Last Updated on January 19, 2026 by Rob Cashman
I was doing some hardcore reflecting just now (as an attorney, it is so important for me to be aware of when I am reacting to things — personal things at home, work things that come up, spiritual difficulties or insights that I am personally tangling with at the moment [my favorite form of reflecting is using the ‘mind’ exercises with the Muse brainwave device]), and I realized something…
All the 200+ articles that I have written on ISP Subpoenas, Motions to Quash, Strike 3 Holdings, LLC Lawsuits (among many, many others), and IP Address-based lawsuits involving BitTorrent use (generally), all of these involve an internet user getting ‘caught,’ ‘observed,’ or ‘accused‘ of downloading copyrighted materials (movies, music, books, software) without permission.
My articles since 2010+ have all related to INFORMATION: What to do if you are sued, who knows what and when, pitfalls you might fall into while following the instructions of those who are advertising to you, etc.
None of my articles have reflected what you are feeling.
Reviewing the content I have written since 2010, NONE of my articles reflected what YOU are FEELING.
But when you receive a letter from your ISP telling you that you were caught doing something:
- that can hurt you financially,
- that can hurt your reputation or standing in the community,
- that can hurt your relationship with your wife or your significant other
- AND these can affect you both inside, and how you interact with your family & peers…
It occurred to me that I’ve been missing a very important piece of YOUR experience — how you are feeling.
It is one thing to have self-reflection and an ability to be in touch with something that is happening to you. But how you choose to see the issue from the core of who you are — your MINDSET — that too was something that I have not shared in my articles.
None of my articles suggested how to best COPE with what is happening to you.
I don’t think I ever approached any of my articles with MINDSET suggestions, such as how TO FEEL about what is happening to you, or how to COPE with what has happened to you. I have been representing clients in these cases since I opened up my Cashman Law Firm, PLLC in 2010. However, while in my gut and in my heart I have always felt what you feel (sometimes too-much so), I never communicated to you tools I had on how to handle what was happening to you.
[Thinking back, I actually opened up the firm with the intention of “practicing law,” specifically, practicing as a patent attorney with the US Patent & Trademark Office (this was my first post on this website). I also was excited to take knowledge I had of patent trolls and use that insight in litigation against them in the federal courts.
Quickly after starting my practice after writing articles about strategies and tactics of patent trolls, I was contacted by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF.org), and I and a handful of other attorneys were asked for advice on how to handle the mass-copyright infringement lawsuits which were being filed against thousands of internet users downloading movies and videos using BitTorrent and other peer-to-peer software.
Piracy, PRIVACY, and JUSTICE were topics I had strong opinions about, and when I learned what was happening to “John Doe” Defendants — specifically with regard to the unequal footing they were on when hit with one of these lawsuits — I really set out to villainize those who were doing the harm to these internet users and to expose their tactics and methods to create more of an equal playing field.]
If you ask many of my clients, I am still young. But 20+ years ago when I graduated law school, I was a kid just looking to start my life. 20 years later, I’ve helped thousands of clients, not because I am a nice guy, but because I believe (even today) in what I’ve been doing.
But I’ve also matured over the last 20 years. I have experienced pain, loss, guilt, and life has given me the kinds of challenges that would force any person to grow, even kicking and screaming. These experiences have made me a better attorney, but only for my clients (not for those who have not spoken with me).
I am not looking to be anyone’s therapist (nor would I consider myself skilled or competent to do so). But I do have knowledge, skills, and experiences that you can make use of… if only I shared more (which is the purpose of this article).
So I am committing to you one thing with this article. I have always seen you, but you never knew I see you. I have always taken care of your case strategically — applying the law, using leverage, power, persuasion, time tactics, procedural deadlines, human psychology, etc. But you have never known that I see you.
To stand emotionally naked in front of someone, vulnerable, and exposed — really, I DO NOT want this for you. You have your DIGNITY, you have your PRIVACY, and I have NO INTEREST in stepping into your private lives. But from the distance of a blog like this one, I can share deeper insights into what I am aware you could be going through, and this might help you drastically reclaim your lives while fully keeping your dignity and self-worth. I don’t even need to know that I’ve helped you.
I can make use of my own experiences to help you understand emotionally how this lawsuit is affecting you.
I have deep insights into psychology, especially when it comes to science, addictions, emotions, even violence. I have also experienced loss personally, tragically, painfully, and these experiences have changed me to my core. I have also lost clients over the years to suicide (not many, not even a handful). Even one life lost would have been too many. The problem was, even though there is always a way out and through these lawsuits, they are scary, and they are threatening. As a result of getting sued, addictive habits get exposed, families sometimes get ripped apart, and I’ve had wives leave their husbands over this, and vice versa.
But my sensitivity to your pain did not begin when I became an attorney. They began while I was still a child.
With deep respect for my parents for the struggles they went through (in being parents to us, with struggling to make their own marriage work, and with the court system when their marriage soured and then took a turn for the unspeakable), I was old enough at the time to understand what was happening and to empathize with them as they were each betrayed by each other, by their own attorneys, and by the court system.
