BJKS Podcast

106. Eugenie Reich (Part 2): The legalities of scientific fraud, why fraudsters rarely go to prison, and what whistleblowers are allowed to do

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This is the 2nd part of my interview with Eugenie Reich, who is a lawyer who represents scientific whistleblowers, and a former investigative science journalist. We talk about her transition from journalism to law, and discuss the legal aspects of scientific fraud: why fraudsters rarely go to prison, what whistleblowers are legally allowed to do, how and when to seek legal advice, and much more. Obviously, none of this is legal advice, but hopefully it provides some useful pointers.

BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, psychology, and anything vaguely related, hosted by Benjamin James Kuper-Smith.

Support the show: https://geni.us/bjks-patreon

Timestamps
0:00:00: How Eugenie went from science journalist to being a lawyer and defending whistleblowers
0:13:15: Why do most people who commit scientific fraud not go to prison?
0:32:36: What are whistleblowers allowed to do?
0:48:24: What if I get sued for reporting scientific misconduct?
0:56:32: How do fraudsters try to intimidate whistleblowers?
1:01:24: What if I can't afford legal help?
1:06:18: Eugenie's plans for the future

Podcast links


Eugenie's links


Ben's links


References and links

Woo-Suk Hwang affair: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hwang_affair
Theranos: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theranos
Cassava: https://www.science.org/content/article/company-misled-investors-possible-alzheimer-s-drug-sec-charges
Eric Poehlman: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Poehlman
Luk van Parijs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luk_Van_Parijs
The Scientific Integrity Fund: https://scientificintegrityfund.org/

Reich (2009). Plastic fantastic: How the biggest fraud in physics shook the scientific world.
Reich (2011). Fraud case we might have seen coming. Nature News.

[This is an automated transcript that contains many errors]

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: [00:00:00] I guess this is the second part of ONG, and last time we discussed the, let's say, early parts of your career, or the first parts of your career as a science journalist, and in particular your reporting of the Schoen case. And as I promised last time, but we didn't film that episode, we're also going to talk about I guess a related topic, but from quite a different angle, which is you, uh, now work as a lawyer defending whistleblowers in I'm assuming mainly scientific context, but I don't know if we can talk maybe a little bit about like how broad that context is in your case.

But yeah, so maybe the first question is, uh, you know, how did that happen? I mean, so you published the book, uh, on, on Schoen and, uh, I think you did some other reporting after that, right? Or around the time, I don't know exactly, in, in terms of, uh, scientific fraud. So maybe kind of, yeah, could you kind of, uh, take us on this?[00:01:00]

Yeah, how did you go from science journalist to lawyer, basically? Mm

Eugenie Reich: working on my book about the Schoen case, it became known that I was working on a book on misconduct, and a couple of whistleblowers contacted me about concerns about other scientists who, unlike Schoen, were not yet publicly known to be committing fraud. And I also became involved independently in reporting certain cases of fraud.

I think the first was an immunology professor at MIT who I had learned, because I'm in the Boston area, close to MIT, I had heard that he was suspended for fraud and that his lab was closed, but no one was writing about it. So I started doing investigative reporting at the same time as working on my book.

And you wouldn't think this necessarily from the Shen case, where [00:02:00] everything was sort of ultimately investigated and, and disclosed by the institution. But my day to day experience looking at unresolved cases was that it was very, very difficult to expose them. even when there was really overwhelming evidence for a lack of scientific integrity.

I did talk about some of those experiences in, in the book as a sort of context, but then I, I became increasingly, uh, frustrated that I would report on evidence for misconduct and Although there was some follow up in some cases, there was a scientist who was debarred from raising federal funding in the future as a result of my reporting, there was another one.

Well, the MIT scientist I mentioned, he lost his position and he was ultimately prosecuted for grant fraud and convicted and placed under house arrest for six months, partly as a result of the [00:03:00] internal allegations. But without my reporting, I don't know that it would have all come, come to light eventually.

So despite having some impacts, I think the, I was getting frustrated that these were very hard to come by. And I ended up filing a freedom of information lawsuit to try to help resolve one case. And I was impressed by the power of the legal system in the U. S. Uh, if you're not in the U. S., you know that the U.

S. has a reputation for being very litigious and having very accessible courts. Uh, but you maybe don't appreciate that that's for a good reason, which is that we have all sorts of, um, we have a very, uh, sort of capitalist and unjust, uh, economy and system otherwise. And the courts are unnecessary recourse for people.

For example, in the absence of a social safety net, bringing suit is the only way to recover money that you need. If you're [00:04:00] harmed, the government can be, can be really quite corrupt in some instances. And freedom of information is a way, is an important way that, that the media can, can sue to get records.

And so it's a necessary check on our, on our system in all respects. And when I was impressed by that, cause I'm from the UK where the courts are sort of generally inaccessible to the ordinary person with an issue to raise. So I ended up going to law school. I had a little bit of a, I won't say a career break, but a bit of career, um, sort of a time when I was working less intensively because I had my young children.

And then as, when my children went to school, I went to law school, so they were doing their homework, I was doing my law school reading. And, I, and so I changed career, but I retained my interest in scientific fraud and misconduct and in ways that we can use, not only the media, but also, um, the legal [00:05:00] system to force transparency and expose cases.

And you mentioned, Ben, that I have been defending some whistleblowers. That's true. Um, but I've also been using the legal system to try to to go on the affirmative and force transparency and, and accountability in scientific fraud cases. So we're, most of my clients are not in a defensive posture. We're, we're pressing allegations and there are various laws and programs, um, not only freedom information that can, that can act as tools to do that here.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: hmm. Yeah, we'll definitely have a bunch of questions about that. I just wanted to go, uh, just this one step back to your decision to go to law school. I mean, why not, you know, continue work? I mean, basically, I guess the question is, is, is that, you know, it seems to me like, then you, uh, established, uh, yourself in journalism, and, you know, why not work, like, use that, what you had from journalism, and then work [00:06:00] with lawyers together, or something like that.

Like, why the decision to, uh, Uh, become the legal expert in this field yourself rather than work with someone. Um, yeah, because I don't know. To me at least it seems like quite a, you know, news. As I said, like you went to law school, you had to retrain, all this kind of stuff. Um, I'm just curious because I guess there's lots of You know, especially, um, we, the recurring questions we did at the end of last episode are also about, you know, at the end of the PhD, many people have this question, like, should they continue in academia?

Should they switch to a different field and work in industry or, you know, all sorts of different things. So I'm just curious. Um, I think, uh, you know, a lot of people I think have this question of like, should I stay in this field or switch to different ones? So, um, yeah, could you just elaborate a little bit on why, um, I don't know, it seems to me like the default is usually to stay in what you're doing and to switch only if there's like a big, if there's something necessary.

