Last year MSG Entertainment, which operates Madison Square Garden and Radio City Music Hall, as well as other New York venues and restaurants, announced that it was banning lawyers from any law firm that was suing the venue and created an “attorney exclusion list.” This ban also extended to lawyers of the firm who were not involved in the litigation: “Neither you, nor any other attorney employed at your firm, may enter the Company’s venues until final resolution of [your] litigation.” James L. Dolan, MSG’s chief executive, claimed that the rationale for the prohibition was “to stop attorneys from suing them” and to avoid “improper disclosure and discovery.”

Using photos of firm lawyers from their websites, MSG assembled the watch list involving about 90 firms. It then relied on facial recognition technology and algorithms to review the data, suggest matches, and identify the lawyers. As a result, lawyers from the firms were barred, often without notice, upon their arrival and presentation of tickets, from Christmas shows, concerts and Rangers and Knicks games. Supposedly, MSG’s technology identified and turned away a lawyer accompanying her daughter’s Girl Scout troop to see the Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall.