EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION The Broad Scope of Consumer Protection ROBERT ROSBOROUGH
The term “consumer protection” often conjures images of a recalled product or a warning label but it encompasses a wide array of laws and regulations. Especially with our pandemic-driven, increasingly
online lives, consumer protection encompasses data privacy and security as they become ever more important for our clients, our firms and ourselves. Celine Guillou gives us a handy primer on the regulation of personal information and
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how organizations should approach protecting it. (For an excellent primer on protecting
combatting price gouging in the county. MCBA board member Mary Sackett sheds
your own personal information, see George
some light on how this little-known agency
Usi’s article from our March issue.)
protects consumers by regulating prices and
Consumer protection also extends to the
packaging whether we’re in a pandemic or not.
challenging and often heartbreaking arena of elder scams. Cheating elders out of their sav-
I think it is fair to say that the pandemic is not
ings is an enormous industry, estimated at well over $30 billion annually. By far the most
related to the retirement of our beloved Public Defender Jose Varela. MCBA board mem-
effective way to reduce the damage is by raising awareness. Ella Krainsky, from the Marin
ber Karthik Raju profiles Jose, concentrating on the innovative approach Jose has taken
District Attorney’s Consumer Protection
throughout his career, and giving us an in-
Unit, educates us on some of the “popular” current elder scams and where to turn when
sightful glimpse of a remarkable lawyer, person and poet. And I promise that Karthik
someone has been victimized by one.
wrote the article after Jose stopped being Karthik’s boss!
The pandemic reminded us of another way the unscrupulous take advantage of consum-
If you missed (or even if you didn’t) MCBA’s
ers: price gouging. I bet that most of you are not aware that Marin’s own Division of
May Town Hall with Judges Sweet, Adams, and Freccero regarding how Marin’s courts
Weights and Measures is responsible for
are faring under pandemic restrictions and
THE MARIN LAWYER An Official Publication of the Marin County Bar Association
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