So I'm just curious kind of what made you feel like you had to or wanted [00:07:00] to or, um, yeah, switch to law rather than work with laws.

Eugenie Reich: Well, so the period when I was science reporting, It was going up to sort of 2013, and we started to see the rise of non traditional media, social media, as a forum for airing fraud allegations, and the behavior of institutions changed, because previously, fraud was generally either covered up entirely, or fraud would be exposed, for example in the Shen case, and then institutions were reas I feel they were reasonably quick to To to respond because they were because it would be a shock.

Oh dear. We're in the newspaper for fraud and we must Be seen to respond and to response and then with the rise of social media beginning in 2005 with the woosuk one case a stem cell [00:08:00] fraud in South Korea Bloggers in South Korea demonstrated that allegations can, can be, uh, widely distributed on the internet, uh, by anonymous sources.

And they, they had a huge impact in that Wu Seok kwang was, he was eventually prosecuted, um, although I think he somehow retained the ability to work in science after all that. But that case showed that allegations are going to come out. publicly, other than through traditional media. And so institutions began to find a third way to respond, which is to deny and downplay what's being said and say things like, well, this is an anonymous source, or this is just bloggers.

Or, um, you know, this is just someone on the internet, we can't respond to this. And there were some really idiotic, uh, email responses and, and public statements that [00:09:00] ended up getting made. I'm not thinking of anyone in particular, but just someone sending compelling evidence of fraud to an institution would be told, uh, you're anonymous so we don't have to look at it, or this is on the internet so we don't have to look at it.

But, um, it almost became that If it's gone out on a, on a tweet, we don't have to look at it. Even if there's lots of other evidence that there's a problem. So, so the, the, the let's deny it because it just happened on the internet defense, um, came out and sometimes it was sophisticated, like we'll downplay it.

And sometimes they just deny it. And so I think that's when. I didn't particularly, uh, want to engage too strongly on the internet myself. I know that now all reporters have to be brands and they have to bring attention to themselves. I was always more interested in the writing and the content. So I didn't feel like, uh, getting involved.

in Twitter battles. And although lots of investigative journalists [00:10:00] did continue and have to this day done very effective things, I started to think about, also through my freedom of information lawsuit, how we can compel responses and gather evidence from institutions that are just denying what's in instead of plain sight to see.

Um, As a reporter, if someone doesn't comment, you usually can't infer anything from that. They could be out to lunch, or they could be on holiday, or they could be refusing to engage, um, intentionally because they've got something to hide, or they could be, have nothing to hide, but just be very anxious. So we don't know when reporters don't know, and they can't infer anything.

But when you're in a, in, in a litigation context, You can compile responses and you can draw inferences when there's no response. Um, and I was impressed how in my freedom of [00:11:00] information lawsuit, government officials who were hiding information had to provide affidavits, uh, about the records. Even though I didn't get the record I originally sought, I got enough information to do the article I wanted to do.

So there's a power in that. And one other thing I'll mention. is time and again, it was the lawyers who were involved in covering up cases of misconduct. The majority of research misconduct lawyers, far more expert than me, work for the defense. They defend journals, they defend institutions, um, and they defend the accused.

Almost nobody working for whistleblowers. So you said Ben, as a reporter, why not work with you know, lawyers, specialists in scientific integrity. There were, there were some, but not on the, not with the mindset I had, which is somewhat of a sort of prosecutorial mindset towards [00:12:00] thinking that too much is being hidden.

And don't get me wrong, everyone's entitled to a defense. But people are entitled to press a view, you know, and when everyone's on the defence and there's, there's huge castles with, with defences all around and, uh, something in there, in there that needs to be shared, then there's a case for a different kind of lawyer.

So I felt I saw that in sort of 2013, 14, um, and that drew me to try to become that kind of lawyer and, and bring some of, some legal skills to, to as an extra tool.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, I had to, um, uh, I had to smile when you said the whole like we're not going to respond to such, to comments on a blog or if it's on the internet and I mean, uh, Yeah, that still happens a lot with I think especially the whole um, I mean You know, I think there's still a lot of lots of journalists that say like we don't respond to anything on pub here Um, basically people have to write an email to the [00:13:00] journals or whatever, which is like a completely, you know We we're only going to care about this if you really force us to care about it Um, I mean I can understand it in some context, but yeah, I agree in most cases.

It's a bit of a weak defense Um Yeah, I mean one question I had to maybe start off some kind of legal questions about this whole thing also is that It seems to me that uh in most cases people who obviously commit fraud and obviously in terms of they get fired from their jobs and these kind of things and let's say like it's we can use a shown example again, you know someone who Denies having done anything wrong per se or anything intentionally wrong Uh, but who's still you know lost His job, his title, and all this kind of stuff.

It seems to me in most cases these people don't go to prison for this. Um, and in, in many cases they, you know, lose their job and then they just have to have a career change and then that's kind of it. I mean you mentioned some examples earlier of people who [00:14:00] actually, uh, did get prosecuted in a, in a criminal sense.

But I'm just curious, like, why aren't people like, like Shuren or whatever other example you can think of? That might be a better fit. Why don't those people go to prison? Because I mean as we discussed Uh, you know, there's lots of financial consequences for this There's lots of researchers who lose several years of their lives for their careers Um trying to replicate things that don't exist I mean the the harm I think is fairly obvious in many cases, but like it seems to me that Usually you're forced to Yeah, it just seems to me like slightly other contexts it would, you would clearly go to prison for similar kind of fraud.

Um, but here then you don't. So I'm just curious from a legal perspective, like why, I mean, maybe there's many reasons, but yeah, why, why, why don't these people get to prison more often?

Eugenie Reich: So, uh, the reason scientific fraudsters don't get criminally prosecuted, um, as often as some, um, think they should, [00:15:00] I think there's two reasons. One is, the criminal law, um, for fraud would generally require intent, and quite a high level of intent. Um, there's actually lots of different kinds of culpable mental state, not just negligent or intentional.

But there's, um, things that we have in the U. S. at least, for misconduct, like recklessness, which might be a sort of gross negligence in, in some European jurisdictions. Really, uh, behaviors like blowing through a red flag, uh, that something's wrong and saying it anyway, type behavior. Um, that tends to be less likely to incur criminal, um, consequences than intentional fraud.

