business with you, no matter how funny it is.

4. If legal documents specifically include your tweets, you pissed somebody off. You should consider this before you tweet. If your tweets are an exhibit, you fucked up.

5. While we’re on the topic, do not tweet things that are provably false. Lawyers are a special breed of petty and will include direct refutations whenever and wherever they can.

6. You should not, under any circumstances, go on podcasts, spaces, or any other place where you can be recorded, and just freely admit to crimes. This is what we call “evidence”, and you are not going to beat people who do this for a living.

7. If you’re going to pay people to be a part of your crimes, you should pay them enough that they don’t immediately flip when they realize how much you’ve undervalued them. There should not be a wage gap in your criminal conspiracy!

8. If you’re in deep shit, and your company has been taken from you, one thing you should not do is write and post a letter claiming everything that happened is somebody else’s fault.

I’m not giving advice here on how to break the law - I would never do that. What I am doing is begging everyone to understand how records work, and trying to tell you how to be a little less stupid.

On another more abstract level, the documents I’ve read have left me chewing on three main thoughts:

1. Zoomers (and later millennials) really need to get less comfortable with text-based mediums.
   

   Nobody likes phone calls, and it seems most people will go out of their way to avoid them, especially younger people. Younger people will do things like ignore your call and then text you immediately. I’m guilty of this too.
   
   Most of us have grown up in a society where text-based communication is part of everyday life: texting, tweeting, and posting on facebook are all normal things we do every single day. This makes us more comfortable with these mediums, and with comfort comes relaxation.
   
   When you relax, you’re not as careful, and here’s the thing about that: that’s when you get in trouble. The sooner we stop treating all text-based forms of communication as the “norm”, the easier it is to figure out when you should not be putting something in writing.
   
   In a work context, if you have a question about something that may or may not be criminal, or even just maybe not kosher, you should say something to your boss like“hey can I call you”, or “let’s hop on real quick”, instead of chatting back and forth about potential crime.
   
   Don’t misunderstand me - I’m not implying that everyone (or anyone!) reading this is doing crime. I am implying that most people don’t actually know the law, and you might be doing something without knowing it. It’s a terrible idea to be happy-go-lucky with what you put in writing in the same way it’s a terrible idea to be happy-go-lucky with what you tell a cop.
   
   Here’s a handy rule of thumb: never put something in writing that you wouldn’t want subpoenaed. Even if you don’t think you’re doing anything wrong! You don’t know what the future holds. You never know what will show up in court - and future you will thank you for past you’s restraint.
   

2. Asynchronous working environments are making it easier to get in trouble.

   As people have gotten used to working in a distributed manner, they’ve developed systems and little habits to make working more efficient. If you’re working on a problem, and you need an answer or help from somebody who you know is offline right now, what are you going to do? Type them a little message, and wait for their response when they get to it.
   
   This normalizes typing out whatever you need, which I already told you above was sometimes a pretty bad look. The harder it is to get on a call with somebody, the easier it is to slip up and write something out that you really shouldn’t.
   

3. Internal documents are a goldmine for lawyers.

   Often, when companies get in trouble, the internal documents are given to the lawyers. Do you want a lawyer reading everything you’ve ever written to your colleagues in a work channel? Do you think they’ll find that joke you made as funny as you did? I promise, it doesn’t look as good on paper.

None of this is to encourage you to commit crimes, or even tell you how to cover up or better hide breaking laws. This is just common sense advice that you should listen to, especially if you’re working on something in a legal grey area.

And remember: you should never talk to the cops, especially without a lawyer present. Ever. You will not talk yourself out of anything, but you might talk yourself into something. So, in the words of Travis Scott: pick up the phone.