Talk:Marc Elias

Merge suggestion

All references found to Marc Elias are in conjunction with the legal situation regarding seating Al Franken in the U.S. Senate. Most mentions are to Franken's lawyers, occasionally to "Franken attorney Marc Elias". Apart from his relationship to Franken, there is no evidence of additional notability. I suggest a merge per WP:BIO#Failing basic criteria but meeting additional criteria. — ERcheck (talk) 17:03, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm not seeing any evidence that this person is notable. A merge to Franken 's article seems reasonable.--Rtphokie (talk) 17:10, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I disagree. Sure if you look at references from late 2008 up until now you will only see information related to Senator-elect Franken's case, but Mr. Elias has a long history of notable public work. A quick look on google news focusing on 1999-2007, [1] shows 26,400 hits. Most of these are related to his legal work on behalf of Democratic politicians. Merging this article into Franken's makes little if any sense. He has represented New Jersey Governor John Corzine, he was general counsel for John Kerry's 2004 presidential run, he has represented the DSCC, and many others. This article needs some work, but I am convinced Mr. Elias is notable, and even if he is deemed not notable it still makes no sense to merge him into Franken's article. TharsHammar (talk) 18:41, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Please add above information to the article. Thanks. — ERcheck (talk) 18:55, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I intend to add this information to the article, but I probably won't have time today. I can probably add the information by Tuesday. Since there is nothing factually incorrect in the article that time frame should be fine, right? TharsHammar (talk) 19:03, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I've added more information about Mr. Elias's work. At this time it would appear that he is notable enough to warrant a wikipedia page. DoryGuy (talk) 22:50, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Rewrite

Looking at this article: there's a lot of work to do. There's a good chunk which is no more than a list of cases he's worked on with a primary source document as well as a link to a website for an organization that Elias runs. The article feels more like a résumé in its current form than an encyclopedic article written in line with our quality standards that also advertises which bar associations Elias is a part of. — Mhawk10 (talk) 21:25, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

I have removed the “cleanup rewrite”, “advert”, and “resume” tags seeing no justification for them. I see no puffery ("advert"), and the article recounts his career in a way similar to any other article about an attorney. The “sources” tags remain to be discussed, and improved if possible. -- MelanieN (talk) 01:11, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

The cleanup rewrite tag is there because almost all of the content in the largest section doesn’t have any source attached to it that actually establishes due weight (a court case document is extremely primary, and him publishing it on his website doesn’t help in this respect). The article is a giant list in its current form, which is very much different from how a prose BLP should be written; because of this I will restore the cleanup rewrite tag until this sort of stuff can be fixed—large portions of this article need to be rewritten in my view. — Mhawk10 (talk) 03:22, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

While I don't disagree that this article can be improved, I wonder about the complaint about listing some of the court cases won. The listing isn't a bunch of domestic disputes or criminal cases but rather those fought for voting rights which Mr. Elias has been leading. How can one discuss a lawyer without also citing the cases that are what make that lawyer notable? And are not voting rights cases about the core of democracy itself? Wikipedia doesn't seem to be a place to go and study the impact of case law, so it seems excessive to require an outside reference to vs someone here writing about it's impact. That would be just hearsay and get yanked in a nano-edit-second. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DoryGuy (talk • contribs) 20:46, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Seems like removing all the cases that Mr. Elias won, including the four before the supreme court is wiki vandalism. Would you care to justify this before I put them back? — Preceding unsigned comment added by DoryGuy (talk • contribs) 21:41, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

The only sourcing in the entire section was to Democracy Docket, which is a group run by Elias. This runs afoul of WP:ABOUTSELF. This page is not a resume. In order to show that any of these cases are notable enough to include here, we would need to find independent sources providing coverage of the cases. A website run by the article’s subject is not sufficient. Marquardtika (talk) 02:13, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

But wouldn't the fact that they are SUPREME COURT Cases, that HE WON, be sufficient? I had links to the cases, which are here in Wikipedia. It's not everyday that you WIN a case at the Supreme Court. The list of lawyers who have done that, is pretty short. I can see your point about the state level cases. So I agree to removing them. But not the four Supreme Court Cases. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DoryGuy (talk • contribs) 19:06, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

