Real Lawyers Have Blogs : Law Blogs, Blawgs, Law Firm Marketing

I'm one of the guests this Thursday on Denise Howell's 'this WEEK in LAW.' One of the issues we'll be discussing is blogging and malpractice carriers.

You may recall the fiasco when Chubb Insurance indicated they were not going to provide coverage for firms publishing law blogs. They were heavily criticized by lawyers across the country.

Chubb eventually went away with it's tail between its legs saying they wouldn't cover firms offering specific advice to specific fact situations - something no law firm does on a blog - but would, in general, cover law firms who were blogging.

Is anyone aware of any issues that have arisen with malpractice carriers covering firms that blog? Have any of you discussed the issue with your carrier? Have any of you procured coverage that applies specifically to blogs, perhaps described as publishing or advertising coverage in general liability business insurance.

Any info, thoughts, or insight would be appreciated.

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I'm a lawyer. I copy and paste stories of jury trials detailing horrific injuries and large dollar verdicts from online newspapers to my blog. I don't necessarily represent any of the parties to the lawsuit.

I just cut and paste the text in entirety without changing or summarizing anything. I don't add any commentary or insight. I don't know anything about Internet marketing but I hear this is a good way to get to the top of Google.

You can see I am more than qualified to represent you or a loved one who's been injured as a result of another's negligence.

Sounds nuts, but that appears to be what the lawyer publishing this personal injury law blog is saying. Look at his latest post.

Maybe the guy is a decent lawyer, but the only thing we know he can do is hit the CTRL+c for copy and CTRL+v for paste on his keyboard.

Am I the only one sickened by this type of marketing? As a plaintiff's trial lawyer of 17 years I tried to uphold the image of our profession at all times. Including with my Internet marketing. This kind of crap is awfully disappointing.

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The never ending flow of Chicken Little articles telling us that the sky is falling with the advent of blogs and innovative technology continues this week with New Jersey Law Journal's article, 'Legal Technology - The Trouble With Blogs and Web 2.0.'

The article focused on employers dealing with employee use of the net. But I'm sure, like most of these articles, provided blog naysayers and the easily scared in large law firms (there's tons of them) with necessary ammunition to fend off the innovative folks in their firm.

The well intentioned article starts off warning employers that millions of employees have joined the world of Web 2.0, which includes social networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn, blogs, wikis, podcasts, video sharing sites and RSS feeds. Okay, that's reality, and like the real world with phones, letters, fax machines, cocktail parties, and water cooler gossip, people can create problems.

But look at some of the key points from the article.

• You should have policies and procedures prohibiting Internet disclosures of confidential information and prohibiting employees from expressing damaging opinions or information about their employer, superiors or co-workers.


• When blogging, employees shouldn't be violating securities laws, disclosing the company's intellectual property, disclosing any other employee's personal information, disclosing confidential information, discussing work-related legal procedures and controversies, using other company's copyrighted materials, or making false statements.

Duh.

The more I read articles like this, the more it seems that existing firm policies and common sense will govern 99% of the issues raised with blogs. Blogs are a medium of communication, just a new one.

Do we really need to scare those who don't understand blogs and social networking that their use is fraught with peril? Why do we want to chill innovation in law firms? Why aren't we promoting more transparent communication from lawyers?

What do you guys think?

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Vickie Pynchon summarizes the 5 ways to reduce risk in the use of copyrighted materials by bloggers and citizen journalists.

The use of others' copyrighted work under the fair use doctrine is how we bloggers survive. But there are limits to what fair use allows us to use.

Vickie culled this handy list from a primer at the Citizen Media Law Project Blog.

• Use only as much of the copyrighted work as is necessary to accomplish your purpose or convey your message.
• Use the work in such a way that it is clear that your purpose is commentary, news reporting, or criticism.
• Add something new or beneficial (don't just copy it -- improve it!).
• If your source is nonfiction, limit your copying to the facts and data.
• Seek out Creative Commons or other freely licensed works when such substitutions can be made and respect the attribution requests in those works.

