Lawyer Faraway from Radio Metropolis Music Corridor After Facial Recognition Flagged Her As Opposing Counsel

Many people have endured blended reactions once we inform somebody that we’re an lawyer. Typically it is apprehension, different occasions, it opens a Pandora’s field of data we didn’t need about an acquaintance.

However how many people have been requested to go away a public arts venue due to the place we work?

That is what Kelly Conlon says occurred when she tried to deliver her daughter to see a Rockettes efficiency at Radio Metropolis Music Corridor this previous vacation season.

‘They Knew My Title Earlier than I Instructed Them’

Conlon is a senior affiliate at Davis, Saperstein & Salomon, a private damage agency in New Jersey. Because it seems, one of many agency’s purchasers is suing a restaurant owned by MSG Leisure, the identical mum or dad firm as Radio Metropolis.

MSG additionally owns Madison Sq. Backyard, the Beacon Theater, and the Chicago Theater.

Conlon is just not concerned in litigation in opposition to MSG, however she advised NBC New York that she was pulled apart by safety when she introduced her daughter to Radio Metropolis Music Corridor as a part of a Woman Scout discipline journey.

“They knew my identify earlier than I advised them,” she mentioned. “They knew the agency I used to be related to earlier than I advised them. They usually advised me I used to be not allowed to be there.”

Indicators posted on the theater did notify patrons of the venue’s use of facial recognition know-how for safety functions. However apparently, Conlon didn’t know they had been additionally utilizing it to hold out a controversial coverage banning attorneys concerned in litigation in opposition to MSG.

No Soup for You

MSG launched the ban in June, sending out letters to multiple law firms informing them that their attorneys couldn’t enter any MSG venues till litigation is resolved. The corporate claims the coverage protects in opposition to improper contact between MSG workers and opposing counsel. But it surely would not simply ban attorneys truly engaged on instances in opposition to MSG — it is a blanket ban on the entire agency.

A number of companies have sued over the coverage. MSG argues {that a} ticket to one in every of its venues is a license it may well revoke for any cause or no cause in any respect. However a number of trial judges in New York and Delaware disagree, with one calling the coverage “the stupidest thing I’ve ever read” throughout oral arguments.

In those self same oral arguments, lawyer Greg Varallo introduced up the potential for facial recognition getting used to eject attorneys from MSG venues.

“It seems that my pals at Madison Sq. Backyard have used facial recognition software program to return in and scrape all the net pages of all of the companies concerned,” Varallo mentioned.

That was primarily based on a sworn affidavit from another attorney, Barbara Hart, who says she was faraway from Madison Sq. Backyard in October below this coverage. Hart was additionally not concerned in her agency’s case in opposition to MSG and says she was unaware of the ban.

In November, a New York trial choose ruled that MSG could not deny entry to somebody possessing a legitimate ticket, noting that “there seems to be no rational foundation for the coverage besides to dissuade attorneys from bringing swimsuit.” However the choose additionally dominated that MSG can refuse to promote tickets to attorneys from opposing companies or revoke them “up till the time they current such tickets for entry.”

So MSG doubled down on the policy, sending out one other spherical of letters stating that tickets attorneys at affected companies obtained to any MSG venue had been “hereby revoked.”

We doubt any of those attorneys will resort to trenchcoats and faux mustaches, however we type of want they’d.

Conlon’s agency, for its half, is difficult MSG’s liquor license, arguing that they’re required to confess members of the general public except they trigger a disruption.

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