I want a privacy policy and a terms of service for my small web
hosting company that's customized for my my needs by a lawyer licensed
for California law.  Where can I find these lawyers that specialize in
this area of law?  A good answer will list lawyers who have written
these types of documents for the web hosting industry, and who can
operate without me having to meet them in person.

---

Request for Question Clarification by ephraim-ga on 13 Aug 2004 12:22 PDT

FYI: I have found about 5 attorneys who said that they would be
willing to take this type of work. Most of the attorneys I spoke with
were at smaller firms or worked in private practice for themselves. I
suspect that the larger web hosting companies use larger law firms or
in-house counsel for writing the policies. Unfortunately, my phone
calls to larger law firms have been less than fruitful; I have only
spoken with secretaries who can't give me any details about whether or
not their attorneys have done privacy policies.

I will be away for all of next week on a personal trip. If you would
like me to answer with the information that I have been able to
collect, let me know. Otherwise, I can open the question to another
researcher.

/ephraim

I hope that these are adequate. In the past hour, I heard back from
some of the attorneys that I left messages for, and most of them
confirmed that they specialize in these areas.


=============

RITA HERSCOVICI
Brown Raysman
310 712 8317

http://www.brownraysman.com/

Rita spoke with me and said that TOS and privacy policies are one of
her specialties.

Brown Raysman is a nationwide firm which has many computer, internet,
and technology law attorneys on staff.


=============

Karl Kronenberger
Kronenberger & Associates
220 Montgomery Street
Suite 1920
San Francisco, CA 94104
(415) 955-1155, ext. 114

http://www.internet-law-attorneys.com/

I spoke with him on the phone. He said he has "done a bazillion Terms
Of Service policies" and that he specializes in Internet Service
Providers.

=============


Timothy J. Walton

(650) 842-8481

http://www.timothywalton.com/business.html

Also, look at [ http://www.timothywalton.com/weblaw.html ] for
detailed information about the type of privacy policy and TOS work he
does.

His web site specifies that he does privacy policies and Terms-of-service work.

==============

Morrison and Foerster's
425 Market Street
San Francisco, California 94105-2482
Lori Schechter 415 268 6355

http://www.mofo.com/

Mofo is a large nationwide firm with many specialties.

I spoke with Jessica Miller (415 268-7012) at Mofo who said that Lori
would be the correct person for this. They also have an attorney on
staff who specializes in privacy.

===============

http://www.beckerlawfirm.com/

Law Office Of Matthew A. Becker
Address: 1003 Isabella Avenue
Coronado, California 92118  

Phone: (619) 522-6760
FAX: (619) 522-6763

I spoke with Matthew Becker directly and he said that he was very
familiar with the types of laws that would affect privacy policies and
terms of use. While on the phone with him, he listed many laws and
concerns that would need to be dealt with in a web hosting company's
policies and contracts, including DMCA compliance and other issues.

================

http://www.christopherbrainard.com

Law Offices of Christopher M. Brainard 
468 North Camden Drive, 2nd Floor 
Beverly Hills, California 90210
(310) 266 - 4115

I spoke with Chris Brainard directly and he told me that he has done
some work in the past in privacy policies and terms of service.


=============

http://www.lawguru.com/cgi/bbs/attyPages/tpriebe.html

Firm  	Law Offices of Timothy J. Priebe
Address: 	1205 Prospect, Suite 400
La Jolla CA 92037
Country: 	
Phone Main: 	858.454.4242

I did not speak with Timothy Priebe directly, but his secretary said
that this was an area of practice that he was very familiar with.

=============

Firm  	Law Offices of Edward A. Hoffman
Address: 	11620 Wilshire Boulevard, #340
Los Angeles CA 90025
Country: 	
Phone Main: 	310-575-3540

Spoke with directly and said he would be willing to do this type of
work. Based on the conversation, I did not get the impression that
this was his main specialty, but he was very willing to do this type
of work.

=============

Jason Hsu
Firm 	Una Law Corporation
Address: 	3550 Wilshire Blvd. #1930
Los Angeles CA 90010
Country: 	
Phone Main: 	213-381-0740

Spoke with directly and said he would be willing to do this type of
work. I don't think this is his specialty, but on the phone, he was
very willing to do the work and research to write these policies.

=============

Search Strategy:

I tried a number of searches including

california + attorney + "internet law" + "private practice"
[ ://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&as_qdr=all&q=+california+attorney+%22internet+law+%22+%22private+practice%22&btnG=Search
]

california + attorney + "internet law"
[ ://www.google.com/search?as_q=+california+attorney&num=100&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&btnG=Google+Search&as_epq=internet+law+&as_oq=&as_eq=&lr=&as_ft=i&as_filetype=&as_qdr=all&as_nlo=&as_nhi=&as_occt=any&as_dt=i&as_sitesearch=&safe=images
]

Unfortunately, you do *not* want to do a Google search for "privacy
policy" or "terms of service" because just about every web site has
one of these.

I used LawGuru [ http://www.lawguru.com/cgi/bbs/user/browseAtty.cgi ]
and FindLaw [ http://lawyers.findlaw.com/lawyer/lawyer_dir/search/jsp/adv_search.jsp
] to search for attorneys in California with these specialties. Many
of the attorneys listed were dead ends, but a few turned out to be
worth listing above.

In the end, the best way to do this search is to look for firms in
California and then cold call them until you get an answer that you
like. That was how I compiled the list above.


I hope this helps you set up your company!

/ephraim

Went beyond searching the web and interacted with the real world, with
real people.  That is where the value in research lie.  It saves me
real time.