Understand that copyright protection applies to all works created by others. Even to a blog post I may write on a bar napkin. I don't need to put a fancy 'c' on it or file any sort of registration. Same applies to newspaper stories or photos from flickr.

Don't get freaked out about liability. If it wasn't for the New York Times or Washington Post, I'm not sure CNN would have anything to report. You'll regularly see them scroll a paragraph or two as to what one of the papers is reporting. It will be followed with short commentary from an 'expert.'

Same goes for small town TV and radio stations who borrow liberally from the local newspaper. Think of yourself as a blogger reporting on events, writings, and the law while adding insight and commentary.

If you don't have Vickie in your RSS feeds, you may wish to add her. She's a prolific, insightful, and entertaining blogger at her own Settle It Now blog and the IP ADR Blog at which she's a co-author.

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CUNY Prof. Geanne Rosenberg has put up an online course for bloggers and media practitioners with the 10 things you need to know to stay out of court. As Jeff Jarvis, my source on this post, says it's quick, clear, easy, and fun with videos and quizzes.

The 10 rules to blog by:

1. Check your facts.
2. Avoid virtual vendettas.
3. Obey the law.
4. Weigh promises.
5. Reveal secrets selectively.
6. Consider what you copy.
7. Learn recording limits.
8. Don't abuse anonymity.
9. Shun conflicts of interest.
10. Seek legal advice.

Jeff also mentions Berkman Center at Harvard, who helped produced this course, is putting online a legal guide with information on such topics as setting up a publishing business.

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I'm talking to a few financial advisers and stockbrokers who are considering blogs for themselves and their firms.

As is the case with lawyer blogs with ethical and liability concerns, are there unique regulatory, compliance, or ethical implications for financial advisers/stockbrokers publishing blogs? With securities I thought there may be issues regarding adequate disclosures, disclaimers and the like. I did some quick searches on Google and did not find anything.

If anyone is aware of such regulations, concerns, or knows of Internet sources for such information, please drop me an email or leave a comment. Thanks much.

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Disgruntled objects of blog posts often hire lawyers to send cease and desist (C & D) letters ordering the blog publisher to take down the subject post. In the spirit of the blogosphere, bloggers immediately post such C & D letters to their blog holding the lawyer and client up to public ridicule.

Maybe no more. Turns out at least one lawyer obtained copyright registration for their takedown letters. They then got a naive judge to enforce the copyright even though as Eric Goldman says '...[T]his letter is so completely pro forma that it should barely clear the copyrightability hurdle (if it does at all). Further, republication of demand letters is so strongly infused with public interest that it should be clearly covered by fair use.'

Lawyers get paid to be creative, even if their cause is contrary to the public's good.

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I touched a nerve when I called out PI lawyers as shameless in naming selected injury victims in their blogs, which in the case of at least one lawyer is done in hope that the victims would contact the lawyer.

Peter Lattman at the WSJ Law Blog asks whether a lawyer's reporting the name of person in a coma then passing away a few weeks shy of his 25th birthday in hope that the victims family calls the lawyer is fair game or gives the plaintiffs bar a bad name?

I've already said such conduct is sleazy and perpetuates the poor image we have as a profession. And for those of us who care about the rights of injury victims just risks more pro insurer legislation veiled as 'tort reform.'

Surprisingly there were commenters to the WSJ post finding the lawyers conduct as okay - on such grounds as free speech, that the law is a business and 'this guy is just trying to get some,' and that it's no worse than other stuff lawyers do.

Fortunately there were an equal number who are offended by such conduct. Some find it unethical while others said just because it may be legally permissible does not make it right. One commenter nailed it for me:

Blogging is not a license to ignore common sense. This blogger is a classic ambulance chaser -- nothing more. Advertising is fine. Targeting specific people based on their bad luck and misfortune is wrong. How obnoxious does advertising need to get before we just say -- enough.