But it's very, very commonly, um, the case in, in misconduct cases that that level of culpability is there. So part of it is that we don't have the sort of, um, level of intent in [00:16:00] many of these cases that's needed for a criminal prosecution. And I think the other is, in a fraud case, there's generally something of value, which is usually money that's been diverted into the pocket of the fraudster in criminal fraud.

And the cases where there are prosecutions are often, not always, but they are often cases with a strong commercial motive, where that fraudulent scientist is directly making money out of what they're saying. We can think of things like the, um, There's the Theranos case in the US where the scientist involved Elizabeth Holmes, was claiming test results that that weren't true, but was financially benefiting.

And there's a, a recent indictment against the scientist involved in cassava Biosciences who was, um, benefiting, um, any scientist who takes grant funds and goes on holiday and uh, in other words, puts the money in their private bank [00:17:00] account. They're more likely to, to be criminally prosecuted. But if someone fakes data to get a grant, monies for which goes to their institution, not them, okay, some pays their salary, but they are not the direct recipient of the cash, and so they're not, you know, using it to go on holiday, they're using it to go and fabricate more data, or whatever they're doing.

But it's um, I think that you need, you, you face a bigger battle persuading a jury to someone, someone to jail when that person is going to show up and say, I really believed it and I never benefit myself. It was all for the greater good of science. Um, now we can do it, but let's talk about civil liability.

In most of my cases, we pressing for the institution to return grant funding. and to pay extra, um, damages that the US law [00:18:00] allows for grant funding, not the individual.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So just briefly, what's the difference between, uh, civil and criminal, just to make that clear.

Eugenie Reich: Yeah, so we have, um, in the criminal law, um, someone can go to jail. Their individual liberty is on the line and they might evade jail and have house arrest or they might pay fines, but it's personal to them and, uh, they, they could lose their liberty and be incarcerated. Um, in civil liability, it's, um, the realm of wrongs between, uh, different entities or individuals passing, compensating each other, uh, for the wrong they did.

If someone has to pay back the government because they defrauded grant funds, if an institution has to pay back the government, that's a civil case. Um, but if an individual scientist might go to jail for defrauding anybody, uh, that's a criminal case. So most of the time we're using the civil legal system [00:19:00] in scientific misconduct.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, and I believe, um, from what I understand, there's also slightly different levels of evidence required, right? Isn't the cri from what I understand, the, um, the cri well, you tell me. It's probably, yeah.

Eugenie Reich: right. So the burden of proof, I'm, I'm speaking about the US, but I think it, because I don't know the burden of proof in every jurisdiction where scientists are working, but the burden of proof for a criminal case is beyond a reasonable doubt. A reasonable doubt will keep someone out of jail. Um, in a civil case, it has to be more likely than not that they can, that they, um, committed the wrong action that's alleged, and if it's more likely than not, pay, pay back, pay back the money.

Um, so yeah, the burden of the, the standard you have to meet is different.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: And just to go back to, uh, just a sub, a sub question to what I had earlier, why they don't go to prison more often. Another example [00:20:00] of, I mean, one thing, for example, in the Schoen case, you know, he won awards, right? He got a fair amount of money, like cash prizes and that stuff. Uh, am I correct in assuming that, um, that's also not, like he didn't, you know, they gave the award to him rather than him taking it in that sense?

Is that the difference there? Why he can't, uh, be, be, uh, prosecuted for that? Because it's Yeah, something they did rather than, I mean, he profited from it, but not, um, through his own actions directly. Is that how that works, or?

Eugenie Reich: Yeah, I'm not, I'm not aware of Shen applying, like, filling out an application for any of the prices he got. I, I believe he may have returned a prize or two, I'm not sure about that. But you'd have to look at the terms and conditions for those prizes, and most likely that will end up being a, um, civil dispute between the prize giving organization and the scientist who's won the prize they shouldn't have won.

And the prize giving organization could bring a lawsuit to say, you've accepted a prize. [00:21:00] And we want the prize money back because you didn't tell us that you really did the work we awarded it for. Um, and depending on if they made the recipient sign something, something like that, they may be able to get the money back.

Or they may not, because if they're going around giving out prizes based on thinking someone got in Nature or Science so they need to get a prize, you know, a court might find that's on them. And the person accepting the prize really just got a present. Um, and you can't just ask someone for a present back that you gave them without them asking for it.

A grant is different. Of course, a grant application, you signed to say this is true. And you apply. So you're saying things to them. If that's not true, it's on you. But if someone goes around, you know, giving out honors and prizes, it's a bit like scattering money out of the back of a truck. You know, you can't go back and say, uh, I want this back.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Okay, then I won't do that. [00:22:00] Um,

Eugenie Reich: I mean, if you do it intentionally, I suppose if there's an accident and you drop your money out of your truck, then, uh, maybe you have some right to collect it. I don't know.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. Um, what's the Yeah, so I mean, basically, so this is not, uh, advice. But it seems to me that as a scientist, if you ever commit fraud, just say like, Oh yeah, no, I didn't mean to. And then that's enough for you to like not go to jail. Is that basically the summary of it? You can just pretend you made an honest mistake and, you know, it seems to me as if you said, like, you have to really, there's, there's, um, the, the intent behind the actions matches a lot in a criminal court.

And if you just deny that, then there's almost nothing you can do, basically. Um,

Eugenie Reich: a hierarchy of responses to whistleblowers in, in my, in my cases. And I think the first one is, What we said is right, the data is right. Um, the second [00:23:00] defen The second thing, if that doesn't work, um, then they, then they may try and I'm talking about someone committing fraud, not an honest scientist.

Then the second thing will be, Oh, the data is wrong, but we made it because there's a mistake. And we'll correct it and here's the right data. Our conclusions are unaffected. The next step will be, Well, the data is wrong, but Because we process the data using, using an undisclosed processing technique.

Maybe it was poor judgment on our part, but the conclusions are unaffected when we, when we correct that. And you know, the, the, the final thing might be, uh, someone on our team or, or we fabricated this data or manipulated this data and we did do it, our conclusions are still unaffected, it was just cosmetic.

And then, you know, ultimately, you know, you get into sort of. admissions, like, we did fabricate some data, our conclusion, or someone on our team did, our conclusions could be [00:24:00] impacted, um, we'll retract the paper, and no one else involved did anything wrong. And it's really just all the fault of one person.

So that's a kind of sliding scale. And I start to feel that cases are gaining traction when people are getting responses like someone showed poor judgment or it's data processing or data mishandling. And another one I didn't mention, we've lost the records so we don't know, we've lost the data so we don't know.

