Personal injury lawyer blogs going too far? What do you think?
Ran across this personal injury blog post in my RSS feeds tonight. Posted by Attorney Ryan Bradley of St. Louis.
The title of the post was:
[Name of injury victim] Sustains Personal Injury In Car Wreck on I-70 Near Earth City Expressway in St. Louis County; St. Louis Missouri Personal Injury Law Firm Gives Free Legal Advice to Car Accident Victims :: Missouri Accident Lawyer Blog
The post goes on to read (I have omitted names which were included in original post):
[Injury victim], 31 of St. Charles, Missouri was injured in a car accident on I-70 when a pickup driven by [Name of other driver], of Wentzville, Missouri hit [injury victim's] vehicle from behind on December 4, 2007. [victim's] car was slammed into the rear of a tractor trailer driven by [name of third party] of House Springs, Missouri.
[Injury victim] was transported to St. Joseph Hospital east by the Pattonville, Missouri Ambulance district, where he was treated for moderate personal injuries. [Third party] was able to stop his tractor trailer without incident and was not injured.
And the wrap up of the post:
The Bradley Law Firm, a St. Louis Missouri personal injury law firm, helps those injured in Missouri car accidents by meeting with them for free, regardless of whether that person employs their services. If you have been involved in a car accident in Missouri and need to ask an experienced personal injury lawyer a question, feel free to contact us.
If Bradley does not represent the unfortunate man injured in this accident and his family members, in my opinion this is a cheap stunt to add text to a blog with a call to call him if you're injured in an accident. Presumably to get search engine rankings. God help us if it's an attempt to get the injury victim to call him.
If Bradley does represent the injury victim, and I'd be shocked if a client would authorize such a post, I can't imagine why in the world you would post this to a blog. There's no claim that he's looking for witnesses or the sort.
I'm not calling Bradley out on this because of any defense bias I have. I was a plaintiff's trial lawyer for 17 years, served as a board member of my state's trial lawyers association, and was a sustaining member of ATLA. Plaintiff's trial lawyers do some wonderful things seeking justice for the underdogs of the world.
But man, if lawyers are just going to key in accident text, including victim's names, into a blogsite with the hope that seriously injured people or their family members will find their 800 phone number, it's just too far. It's the stuff that gives plaintiff's lawyers a bad name.
What do you think?
And now defense counsel also knows when it is that the injured person first called a lawyer.
So it is probably both unethical (if there is no explicit permission to do this) as well as dumb from a litigation standpoint.
But I would hesitate to call it a blog. It's a pure advertisement for services that is dressed up as a blog. While there are many such things that inhabit the vast gray area between commentary and advertising, this one doesn't even come close to that dividing line.
I just re-read it, and see I made an error. The firm does not claim to represent any of the parties. It was apparently written so that, if any of the injured parties Googles themselves or the accident, this will turn up. It's jut a high tech solicitation.
And it's awful. Crap like this is one of the reasons that personal injury attorneys are given a bad name. It only takes a small handful of people to tarnish the reputations of the others.
If this were a one time thing, I may not be too critical but much of the blog is like that and I too find it to be very bad form. I am not shocked though given what I have seen in other forms of personal injury lawyer advertising and direct solicitations here in Wisconsin and elsewhere.
Kevin,
I realize that you have a good deal of "integrity" about blogging, so I'm glad that you posted about this. And if the aftermath of this post would be to educate others about what NOT to do in a blog, or to "e-shame" the attorney who made the post, I'd think that your post would accomplish a great deal of good. Unfortunately, because bar regulators are just chomping at the bit to regulate blogging as advertising, I think that this post will bring about some unintended and sad consequences. Rather than allowing the blogosphere to "regulate" these kinds of posts (through e-shaming or thoughtful commentary), the bar regulators are going to pounce. They will cite this lawyers' post as an example of why blogs are advertising, why they need to be regulated and then they'll impose some onerous restriction (like printing out every new post and sending it to the bar).
Kevin, I have followed up since the guy did it again. And by "it" I mean putting the name of the injured in the subject heading:
Personal Injury Lawyer, Ryan Bradley, Using Blog for Blatant Solicitation
I differ with Carolyn's view, in that I think if the blawgosphere can self-regulate, it keeps the bar regulators away. We can safely say that regulators should deal with widespread problems, not isolated ones.
If he just wanted to get hits from people searching for info about accidents and injuries and what not, he could have easily left the injured persons names off.
Would it make a difference if he had a blog that just posted about accidents and had a link to his office. Let's say he called it the "accident blog" and used it as something of a niche news service.
Saw your post Eric; agree we need to take an open stand against this type of junk. If not us, who?
The who would be the bars like Carolyn says, but if word of this lawyer's crap spreads across the blogosphere, that's much more chilling than a letter from the state ethics governing body. The blogosphere can be harsh and in this case I think it should be.
I really disagree with Carolyn's comments. I think it is unfair to "shoot the messenger" and suggest that if bar regulators seek to regulate blogs as advertising, it will be this blog's fault. No, it will be the fault of the guy doing the bad thing that the bar guys will want to prevent. If people see something wrong or unethical, they shouldn't keep quiet about it.
If this guy had a digital billboard on the highway with the streaming names of accident victims, there would be a huge uproar. This is not any different, and it really casts lawyers, the legal profession, and plaintiff's lawyers in a bad light.
The test of advertising is "does it work?"
If it works, and it's not proscribed (I wouldn't ordinarily use a word like that but this is a lawyer's blog) by the ethical rules then it achieves its purpose.
By the way, how do you feel about the "u comment, we follow" movement?
If you were to support it, it would probably start getting a footing among lawyers. From what I can see lawyers don't seem to be aware of it. And, interestingly enough, most high ranking injury blogs (according to Google) are getting NO/Zero/000
comments.
You, on the other hand, are getting a lot of comments. But then you are a Blawgosphere icon.
A part of the problem is that I think writing that garbage actually works. I see blogs that do it everyday that rank pretty high on the search engines. Whether in generates leads is a different question but I assume it does.
Of course, there is no value of providing information that an accident occurred.
I read the debate above. I really don't think there is much anyone can do about it. It is what it is.