And lawyer bloggers didn't take kindly to the unseemly conduct.

New York criminal defense lawyer Scott Greenfield calls hit the blawgosphere hitting a new low:

While we may quibble over whether promotional blawging impairs the purpose and credibility of the blawgosphere, at least we share the belief that it should never deliberately violate ethical precepts and prove to the world that attorneys are, indeed, the lowest form of scum......One step removed [from ambulance chasing] might be generous in the digital age when physical presence behind the ambulance isn't necessary. This feeds into every negative stereotype of lawyers, with the only difference being the adaptation of the internet as the delivery mechanism.

New York personal injury lawyer Eric Turkewitz calls it blatant solicitation:

Thus, he goes beyond the mere advertising, and into outright solicitation of an individual. Even if he is ethically secure on First Amendment grounds, what the has done certainly appears scummy and is a close cousin to sending a solicitation in the mail to the house. Or picking up the phone and calling. Or sending a person to the house. Or the hospital. You know where I'm gong with this. Solicitation is but one step removed from actual ambulance chasing.

Wisconsin personal injury lawyer Frank Pasternak in comments here:

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.

I'd like to see more law bloggers calling out the naming of accident victims in blogs as shameless. It's a practice that should not swept under the rug with a view that it's legal and no worse than the other sleazy things lawyers may do. Not to call for it's stop is to risk the good name lawyers stand to gain by helping the public via blogs.

Related Posts

• Personal injury lawyer blogs going too far? What do you think? - 12/11/07
  
• Personal injury lawyer blogs victims' names in hopes they call his office - 12/14/07

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Seattle plaintiff's lawyer Mike Meyers writes about accidents naming seriously injured people he does not represent 'with the intent of reaching accident victims or the people who care about them.'

...I want them--or someone who cares about them--to call our office and get the help they deserve rather than being manipulated by a well trained adjuster to settle their claim short of full value. It's as simple as that.

In Meyers post responding to my post criticizing similar behavior, he rationalizes such behavior by taking a low blow at me:

It's easy to ride the wave created by the insurance lobby or reiterate the old party line used by attorneys who view the practice as a sanctified calling rather than a business and call the blogger an "ambulance chaser".

I practiced as a plaintiff's trial lawyer for 17 years representing injury victims and their family members. During that time I served as a sustaining member of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America and a board member of my state's trial lawyers association, both leading associations of lawyers representing injured people. During that time I had the occasion to work with wonderful plaintiff's trial lawyers from around the country and serve with them on various boards and committees.

The last few years of my practice, I established the leading online community in the country for injury victims and distressed employees. Four listservs, hundreds of message boards and online chats so that these folks could get information from leading caring lawyers from throughout the country. Prior to doing this on my own, I did it as a community leader at AOL, where I answered thousands of questions from injury victims.

I understand that Insurance companies can do some despicable things. I know that they'll tell seriously injured folks they do not need a lawyer, we'll take care of you - with the goal being to get a release without having to pay fair compensation. Presumably Meyer's justification for naming injury victims on a blog.

But I would never have named innocent victims on the net in hope that they would call me. And I can't think of any lawyers who I served with over my years of practice who would so. Such conduct is unseemly and is only going to backfire, giving insurance companies and their lobbyists more ammunition in their efforts to take away injury victims' rights to fair redress.

My Dad always said 'there's a right way and a wrong way to do everything.' Harmed with that knowledge I'm guided with a sense that when ready to do something that makes me squirm, I look for a better way. Naming seriously injured people in a blog in hope that someone will Google the person's name and want to help them by telling them to call Mike Meyers is the wrong way to help get people fair compensation.

Just because insurance companies act despicably is not cause to act in way that would cause most of us to squirm.

Related Posts

• Personal injury lawyer blogs going too far? What do you think? - 12/11/07
  
• Personal injury law blog ethics picked up by WSJ and bloggers- 12/15/07

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