Those types of responses are in the direction of success for a whistleblower, and responses like, it's really just a mistake, or the data's accurate, uh, are examples of sort of non admissions, where you're gonna have to prove it all from the ground up. Um, so yeah, that's, those are the differences, um, that I see.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I think my favorite type of correction note is always the one where it's like, yes, there are all these errors and all these figures and analysis are wrong, but this [00:25:00]doesn't affect our results. It's like, how can all of this be wrong? And it doesn't have any effect on your results or your conclusions rather.

Um, yeah, but yeah, maybe, maybe just to, to, to finish off the, this kind of frauds is going to jail kind of question I had. Um, I think you wrote, I think, you know, book actually that Eric. Paulman, however you pronounce that, uh, was, was the first scientist to be jailed for fraud in 2006, um, I think. I just have that in my notes somewhere.

Um, I'm just curious if you can comment on that case, or maybe a different one, where it was kind of clearly a scientist doing academic research and then being, uh, um, uh, What's the word? Indicted fraud? Uh, I don't know whether that's the word, right, verb. But, um, yeah, just to give some examples of where it did lead to a conviction.

Yeah, what was kind of involved in maybe that case, or whatever case you think maybe makes the most sense.

Eugenie Reich: Hmm. Well, Eric Polman, I don't know that he was the first scientist to be prosecuted, but I think it's the first I'm aware of. [00:26:00] Um, he fabricated, uh, data on longitudinal studies of, of women going through menopause, and he just fabricated information about patients who never existed and he'd never enrolled, and he used it to obtain grant funding.

From the NIH and I think one of I, he did become nasty when he was accused, so he, he, he retaliated against the whistleblower and he sued to try to prevent his institution informing the government about the fraudulent grants and what I heard, and I wasn't there, I didn't even report on it, but what I heard from, I think I read.

is that he went to court to sue to prevent his, the investigation report being disclosed, and that a year or two later, he was back in the same courtroom. He got the same judge in a criminal [00:27:00]prosecution of himself for, for trying to hide that. And so we do see, um, some scientists, Um, and there are other examples where scientists who were accused of fraud making the mistake of engaging the legal system and getting involved with lawyers and judges and courts in a way that kind of gets them on the radar of the authorities when they might not otherwise be, um, and Pullman's an example of that.

And there are other examples where scientists accused of fraud make the mistake of suing their institution, suing the whistleblower, suing their critics, and if they kind of go there first, They're actually more likely to end up with their own legal consequences than if they just kind of mumble and retract their papers for making a silly mistake and say thank you so much for pointing out my, um, um, mistake aka fraud.

Um, I'll correct it now. They're more, they're less, they're more likely to get away with it if they at least do that. [00:28:00] So, yeah, that's, that's the reality.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So it's a kind of legal, stricent effect, or something like that. But what's the, um, I don't know whether you can comment on this, and, you know, I can take the question out if you can't comment on it. Um, and maybe for context, we are recording this in mid August, um, 2024. But it seems to me, you know, when you said he made the mistake of uh You know suing his institution and that kind of stuff I mean the the big case right now is with francesca.

Gina, right who did exactly that? Uh when she sued harvard and the data collado people, I don't know where you can I mean, obviously this is still ongoing um, and I don't actually know whether this is criminal civil, um, but I'm curious. Um, what do you? I mean, this is a very vague question, but like what do you make of this situation where?

She sued, uh, the whis I mean it's not even whistleblowers per se, it's just people writing about stuff they found on their papers. I don't know whether there's a legal definition, uh, difference there. But, just immediately reminded me of, [00:29:00] of this case.

Eugenie Reich: I don't have any comment on any unfolding case now, really, uh, giving an opinion about it, but I will, I will reiterate that it's almost always a mistake for a scientist accused of misconduct who, who knows there's evidence for, for the, supportive of the accusations. to engage the legal system against the, those bringing the concerns forward.

It's almost always a mistake for them, be it a case for, um, defamation or libel or, or a case for some kind of privacy case, preventing information being given to the government, or be it a case for a breach of interference with my contractual arrangements and different kinds of cases that people bring.

Um, Unless their defense is very strong and they can prove that the attack is malicious, it usually doesn't turn out well for them. [00:30:00] And that's a general statement, and that's really the most I can say.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Okay, then I won't ask any more about that, but as about the general thing, is it, is it because, I'm just kind of curious why, is it because you're allowing invest, what's it called, discovery, um, to, to find out stuff that maybe you would rather want hidden? Is that why or why exactly is it a mistake?

Eugenie Reich: I will say that, um, in the United State in the United States, discovery, which is a process of exchange of evidence at the two sides with each other in a law in a lawsuit, including in civil lawsuits, discovery is very far reaching, and it's far more far reaching, further reaching than freedom of information.

So you might not be able to get a record under freedom of information, but in a, in a lawsuit, if you're someone who's been wronged or who's being accused of wronging someone else, um, you may, you may actually be entitled to it. And if it's confidential information, it may get to you [00:31:00] under a protective order or confidentiality agreement.

It's not going to go on the public court docket right away, but it is exchanged. And, um, there's a big difference between secrecy. when, you know, the only person who knows certain information is the person with an interest in hiding it, and confidentiality, when the information starts getting to people with different interests, and they see it in discovery, they might not be at liberty to release it to the public yet, but they do see it, and their lawyers see it, and they, they start having that awareness um, in a larger group, and there can be negotiation of a things eventually coming out.

And certainly in trials, anything that becomes evidence in a trial, unless it's very, very sensitive for someone, will, will become publicly known. So discovery is quite powerful and, you know, I've enjoyed being part of [00:32:00] lawsuits where we received information and discovery that, that was really quite enlightening in light of what had been said previously before that.

organization had to, had to participate in discovery. And of course there is discovery abuse where information that should be handed over isn't. Um, but it works better than you would think naively.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I see. So, so it turns out me watching Suits and Better Call Saul actually taught me, taught me something about the legal system. So that's, that's nice to see. Um, Um, Maybe to, uh, change the perspective a little bit here. Let's say, uh, so I've, uh, done a few episodes on people finding stuff in papers and reporting it or trying to report it or these kinds of things.

And, um, So I'd like to take the perspective of people who are reporting things. I don't know whether all of this counts as whistleblowing or what exactly. I think whistleblowing to me seems it's more [00:33:00] like hidden information rather than public information, but maybe you can clarify that. Um, but basically as a broad opening question, maybe kind of like, what am I allowed to do if I, as a whistleblower, if I have information that someone Potentially committed fraud or there's duplicated images or whatever it might be, um, are there in a scientific, I'm assuming now a kind of scientific academic thing, not I'm working for a company that, I don't know, has, um, NDAs or whatever, um, I'm assuming like a scientific research, let's say I have some sort of evidence that one of my Colleagues or paper I read contains some sort of fraud.

