Legal Startup Offers $100,000 ‘Bounty’ to Fund Harvey Weinstein Lawsuits
Legalist CEO Eva Shang says “justice should be reached in court, not paid off in secret”
Sean Burch | October 17, 2017 @ 12:31 PM
Last Updated: October 17, 2017 @ 1:34 PM
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Legalist — a San Francisco-based startup that leverages artificial intelligence to help clients’ get financing for lawsuits — is looking to fund anyone with claims against Harvey Weinstein, the company announced on Tuesday.
A $100,000 litigation “bounty” is being offered to anyone with a “valid sexual harassment claim” against the tarnished Hollywood heavyweight, in light of dozens of sexual misconduct claims.
“Justice should be reached in court, not paid off in secret,” said Legalist co-founder and CEO Eva Shang, in a statement. “Justice for sexual harassment survivors has been delayed too long due to the power imbalance between men and women, and has allowed someone like Weinstein to get away with three decades of sexual harassment without facing public consequences.”
The company said claims can be filed at legalist.com/weinstein.
While Peter Thiel gave Legalist a $100,00 grant, a company spokesperson told TheWrap he did not have any input on its decision to move forward with its new Weinstein initiative.
Two bombshell reports from The New York Times and The New Yorker detailed decades of sexual misconduct from the former Miramax and The Weinstein Company exec.
In the days after, top stars like Ashley Judd, Angelina Jolie, and Gwyneth Paltrow have called out Weinstein for a range of violations. Actress Rose McGowan received a $100,000 settlement in 1997 from Weinstein and has recently tweeted he “raped me.” Weinstein has since been booted from his company.
In its statement announcing the funding, Legalist said it “is taking a stand to encourage survivors of sexual harassment from all industries to speak out an pursue justice on behalf of themselves and other victims.”
6 Tech Giants Shaking Up News, From Jeff Bezos to Laurene Powell Jobs (Photos)
Tech leaders are increasingly intertwined with the news business. While some want to support old properties, one set out to destroy a new one. Here they are.
Jeff Bezos – Washington Post
The Amazon founder purchased the Washington Post in 2013 for $250 million in cash. President Trump has called the paper the “Amazon Washington Post.”
The Facebook co-founder purchased The New Republic in 2012, becoming executive chairman and publisher. However, he sold the venerable political magazine to Win McCormack in 2016, saying he "underestimated the difficulty of transitioning an old and traditional institution into a digital media company in today’s quickly evolving climate."
The eBay founder is a well-known philanthropist who created First Look Media, a journalism venture behind The Intercept. Inspired by Edward Snowden's leaks. Omidyar teamed up with journalists Glenn Greenwald, Jeremy Scahill and Laura Poitras to launch the website “dedicated to the kind of reporting those disclosures required: fearless, adversarial journalism.”
The PayPal co-founder doesn’t own a news organization, but he makes this list because he essentially ended one -- Gawker -- proving once again the power of an angry billionaire. Thiel secretly bankrolled Hulk Hogan’s sex-tape lawsuit against Gawker Media because he was upset that the website once outed him as gay. Hogan won the defamation lawsuit against the site that sent its parent company into bankruptcy, and Gawker.com is no longer operating.
OK, so Facebook isn’t technically a news organization… yet. However, the company is preparing to launch its much-anticipated lineup of original content later this summer, and there are also signs that it's on the verge of becoming an even bigger media platform.
Campbell Brown, Head of News Partnerships at Facebook, confirmed last week it’s developing a subscription service for publishers willing to post articles directly to Facebook Instant Articles, rather than their native websites.
Tech is increasingly intertwined with news, for better or worse
Tech leaders are increasingly intertwined with the news business. While some want to support old properties, one set out to destroy a new one. Here they are.