If he won Supreme Court cases, that should be covered in independent sources like newspapers or legal journals. We shouldn't need to rely on his own self-published website. Can you provide some independent sourcing about these court cases? Marquardtika (talk) 19:24, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Will do. If that's all you are concerned about, should be easy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DoryGuy (talk • contribs) 21:30, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Restored the 4 supreme court cases, note: since these are covered in detail in WIKIPEDIA, it doesn't seem appropriate to cite more sources in this article, but rather in the court case itself. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DoryGuy (talk • contribs) 21:49, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a reliable source. Other Wikipedia articles cannot be used as sources on Wikipedia. What I'd suggest you do is look at the Supreme Court case articles you linked and see if there are any references on those pages that tie Elias to the specific cases. Marquardtika (talk) 21:52, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Good Grief, those cases literally say Marc Elias Attorney in them. The links are in the actual cases, which you find by looking at the Wikipedia documentation. Why should we duplicate the links to the cases in two places? The Wikipedia articles do a nice job summarizing the cases. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DoryGuy (talk • contribs) 01:32, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

Ex: Cooper vs Harris, links to the Wikipedia page of the same name, that page ref[8] has the link to the lawyers -> https://www.oyez.org/cases/2016/15-1262 Seems like that would be enough to establish that Elias was the attorney of record here. Same for the others. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DoryGuy (talk • contribs) 01:37, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you're saying. You added a section titled "United States Supreme Court Cases Argued" and it includes Wittman v. Personhuballah. I see no mention of Elias on that page. You linked to this. I also see no mention of Elias there. The core of Wikipedia is verifiability. All content on our pages needs to be verified by a source. Unless you can find independent sources discussing Elias in relation to these cases, this appears to be original research. Marquardtika (talk) 02:51, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

Ok, in the interest of keeping you happy, I will duplicate the links to each of the cases, which are also on the case page. I think this will satisfy you on this part of the page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DoryGuy (talk • contribs) 18:29, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

Also since I have day job, this is going to take a couple of days to add the references correctly. Meantime I have removed the personal attack from his Career section. It's not relevant to his work, and reflects only the personal opinion of the blog post author. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DoryGuy (talk • contribs) 18:44, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

Thats not how WP works. We don't add information to articles and say "I'll sort it correctly later. So I have removed the cases not currently supported by the sources listed and when you have time to find a source then you can re-add the information. This article is disgustingly POV and needs a re-work to fix that- not more drivel added to this fancruft. And certainly not more unsupported drivel. Nightenbelle (talk) 20:42, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

In general, there are a few comments above that indicate that because Elias's name is listed on some primary source court document, that his participation in the case is due for inclusion in this Wikipedia article. That isn't the case; there are plenty of lawsuits that one can work on without their work actually being significant enough to include. The way we determine what is due for inclusion is through examining independent coverage by reliable sources that cover a particular subject. Absent coverage that prominently features Elias as being involved in a particular case, I see no reason why a particular case would actually be due to include on this Wikipedia page. — Mhawk10 (talk) 18:16, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

"there are plenty of lawsuits" But few Supreme Court Lawsuits, where the plaintiffs won. Hence included those cases is part of why Marc Elias does what he does, defend voting rights. And since these cases are Voting rights cases, it seems that they should be part of his description. It adds the background information that is not easily found elsewhere as to why Mr. Elias is an attorney of note. For instance if a person won the Boston Marathon, it would be include on that person's page. Winning a Supreme Court Case is equivalent to winning a race of note. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DoryGuy (talk • contribs) 20:41, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

Example of the importance of being one of a few attorneys who argue before the Supreme Court: https://www.law.com/supremecourtbrief/almID/1202773871313/a-scotus-juggling-act-for-perkins-coies-marc-elias — Preceding unsigned comment added by DoryGuy (talk • contribs) 20:53, 7 February 2022 (UTC) https://www.kirkland.com/news/in-the-news/2016/12/a-scotus-juggling-act-for-perkins-coies-marc-elias for the full text. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DoryGuy (talk • contribs) 21:01, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