What am I allowed, what am I allowed to do, uh, legally so I don't get in trouble myself? Um, yeah.

Eugenie Reich: So first of all, I'll preface this by saying if someone's in that situation, they may want to ask. their own lawyer and give their own lawyer, um, anything, any [00:34:00] arran employment arrangements, um, that they've made copies of the, of, of any agreements and so on. Um, so I'm not going to give legal advice to anyone who's listening because I can't, because I don't know their private situation, but I will say that generally if people have not signed a non disclosure agreement or a confidentiality agreement and they're at a university, not a company.

They do have much more freedom to voice consents publicly than the institutional lawyer will tell them they have. So you said Ben, you asked an interesting question, are they allowed? It depends who they ask. Um, being allowed to do something is, um, sort of can be a little bit in the eye of the beholder, but it's all about risk.

So you could release something that you know, a sort of, uh, proactive, can do lawyer like me might say, [00:35:00] I don't see any reason you can't release that legally, but you could have a consequence where they allege that you shouldn't have released it. So you cannot, you know, prevent someone saying you did something you're not allowed to do.

I will say the number of times I see institutions telling people, this has to be confidential. When, what they mean is we, the institution have to be, have to keep it confidential. So if you come and ask us, we are gonna tell you that that's not the same as saying that an individual citizen, um, with awareness of a diversion of public money, that that person has to obey, uh, the preference of, of the institutional lawyer that they've asked for to give them an opinion.

I can't think of any institutional lawyer that's going to respond to a question from an employee saying, uh, can I disseminate knowledge of fraud at our institution by saying, oh, of course you can send that to the New York Times, put it on Twitter, do what you like. [00:36:00] They're not going to say that. So if they say, no, you can't, it doesn't necessarily mean they're right.

So I know this is not a helpful response, but I will say that I think of, of allegations in two buckets. Most of the information is publicly available, like data's been released that you are or published that you're using to formulate the allegation. You're probably in better shape to go public with that allegation than if all the information is confidential and you're the person who I witnessed it or gathered it or has access.

'cause when you go public with the second scenario. It's going to look like he said, she said in the public debate. There's going to be rows over whether you should have released that data or talked about that data. Whereas if most of your support is in the public domain or enough of it is, then while you put your data out there, I'm going to put my critique out there as long as you're responsible [00:37:00] in how you do it.

So that's just a framework, but it's not the answer to any individual's situation.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Um, yeah, so maybe to, to provide a few, uh, a little bit more like concrete examples or something like here, um, to, to kind of, uh, underline the point you made. So if I understand you correctly, um, then, you know, let's say, let's take a famous example. If Elizabeth Bick Uh, says these two images in this published paper are, to me, there's these two parts that are identical, I think this is an image duplication, then that's just standard scientific critique and you're, you're just commenting on something that's already out there and you're stating your opinions, versus if you hear that someone says someone made up their data and you just put that on Twitter that this person made up their data because you heard something once, then I'm assuming, uh, you're, you're That is the kind of thing where they could sue you, uh, for, I don't know, defamation, libel, I don't know exactly what those words mean, but, um, Am I correct in assuming that's kind of what, like, you know, the more public and concrete and factual the evidence [00:38:00] is, the less of a problem you are in, and the more kind of, uh, private and, Uh, the subjective, the evidence is the, the, the more you, the higher the risk is that you put yourself in some sort of problem legally.

Eugenie Reich: So, uh, I would definitely, I don't see it as the same thing to, to say that evidence is public as to say it's objective in fact, and more objective or more factual than

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: No, I mean, these are two separate variables.

Eugenie Reich: I've seen, I've seen incredibly strong cases where evidence is, is, is not public. And for good reason, sometimes.

And I've seen, uh, cases where evidence is public, where the whistleblower's gonna struggle, um, to defend their critique. Or, or maybe it is subjective even, and in the, in, in the allegation will not be, will not gain traction, even [00:39:00] though the evidence is public. I'm just saying that, uh, let's say you believe, a whistleblower believes their allegation, they're gonna be in better shape if they base it on public information and and show their work, like show their analysis and their workflow, as a lot of people do who are in the sort of area of whistleblower slash sleuth slash critic data analyst type area.

They do show their work. Um, and I'm just saying if the information's public anyway, then, you know, you can have a debate and someone can come back and defend their work and everyone can discuss it. But if, um, You could have a very strong packet of information and really need to think strategically about where you send that and how you bring it forward, especially if you have signed a non disclosure or there's a confidentiality rule at your organization.

And then, then you really need, um, [00:40:00] you know, legal advice. Um, you, you might benefit, anyone can benefit from it, who's going to make this type of allegation, but. This is, and, and there's cases that are both, where someone will go public with the, with the information that got, people will go public with an allegation they can support based on what's in a paper.

And they have information that's informed them, that's confidential, sources or their own observations that they're not able or willing to share publicly right now. But they still can't defend what they say publicly with what's available publicly. Right. So I'm not saying don't bring it forward, I'm just saying if all your evidence is confidential, then you're going to need to do it with a bit, with more of a strategic eye to protect yourself and to make it persuasive when you, when or if you bring it forward.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Am I correct in assuming that non disclosure agreements [00:41:00]are void if you witness something criminal or you believe to witness something criminal? Is that correct? Oh,

Eugenie Reich: I think, I think that's likely to be right, but there's a difference between observing criminal activity and thinking you've observed it. or seeing some evidence of it. So people definitely will, um, need some advice if they've signed something. If they signed a non disclosure agreement, I think they need advice, legal advice.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: okay. Um, One thing, and I'm not sure this might be the kind of question that is just so specific to the situation that it's very difficult to say anything general about, but I'm, I'm basically trying to put myself, uh, right now into the shoes of some of the people who, let's take the Schoen example, just because we discussed it, you know, someone who thinks they might see something that's really off.

And in, um, I mean, it seems like in the Schoen case, you know, this came out by like [00:42:00] a collective, because he basically made so much noise with all this publication that became this like collective murmur of people just telling stories. And then at some point it just like reached a critical point. Um, but in most cases, I'm assuming people are not gonna, you know, people don't make up that much stuff basically.

So I'm trying to like put myself down in the shoes of someone who thinks that. You know, for whatever reason, someone, they, you That someone committed fraud, made up data or whatever, that kind of thing. Um, it seems to me that there's a Uh, I mean, there's a separate question, a moral question, right? Um, of whether you think you should pursue this or not.

