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Personal injury law blogs : Where’s the pride?

A blog post this last week from Attorney Peter Thompson’s Maine Injury Lawyer Blog:

Reported in the Portland Press Herald, October 22, 2010

HARRISON — Police in Harrison, Maine, say one teenager has been killed and three other people injured in a car crash.

Eighteen-year-old (I’ve deleted name included by Thompson), of Oxford, was a passenger in a Chevrolet Trailblazer whose driver lost control rounding a corner and crashed into trees.

McLendon, who was in the back seat, died at the scene. A second passenger, 20-year-old Jacob Hill, of Waterford, was hospitalized with life-threatening injuries. Another passenger and the driver, a girl whose name wasn’t released, were hospitalized with serious injuries.

The auto accident specialists at Peter Thompson & Associates have handled thousands of similar claims and recovered millions of dollars in compensation for our clients. We specialize in providing excellent customer service and quick results. For more information, contact Peter Thompson & Associates at 1-800-917-1784 or read more on our website www.Peter-Thompson-Associates.com on our car accident practice page.

Gee Pete, that blog post must have taken some deep thought on your part. Borrowing the name of an eighteen year old who was tragically killed because someone told you if you scrapped stories from newspapers for your blog that your website and blog will come up higher in the search engines.

I wonder how this recent high school grad’s parents feel about what you’re doing Pete. But what do you care? You’re just a personal injury lawyer out to make a buck.

Not to be outdone, Attorney Gregory Baumgartner penned ‘Truck Driver Killed in Fire’ on his Texas Truck Wreck Attorney Blog.

Baumgartner, or someone on his behalf, paraphrases an Austin American-Statesman newspaper article about a truck driver killed in an accident adding the following paragraph to conclude his blog post:

Greg Baumgartner is a Texas truck accident lawyer and the founder of the Baumgartner law firm, which is dedicated to helping injury victims seek civil justice. For a free- no obligation consultation with a Texas semi truck accident lawyer call the Baumgartner firm.

In addition to be being schooled on paraphrasing truck accident stories, Greg has learned to link the phrase ‘Texas semi truck accident lawyer’ in his blog post to his website so as to improve the search engine results of his website.

Where’s the pride in being a lawyer? Where’s the pride in serving legal professions as a provider of law firm website and blog solutions?

I’ve personally been on both sides of this equation. I was a plaintiff’s trial lawyer representing injury victims and their family members for 17 years. I proudly served as a board member of my state’s trial lawyers association and as a sustaining member of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America (now ‘American Association for Justice’).

I used the Internet as a plaintiff’s trial lawyer for almost three years (’96 to ’98) as a means of client development. I answered questions of injury victims, injured employees, and distressed employees on AOL. Not knowing a thing about Internet marketing, people liked what I was doing to help them and similarly situated people. As a result, work came.

In 1999 I left the practice of law to begin helping lawyers connect with clients and prospective clients via the Internet in a real and meaningful way. First with a virtual law community that upon being sold to LexisNexis has been incorporated into Lawyers.com. Then with LexBlog to provide lawyers a more effective means to network through the Internet so as to build more intimate relationships with clients and prospective clients and enhance their reputation as an authority.

I don’t share this to impress you, but to impress upon you that there is a better way to obtain work as a plaintiff’s personal injury lawyer. And that it’s well within your reach. As a lawyer — and as legal website and blog solution provider.

I’ve screwed up now and again as a much as the next guy. But on giving lawyers a bad name, I’m doing my best that it that does not happen when it comes to the Internet.

We’ll not have blogs like the above personal injury law blogs on The LexBlog Network. And I’ll continue to call out such lawyers now and again in an effort to get such lawyers to change their behavior for the good of our legal profession.

I’m asking you to join me as a lawyer to steer clear of less than reputable Internet marketing. I’m asking you as legal marketing professionals and website/blog developers not to condone such behavior of your client lawyers. You need not enable such behavior.

Let’s stop tasteless and unprofessional legal marketing. For the good of our legal profession. And for the public we have chosen to serve as lawyers.

Can I count on you?

  • Steve targe

    Whine whine whine.
    Seriously. Get off your high horse. You criticize an attorney for taking advantage of a bad situation. Then what do you do? The exact same thing.
    Not sure how that escaped you.
    Not sure why anyone would need your company’s service either. WordPress, anyone?

  • http://kevin.lexblog.com Kevin OKeefe

    No whining, just calling out what’s pretty despicable conduct for aanyone – let alone a lawyer.
    As for our company’s service, we’re offering something of good value to lawyers at a very reasonable price.

  • karen

    Kevin – I am extremely worried about the damage that is being done to personal injury lawyers’ already horrible image through certain internet marketing practices. Site optimization is the driving force. Because some people will do just about anything to get their website ranked as high as possible.
    The type of blogs that you describe hurt our entire profession. They feed the public’s perception that we are ambulance chasers.
    Even if bar rules don’t expressly prohibit certain marketing activities, we are supposed to be guided by the highest of ethical principles. And to do nothing that will cast shame upon our profession.
    Thank you for drawing a line here.

  • http://www.sanantonioemploymentlawblog.com tom Crane

    The PI lawyer offers nothing in the post – no guidance, no law, no discussion.

  • http://kevin.lexblog.com Kevin OKeefe

    Thanks for the comment Karen. That means a lot coming from you, a past President of the Washington State Trial Lawyers Association. But as said in my email, trial lawyers need to act on this. More so by beginning to harness the powers of the Internet in a positive way so as to drown out the bad stuff than to try and chill the bad element which is likely to always be there.

  • http://omarha-redeye.com Omar Ha-Redeye

    As Tom mentions, this lawyer adds absoluely no value added to the news story. It would be entirely different if there was some analysis of the accident, or some information about legal liability.
    Although these SEO-hounds may benefit some temporary gains through search rankings in the long term I’m confident they will fail. Clients are also looking for value, and they’re looking for more sophistication than a crude pitch. PI lawyers should blog about more than just PI, for example, to encapsulate many of their legal and non-legal interests.
    The one thing that trumps SEO is high traffic, and that’s where Lexblog can come in. The best way to fight this type of stuff is to avoid reading or linking to it, and stick to quality sites. If we all do that we’ll see these sites fade to the fringe.

  • http://kevin.lexblog.com Kevin OKeefe

    I’m not sure that these type of blogs will fade to the fringe Omar. They are getting more and more popular as a means to SEO for plaintiff’s lawyers. I think we’re going to see it getting worse.

  • http://www.paperstreet.com Peter Boyd

    Unfortunately, it is all for SEO purposes and it seems to be working for those firms. More boiler plate content, scraped and/or partially rewritten, offering no value for reading purposes. However, the site grows in topical content and Google rewards that. Until Google starts devaluing this content or creating a more sophisticated filter, it will continue and get worse.
    Perhaps Bar associations (i.e. the Florida Bar) should regulate actions more than attempting to ban all past case results and testimonials. This in my opinion, is far worse for the profession as a whole than mentioning how you have actually helped your clients.
    On a side note, I wonder if the families could potentially sue for wrongful use of image. They are in fact using their names and events to promote their business. See: http://www.citmedialaw.org/legal-guide/using-name-or-likeness-another
    If a few cases were filed, this may put everyone on notice to stop this trend.