Transcript
A (0:00)
Today, I am sitting down virtually with Laura Marquez Garrett, a Harvard Law School graduate turned fierce advocate for children and families harmed by social media. After spending two decades in big law, Laura made the pivotal decision in 2022 to join the Social Media Victims Law center, where they have since filed more than 1500 complaints against tech companies and were the counsel of record in the landmark March 2026 trial that resulted in a jury finding Both Meta and YouTube liable for harming a young user through the addictive design of their platforms. Laura has become one of the most recognizable voices in this fight, appearing before Congress at the Aspen Ideas Festival and most recently in the documentary Can't Look Away, the Case Against Social Media. We are going to dig into the trial, what it means for the thousands of cases still ahead, and what every parent needs to know right now. Laura, I have chills. Thank you so much for giving us
B (1:13)
some of your time. Yeah, it's great to be here. I know I saw you very briefly in la, but it's nice to be able to chat more at length.
A (1:20)
Yeah. And I really wanted to be at the Can't Look Away screening last night, but I just, I couldn't. I can't be everywhere.
B (1:25)
You missed that one too. So you're good. I'm back up in Seattle now, so.
A (1:29)
Okay, cool. All right. So you, you left a prestigious big law career, 2022, you joined the Social Media Victims Law Center. That's a significant pivot. What was the moment or the realization that made you feel like you had to be on the side of the fight?
B (1:45)
It was a brand new career.
A (1:47)
Right.
B (1:47)
I mean, it was a complete, complete 180. And, you know, it's. So, as a lot of folks know, it's my kids. So I have four young kids and I. They were young enough that I had no clue what tech companies were doing. My kids actually had tablets, Kindles with the big, like yellow and purple. Right. Big soft covers, like, they're made for kids, it's real. And they were allowed to watch YouTube and marble races and. And I had no clue what was going on. And what happened is a friend of mine introduced me to Matt Bergman, our founder. And Matt, at the time, SMBLC was a one. It wasn't even. He had literally just started it. It was him and then two non attorneys and he just knew he was gonna do it. And so my specialty was electronic discovery. So my friend's like, hey, this is gonna be the discovery battle of a lifetime. I spoke with him and the complaint that he had drafted was for Selena Rodriguez, an 11 year old kid who died two years after she started using these products. And when I read that complaint, talked with him about it and you know, he said, hey, this is a kid who, her medical and school records show, like she was thriving, thriving. Just a, just a sunflower bursting up and lighting everything around her. And then you see what happens over the two years and how that just the light dims. And as a parent, he said, you need to go watch Social Dilemma. And I did. And at the very end, they asked these designers, do you let your kids use the products? And the designers say, no, like, absolutely not. So all of that together, I still didn't know what was going on, but as somebody who had represented distributors and manufacturers and designers and you know, early in my career I even did some work on like fiber optics and technology stuff. And as somebody who had always worked for those companies, like when somebody makes a product, they're really proud of it. Their kids are decked out head to toe in the clothing they make, right? We would buy like whatever product we were representing, we would buy it, we would bring it into our homes. And so that was my light bulb moment. And essentially that was the moment where I realized, wow, not only are they hurting children, but they know it. And we may not know how they're doing it because it's a one sided access to information, but that was it. And it took about 15 minutes. I turned to my wife and said, like, this is crazy and I just need you to bear with me. I think I need this guy, Matt Bergman, who I had just met. I think I need him to hire me and I think I need to quit. And it was a shocker to my firm. I mean, I was an equity partner, I was a hiring partner, I chaired a practice group. And I just said after I talked to Matt and he said, let's do this. I said, look, I'm going. And it was a real shocker because it was out of nowhere. And ultimately what I want to say is that when people realized what I was doing, everyone said, okay, this needs to be done. So there were people that understood and that was it. And it's honestly the craziest and best decision I ever made my entire life.