That's a separate question. Uh, but let's say someone really thinks it's, uh, someone is really committing fraud and doing harm. I'm just curious, like, what you can actually do as an individual in this situation. Because, you know, you can't do your own investigation, right? Like, this, this isn't Hollywood where you, like, uh, uh, do some sort of detective work and then find that out.

But I'm just curious, what, what are [00:43:00] the options for someone? Let's say you, you've heard, let's say someone just makes up their data, but you can't really prove it. You know, they're doing it fairly smartly, but for some, again, it's really difficult to do specifically, but for some reason there seems to be some actually like serious Some sort of, like, it's not just like, someone just talking shit about someone else.

Um, but I'm curious, is there anything you can do other than, like, report it to somewhere and hope to, like, a university ethics thing or whatever and hope that they do something about it or, um, I don't know whether there's anything you can say about this kind of thing.

Eugenie Reich: If, if you suspect that someone is committing fraud but you don't have evidence for it, then there's nothing you can do and there shouldn't be. But if you have some evidence that isn't persuasive. you can investigate and attempt to gather more evidence. And if you can't gather enough evidence to be persuasive and to [00:44:00] persuade anyone except yourself, then I don't think there's much you can do.

Um, remember that your own testimony is a type of evidence. So if a credible person who saw something, they do have evidence because they They can testify to that under oath and they can be believed. But if someone only has their own testimony and no other evidence, uh, then they will struggle to persuade other people.

Like a large group, some people will believe them and some won't. So, you know, at some point a person makes a judgment call, I have enough evidence to bring this forward. And other people are going to agree, agree not just me when they see this evidence. And, uh, you, you mentioned, Ben, that it's questionable whether people can investigate their suspicions.

Of course people can investigate their suspicions. I mean, you cannot break into [00:45:00] someone's house with a warrant like the police can, but there's all kinds of, um, circumstances that accompany, um, fraudulent science that, uh, that can be determined by, by someone who's motivated to investigate it. Sometimes.

Even backing up before fraud suspicions take hold, methods that are used for understanding the reliability of scientific claim also contribute to a fraud investigation if there's a fraud. So if you make a data request and they don't share their data, that undermines the, um, amount of trust people have in their scientific claims right away.

Um, but also if there's other evidence for fraud. Then the failure to share data is, is part of the evidence because if they knew their claims were right, then unless there's some proprietary trade secret in there, they should be happy to share it. So, [00:46:00] um, or they've lost it, um, then they should be happy to share it.

So I would say start with, and people do this. So this is just descriptive. People start by asking questions, trying to understand, asking for more data, asking for more method details, just like a scientist who doesn't suspect fraud does, because they want to get to the right scientific consensus in their community and their field.

And at some point, they may start investigating with suspicion, and at some point they may let it be known that they are, or they may just do it covertly. Um, but yeah, you can investigate. You don't have the power of, of law enforcement, but you have, anybody can, can investigate. So, you know, and I, I wouldn't, I wouldn't allege fraud by someone just based on a sort of sense that something is off without, uh, gathering any evidence that it's, that you have a basis for [00:47:00] believing they're engaged in fraud.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. Okay. But I guess, like, for example, you said like, you know, asking for data and, uh, or for more experimental details, that kind of stuff, I suppose, uh, useful to do that in some sort of documented form, like email or something like that, rather than, yeah, if they just tell you, then they can say like, no, that's not what I said.

You didn't ask me or whatever, right?

Eugenie Reich: Right. I mean, I remember hearing from Luke Van Paris, who's the MIT scientist who I think is the first person where I contributed substantially to investigating. I remember hearing sometime later, one of his, um, students asked him in an email something about the data. And instead of answering in the email, he called the guy in and answered him in person.

And And the guy at that point, his suspicion took hold because he said, why doesn't, if this is true, why doesn't he put this in an email? And he began to see sort of [00:48:00] behaviors of not having scientific discourse in email that would be so much more convenient to have an email since then everyone can get, can get the answer at the same time and the discussion can, everyone can go back and check.

And when people start. Doing too much of I'm, I'm not going to put it in an email when it's scientific work, then you, you wonder why.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Okay. Uh, so let's say, you know, let's say I've been, uh, uh, yeah, basically let's say I've reported something. And now I get sued. I mean, again, you can't comment on the current case, but like a current example might be something like the data collateral of Francesco Gino kind of thing. Um, Uh, what do I do? Do I just search for Fraud?

Well, no, not fraud, but like whatever, actually what first, what legal type would I be even looking for? And, um, but I mean, am I correct in assuming like as soon as some sort of accusation is made against me, I should just seek legal counsel [00:49:00] first? And that's step one, two, and three, basically. Um, I

Eugenie Reich: what to do if someone accuses you of fraud?

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: didn't think of that. I meant it more like, let's, I was thinking of like, I report something, I am a whistleblower, and then I get accused of it. But I guess actually the other one is also. Also a fair question, but maybe let's take the, the one I initially intended first. Um, I am accused, well, I, I, I, I blow a whistle and someone then sues me for that.

Eugenie Reich: Well, if you're sued, you need a lawyer.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: That's just it, right?

Eugenie Reich: because it's not, it's not, um, a good idea to mount your own defense in any jurisdiction. It's very challenging. I know because I filed a Freedom of Information Act case pro se, meaning on my own without a lawyer initially in 2009. It's very, it's bewildering, um, enough for a lawyer to deal with the courts.

So yeah, if you are sued or gonna be, or gonna be sued or there's a [00:50:00] threat, threat to sue, I think you need a lawyer. Um, I think people need lawyers, um, or can benefit from discussions. with lawyers, um, even when they're not in the courts yet, um, but there's not really enough available to whistleblowers.

There are defense lawyers who will defend people accused of misconduct. There's a lot of them but they are expensive. So for a junior researcher it's, you know, the cost might be prohibitive but they may need it, um, and they may pay because it's their education or their career really on the line.

Whistleblowers tend not to seek legal advice as soon, even though I think they can benefit from it.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Um, what type of, uh, law? I mean, basically what type of lawyer would I be looking for exactly? Because, I mean, I, there's a, there's a big German true crime podcast and it seems they, they've done a few things on false convictions and in almost, not in almost every case, but in a lot of the cases people just got the [00:51:00] completely wrong type of lawyer to, to support them who then just completely messed up the case.

Um, what exact, what time of law am I looking at in this, in this case?

Eugenie Reich: Well, so I think, uh, people, people who need, who want a lawyer for a research integrity dispute that they're in, ideally they want a lawyer focused on scientific integrity, but, you know, if you can't get that, then Even when you get that, you need to understand, is this lawyer mostly defending? Is this more, is this lawyer more working on First Amendment, where they, in the US, meaning freedom of speech, the right of, in Europe, any democracy has it, the right of the individual to speak publicly and voice, share and participate in debate and discussion publicly.

Is it, do they need that type of lawyer if they're going public? And so on. So, um, it's You know, you need to un [00:52:00] understand what type of clients that lawyer has had and see whether they've had any, doing something similar to, to what you want to do. And hopefully you get someone close enough that if they're not, it's not right for them, it can tell you 'cause they know enough to know, okay, go to someone who does this.

But, you know, there's not many, you know, so I say two things, research misconduct and research integrity is its own specialty. Specialty might not be the right word. It's its own focus area. And then, uh, whether the person is, um, mostly defending or mostly pressing allegations is another focus area. And I've seen people hire whistleblowers, hire lawyers, who specialize in research integrity, but who are always defending.

And they tend to give very conservative advice to the whistleblowers, because they're mostly like, Oh, don't bring an allegation forward, because [00:53:00] that's what's bad for them in most of their cases. Uh, whereas I'd be the opposite. I'm defending someone and then I'd be like, You did what? You know, because I'm more in the prosecutorial, uh, side.

So people have different, um, and there's a space for both. Uh. So people have different, you know, mindsets.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Okay, so you also have to find a kind of personality to some extent that matches the,

Eugenie Reich: I think so. Yeah, the personality is important because some of these cases go on for a while. So if you don't like the person, then that will be more challenging to work together. It's not the most important thing, but it does matter.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: it's funny. I guess, like, I mean, it seems to me, I think, um, at least the people I talk to have very little contact to the law in any, like, formal sense. And, um, It's funny that you mentioned that because I had this, this, uh, in my PhD, I had this really random thing when I was accused of fraud in a really weird situation, short as like someone used my bank card for something, but somehow the [00:54:00] money didn't get through.

And some of them, the company sued me. It was really weird. Um, anyway, you know, I ended up hiring a lawyer who focused on like this kind of financial, uh, frauds and that kind of stuff. And, um, but basically I was, um, And then it went away, like, immediately, um, because it was completely ridiculous, but, um, it was, I, I, there were kind of, as I was looking for lawyers, uh, there was, I called two people, and the one guy, he just, he just, I mean, annoyed me is the wrong word, but he just kept calling me.

Making me more and more anxious about the thing Like just kept like showing all the things that could go wrong with it And then there was this other guy who had this like very nice known like no nonsense Like here's what we're gonna do. This is what it's gonna be. I was like, oh, yes. Thank you I want to work with that guy and it's funny I hadn't even thought about it that much but now that you mentioned like the personality of the lawyers that they have to like Suit your own because you will be talking to them for a few times at least um Yeah, never thought about how [00:55:00] important that would be to in this situation, but yeah, it makes sense.

Eugenie Reich: Yeah, I mean, you do, all lawyers, like part of what they have to do sometimes is Like we, like lawyers have a duty of candor, which means that you, you sometimes have to say something that the clients don't want to hear. So that, you know, it's not always easy conversations, but hopefully there's, there is a personal connection that's a, that's reasonable behind it.

And if someone's telling you about a thing that's concerning or scary, they're also telling you how they can mitigate the risk of it. So, you know, and. I, in my experience, fear of retaliation, fear of legal consequences like getting sued is greater than, um, than justified because we see high profile cases where someone does sue gets loads of attention.

And then people feel like they can't even make a data request to their colleague as a result of it. So, [00:56:00] people, people become too fearful, have become too fearful, and it's chilling, these big lawsuits that get in the news are chilling, um, people, people's discussion and expression far more than they need to, uh, in terms of the likelihood that they have true legal risk.

Um, so that's unfortunate.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. Um, yeah. One kind of question that's a little bit broad. I mean, I guess all of these are kind of broad, but, um, Kind of what tactics, if you're aware of this, like what tactics do fraudsters use to attack whistleblowers was one question I have because it seems that in the, in a nice heuristic that I've, I've heard, I think Elizabeth Bix saying that, is that like, um, you know, people who commit fraud.

Or by the response that people give you, you can often, it tells you something about whether they committed an honest error or whether they actually committed something wrong, because it seems like the people who committed an error [00:57:00] immediately say like, Oh, yes, sorry. Thank you for correcting it. And then they, you know, get a correction.

Whereas other people basically says like, if people attack me, I know there's more there. I'm just curious, like what, what tactics are you aware of that? Let's say I'm a whistleblower, right? I say something, um, like intimidation tactics and that kind of stuff. Are you aware of like some that are used and like what you can do against it or which, you know, are just empty threats and that kind of stuff?

Eugenie Reich: I mean, in terms of, uh, responses to whistleblowing, there's obviously ad hominem retaliation, like, this person is disgruntled, this person is a competitor, this person is malicious, this person is engaged in, um, in trying to sort of win trophies unfairly, and, um, so there's ad hominem attacks like that, and there and there are more subtle attacks, which are things like Uh, this person has misunderstood, or [00:58:00] this person hasn't, I've miscommunicated with this person, or this person doesn't have full information.

This person is an isolated, sort of, miscomprehending, uncomprehending, um, student, or, so sort of not impugning, not, not overtly retaliating, but in fact undermining the person, the person's Sort of basis without really engaging with the evidence fully. So more covert kind of retaliation, you know. And then there's, um, and, and there's things like smear campaigns.

There's counter allegations. There's attempts to manage things with people who are about to find out, like the journal or the, or the, um, institution. Like giving a heads up to people in the field who you think are gonna hear about it from someone else anyway. And maybe throw in a sort of. subtle smear about where this is coming from at the time, so not [00:59:00] all retaliation is, is that easy to locate, is that easy to prove or, and some, some of it is in the area of legitimate defense, like people are allowed to defend themselves.

I don't know if I completely agree that, I do agree that like a really vicious, uh, retaliatory response is, probably a sign of culpability, because why, if you've got a good response and you haven't done anything wrong, why not offer that? Why, why offer a sort of ambiguous personal fight as your response when you have a great rational response?

So I agree with that, but I don't, I think, uh, uh, saying, oh dear, it's a mistake, I'll correct it. That can be a sophisticated response by someone who is guilty of fraud to begin with, but realizes Uh, that they're better off and it's more strategic for them to just admit error. and then [01:00:00] profess, uh, innocence in terms of intentions.

There are examples that go down in the literature as errors that are probably fraud or misconduct. But, you know, I think if someone's saying, well, if someone made a vicious retaliatory response against me and I took it as a sign of culpability, I, I, I understand what they're saying. And I think a juror, juries would too.