"He is also a major player in campaign-finance law and redistricting disputes. He won at the Supreme Court last term when the justices upheld a court-imposed remapping of congressional districts in Virginia that could produce a second African American congressman from that state." — Preceding unsigned comment added by DoryGuy (talk • contribs) 21:04, 7 February 2022 (UTC) https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/the-crusade-of-a-democratic-super-lawyer-with-multimillion-dollar-backing/2016/08/07/2c1b408c-5a54-11e6-9767-f6c947fd0cb8_story.html

Here again : The NYTimes https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/22/us/politics/roles-of-race-and-partisanship-in-legislative-maps-argued-at-supreme-court.html "“We would lose if it’s a tie, but in this case there is no tie,” said the lawyer, Marc E. Elias."

To me it's pretty clear that winning these cases depended a lot on the lawyer as well as the facts. Hence including them on the Lawyer's page is appropriate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DoryGuy (talk • contribs) 21:08, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

Well, luckily for us- it doesn't really matter what's clear to you. It matters what WP policy is. You need to stop your WP:Tend editing. You do not have consensus to add the supreme court cases. There is consensus that they are WP:UNDUE. Multiple editors are trying to remove WP:NPOV and you keep adding it back. I am recomending and warning you to WP:DROPTHESTICK. Nightenbelle (talk) 20:09, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

I have been attempting to follow WP policy, which you seem to be applying arbitrarily. You accuse me of having a conflict of interest, yet provide NO EVIDENCE, and you won't find any because there is none. You removed the Supreme Court cases because you said ^^^ That there wasn't proof that he was the attorney of record. I added those references. Now you come up with another excuse that it's not important to his biography, which is what Wikipedia entries are about people. I suggest that this is being at the top of the game for an attorney and now you claim there is no consensus because there are TWO editors which disagree. And then you recommend censure, while I have confined my complaints to the talk page, which according to WP policy is where they belong. Basta. I've had enough. I no longer care. Ask me for a donation next year and forget it. I'll let some other person deal with it. I have attempted to be reasonable and have been met with nothing back. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DoryGuy (talk • contribs) 00:27, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

@DoryGuy: A few things:

1. Threatening to withhold donations affects the average editor very little because (a) we aren't paid and (b) for better or for worse, the WMF has more money in reserves than it ever should.
2. The user who left the COI notice on your talk page is not Nightenbelle, but Marquardtika.
3. The policies here on no original research and due weight are being applied here in a standard manner. If there are indepenent sources that describe Ellis's key role in a particular supreme court case, then it's probably due, but the argument needs to be made. The Washington Post piece that you provided is exactly the sort of thing that helps to establish what things in the article constitute due weight, since it provides in-depth coverage of Ellis's legal strategies and legal career as of 2016. The New York Times source, on the other hand, treats Elias as if he is relatively unimportant in the grand scheme of things (he gets namechecked but his mention is only very brief). Good biographies articles are often based upon independent, reliable sources that present a person in the context of multiple events—this makes it so that we don't make articles out of pulling random news clippings all over the place to engage in novel synthesis of a whole person's biography. Do you have access to more independent sources like the WaPo one that describe Ellis's career more broadly? — Mhawk10 (talk) 05:48, 12 February 2022 (UTC)

Please explain revert

@Muboshgu: Please explain why irrelevant when he was specifically doing the one billing the campaign. Do you just need more description? Nweil (talk) 20:02, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

I read the Politico article you cited. The only two mentions of Marc Elias are The pair of agreements were signed for the Democratic groups on Feb. 16 by Graham Wilson, an attorney who was formerly at Perkins Coie and is now at the Elias Law Group and In a letter addressing one of the complaints, the commission said it dismissed allegations against Marc Elias — who was then an attorney at Perkins Coie and is now the namesake of his own firm — and the law firm itself, Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele himself, and other allegations against the DNC over impermissible contributions from foreign nationals. So if Elias was was specifically doing the one billing the campaign, that's WP:SYNTH. – Muboshgu (talk) 20:05, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Cool I'll move it to the perkins coie page then Nweil (talk) 20:07, 26 May 2022 (UTC)