When I was in law school and my friends suggested that I go into family law (because I identified with the pain that so many people in the family law system experience [because I was a child of that system from my own home and past]), I refused with an absolute ‘no’ because the pain that I myself felt was still a painful wound that could open up at any point, and I did not believe I could be an impartial or effective attorney in this area of law.
But when I already was an attorney with my own law practice, practicing in the field of being a ’boutique intellectual property law firm,’ when I learned what was happening in the at-the-time-‘new’ copyright infringement lawsuits (and I saw the tactics of patent trolls used against internet users, but on a scale I couldn’t imagine) — that kind of empathy and channeling of my own pain into my representation and defense of clients — that was something I could do (and found an enjoyment doing).
I have never spoken about what I’ve learned about addiction, pain & trauma, neurochemicals, and how they can cause the conduct that has led to my clients being sued.
Lastly, I have never spoken about what I learned about ADDICTION, PAIN AND TRAUMA, NEUROCHEMICALS, and how these items can drive someone to take actions which cause them to get in trouble with the courts. Before I became an attorney, I had many unique experiences speaking to and helping battered wives recognize the situation they were in, and helping them stand up to those that were beating them, to leave their husbands, and to go to a shelter to gain some sense of relieve from the pain and literal torture they were experiencing every day.
I have been running the Cashman Law Firm, PLLC for over 15 years, and I have spoken to tens-of-thousands of accused internet users, and I have helped thousands of clients. I don’t think of them as victims because that would detract from the dignity I would like for them to have (in themselves, in believing that they can succeed in getting through and out of a lawsuit). They are not even victims because they were sued and had to defend the claims against them in litigation or endure a painful settlement experience. They are also not victims because they were taken advantage of by the legal system and by being forced to defend themselves in a lopsided, uneven playing field (where the plaintiffs file thousands of lawsuits, but my clients have usually never even participated in one).
Because the nature of the ‘copyright trolling’ lawsuits involve suing internet users for the downloading of adult films, many of my clients were victims of these lawsuits because they were not aware that their painful experiences would drive them to reach for this content to soothe their wounds, but even once sued, so many of them suffered and continue to suffer from an inability to stop downloading, viewing, or streaming the copyrighted content for which they were sued).
Most of my clients did not intend to harm someone else, nor did they intend to infringe another person’s copyrights. Most were just trying to avoid pain.
I learned that 1) none of them were thinking about stealing someone else’s content when they downloaded someone else’s copyrighted content, 2) most of them agree that stealing is wrong, 3) most of them experienced painful experiences at home or earlier in their lives which drove them to grasp at the content which got them sued.
This is very, very different from a so-called ‘pirate’ or ‘infringer’ who believes that copyrights should not exist, or that ‘things online should be free.’ I’ve come across these too over the years, but generally, my clients are good people who get sued for ‘clicking on a link’ giving them the ability to access content, movies, books, or software that they think they could use to soothe or detach from the pain they are feeling in other areas of their lives.
The point is that nobody downloads another person’s video intending to hurt the copyright holder. Nobody watches a video that they did not pay for thinking that they’ll get away with stealing someone else’s creative content.
I would also venture that most don’t even watch the content that got them in trouble because they consciously thought it was a good idea.
Copyright Infringement as Effective Medicine
Most of the time, they got in trouble because they used the COPYRIGHTED CONTENT AS MEDICINE to detach them from the pain they were feeling because of other genuinely painful or traumatic experiences they had (or were still having). Unfortunately for them, using this medium of content is an effective (and highly addictive) medicine to ease their pain.
But when the ‘medicine’ becomes the ‘poison’ (the source of other pain itself), this is where it becomes a problem (for them, for their emotional health, for their marriage, for their professional lives, and more).
With this small insight (that I should be addressing these other aspects of what you are going through rather than helping you understand the legal intricacies of your lawsuit), I will do my best to write articles that you can connect to. I will attempt to write articles that can help you understand what you are going through — not only from a ‘legal’ perspective of “you learned that you were sued from your ISP; how do you respond to your ISP subpoena in your copyright infringement lawsuit” but also, “you have experienced things in your life, and now you are faced with this too. Let’s get past this (and maybe grow and heal from this) experience.“
I think putting these articles on the TorrentLawyer site as blog entries is probably the best way to do this (at least at first, until I can restructure the articles into a more organized library of content, sorted by topic).
As I add articles, here is where I will link to them (below):
MINDSET: How to effectively SEE your lawsuit (UNEMOTIONALLY). (Written 1/15/2026)
The “Spinning Car” Analogy, as it Applies to Lawsuits Where the Defendant Did NOT ‘Do It.’ (Written 1/16/2026)
And until I do, please understand that while you are likely facing a lawsuit for something that you did (and while the claims in the lawsuit might correctly explain exactly what you did), and the financial effects of taking care of this lawsuit may or may not yet be within your grasp to be able to handle, it is still very important to look inward and understand what has happened here to cause you to be sued. I will do my best to help you analyze this; not as your attorney, but as a friend who cares about your well being.
-Rob Cashman