And sort of someone who's not in the dispute would too. But it all depends how it's brought forward. Like some people bring their allegations forward in a, in an impolitic way and so they could draw a very defensive response from someone who is innocent. If they've been offensive, offensive or had some overtones or uncivil parts to their way they phrase their allegation.

But if it's a civil factual allegation then, and it draws a vicious uh, dominant response, I would be suspicious.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, and I guess once, uh, the way to protect yourself against that, [01:01:00] uh, is, I guess it's just really going to depend on what exactly they do, because it can be such a broad range from just belittling you and saying you don't understand what you're doing to outright threatening litigation, or, I don't know, is litigation the right word?

But, um, uh, so I guess it was just going to depend really on, so what's the best kind of advice? Well, it depends on the situation, um, um, um, um. Related question a little bit to here. Are there any organizations that offer financial help? You mentioned for example that if especially your junior Uh, or or if you're senior and just bad with your money You might uh You know having a defense lawyer can be very expensive I mean in my case, I think I paid like 700 euros or something like that Just to write a few emails basically in letters to various institutions and uh That's a lot of money if you don't have a lot of it.

Yeah. Are there any kind of is, uh, are there any kind of institutions that offer help financially or [01:02:00] directly legally?

Eugenie Reich: So I, my firm has offered pro bono, meaning free, um, legal advice to whistleblowers who, if I think they need it and it's important and they can't afford to pay. And I've offered most of my clients on a contingent fee arrangement where if the case recovers money, they'll pay me then. Um, and lots of U. S.

lawyers operate contingent fee practices, but it's only an option when The dispute is likely to bring money in. So you have to be on the affirmative side for that to be a likelihood. On the defense side, defending a legal claim, there's a small chance that a contingent lawyer might take it if it's malicious enough that the court will shift fees and make the plaintiff, the complainant, pay the fees.

But most of the time People need pro bono advice or in the U [01:03:00] S there's an organization called the scientific integrity fund, which is being administered by university impact, which is a organization that has offered legal fee grants for people involved in litigation when they were whistleblowing. I'm not associated with them.

I'm not on their board or anything, but I am one of the lawyers who Who has had a client whose fee has at some time been paid by them, which I, I think there's other lawyers too. Um, but there's no, it's, it's independent in the sense that if they don't want to support a particular client or a particular case, then they won't give a grant to that client.

And then. Um, but I, they know me, I know them, but not well, um, there's no relationship. There is, there are GoFundMes that people have set up. If the case is high profile, the community chips in [01:04:00] and has offered support for people. And then there are, there are some pro democracy or, or pro transparency foundations that may support this type of thing.

But yeah, there's a need for more resourcing and more legal services in this area. Absolutely.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. And I guess one can always ask a lawyer probably if they could do pro bono cases or something like that, I'm assuming. And then worst case is they'll say, no, they don't. I don't know. Are you obliged to do this or is this,

Eugenie Reich: I'm not obliged to do it. Um, and I'm not doing cases that are really very, very time intensive or in litigation pro bono, but I am doing quite a lot of it. And I try to refer people if I can't help them to somewhere that can help them. Um, and there's certain organizations that like if they're associated with the federal government, there are organizations that help scientists in the federal government, um, who have a particular, the U.

S. federal [01:05:00] government. So there, uh, and there are pro bono programs of, uh, major law firms, especially in U. S. jurisdictions that have to, um, where the lawyers have to do some pro bono work. And sometimes the big law firms use this for training. Um, So they'll have a, they give a pro bono case and I don't know if it's right, but they'll give a pro bono case to a junior associate that the first time they go in court, maybe it'll be for the pro bono client, the paying client will get them what now they have the experience.

So they, there are programs like that, that benefit the law firm. But someone, there are, there are legal services clinics at some of the law schools. Where are they helping scientists? I've seen one at my alma mater for law school, Boston University, has a technology clinic with some legal services. I don't think it's doing what I'm doing, but it's, uh, it's done some freedom of information work for researchers wanting data to [01:06:00] analyze or, uh, for their research.

So they're doing things like that. So there's some things that are on my radar, but for sure it's an underserved area.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, maybe to, to finish this off, uh, I was curious one thing, uh, about, um, so one thing I, you know, often like to ask science is like, kind of, you know, we, we would discuss a paper and then we'll say like, Oh, what do you want to do after this? Because often, you know, when you do research, there's an obvious next thing you want to do.

And I was just curious what this would be for you or for someone working in the law, because it seems to me like it's a different kind of job, um, where, um, I guess we try and dream of some project and then make it happen. Um, I don't know. Maybe it's the same for lawyers in a different context, but it seems to me more there.

It's kind of a client comes to you and you see if you can defend them. But I was just kind of curious, uh, what the Yeah, kind of in in your career now kind of are there Is it just provide the best legal advice to people and help, you know, [01:07:00] whistleblowers in a kind of um, Not what's the word? uh active Active role kind of I don't know, basically what are your kind of, what do you want to do in the next few years in your career?

Eugenie Reich: So I, I mean, in the, in the medium term, I want to get successful resolution in the matters I have now because I have, um, a number of clients who I'm helping now and I want to see their cases resolved in a positive way. Um, we get bad work retracted and, and we, um, protect them and we recover grant funding and get them some compensation for their work and their time which there are programs in the US that allow for that.

So that's a medium term and then longer term I'd probably like to grow my firm so that we can do more of it and help more people and that we can help more people who don't have prospects for compensation so that we can afford to help, we can do more pro [01:08:00] bono assistance. Um, but that will require growing my firm, and either I'll, I'll, I'll seek some kind of litigation financing, which means that the firm will pay back the lender as it, as it makes money on the affirmative cases, or, or we'll get, or we'll have non profit work where we work with the foundations.

So um, sort of two ways of growing the firm. If I, if it's not practical to grow it, or if I find it takes way too much time to administer, then I would probably continue working as I do. But almost all my cases, I have other solo law practices, small firms that cooperate with me and I staff them by case.

And in the meantime, I learned from their established law firms and they learned something from me about how to help a scientific whistleblower. So. more firm to become [01:09:00] knowledgeable. And then when I can't take a case, I can say, you know, my colleague here, my colleague there, they don't do it full time, but they've done a couple of cases with me.

Maybe they, maybe this interests them. So that's another way that the, it can become a, um, a broader activity involving more people. Um, even if I don't grow my firm.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Okay, great. Um, yeah, well then thank you very much for your time and the not legal advice, but helping us clarify some things about the legal system.

Eugenie Reich: Yeah. Okay. Well, uh, thank you for the opportunity.