My approach has been too cavalier. 'Why do you need a policy for something that is just a different medium for communication? Law firms need to look at their own policies and see how blogs fit in.'

Kevin McKeown, our VP of client development, also a lawyer, but with a long history of business development and strategy takes a different approach. One of taking responsibility as the leading law blog provider to get lawyers, legal marketers, and business development professionals what they need to get firm management's approval on blogs.

As such, Kevin's been working with a number of large law firms on a law firm blog policy. Here's what Kevin kicked out to large law firm this week. Not a policy per se, but factors that firm needs to take into account in crafting its own blog policy. Use it in your firm's blog discussions and please offer any feedback.

Law Firm Blog Policy? Ten Questions to Consider.

1. Who owns the blog? Firm or individual lawyer(s)? Firm ownership is suggested if using to extend brand of firm and enhance reputation of a practice group. Copyright reflects ownership decided.
2. Who will blog? One author or multiple authors in a group blog? The firm approves and identifies all authors and blogs.
3. Does the blog(s) have a specific focus or niche? The narrower the focus, the better. Articulate.
4. Does the firm need firm guidelines for blogs? Maybe not. Review existing guidelines, practices and procedures. How are email newsletters, media relations and client development issues handled? With minor revisions, professional blogging may easily be covered under existing firm practices.
5. Has the firm drafted appropriate blog disclaimer and privacy policy? Disclaimers need to state that no attorney/client relationship is being formed and no legal advice is being dispensed. See LexBlog’s portfolio for disclaimer examples: http://www.lexblog.com/cat-portfolio.html. See also ethics points below.
6. Does the firm need to restrict blog content? Some firms may wish to restrict blog content to be general and informational similar to email newsletters and alerts. Other firms may wish to take a more progressive, and usually more successful, approach to blogging by linking to and referencing other blog posts and news stories. By doing so, you're joining the conversation as an authority in your field. Depending on the circumstances, lawyer(s) may wish to avoid taking too strong position on a particular legal topic. Generally, you don't want to be blogging about existing clients and matters that members of the firm are working on.
7. What’s the blog posting and comment policy? Most firms, subject to general oversight, let blog authors write and publish without showing content to practice chairs or marketing prior to posting. Comments from blog readers should be allowed. To not allow comments, risks embarrassment to the firm. Blog software preferences should enable the blog author(s) or another designated party to review and approve comments before going live. Expect no more than 3 or 4 comments per month. Appropriate comments may be published.
8. How frequently should be blogs be updated? The most effective bloggers post new content at least once a week. Blog author(s) should not fall below this threshold. To develop a compelling voice, the author should write and post—not someone else. A post should be relatively short—a few paragraphs (200-500 words may be fine). In many cases, take no more than 20 to 30 minutes to write a post.
9. What is the role of the marketing? General oversight. Review blogs from time-to-time. Encourage lawyers to ask LexBlog specific questions about best blogging practices and any technical issues. Work with PR to determine what, if any, PR or marketing will be done to promote blog. Think through how networking with other bloggers and media will be addressed. Decide who responds to media requests directed to blog authors.
10. How does the firm ensure that published blog content shares and extends the reach of the firm’s intellectual capital and maintains and enhances the firm’s reputation (quality control)? Require that new author(s) participate in LexBlog’s best practices training prior to the blog’s launch. One of the best ways to enter social media discussion is to follow relevant RSS (real simple syndication) feeds and reference other respected bloggers and their posts. The training reinforces this concept and shares other insights and tips for how to write effective, compelling posts including the use of supporting links, graphics, and photos via LexBlog’s platform. The orientation also addresses how to utilize LexBlog’s HelpSpot for any client support or technical questions (see http://support.lexblog.com/). Finally, the LexBlog’s blog “boot camp” is reinforced through ongoing educational webinars for beginning, intermediate and advanced bloggers as part of the client care commitment.

Blog Ethics? Seven Points to Consider

1. Follow existing firm protocols and rules.
2. Do specific ethics rules exist in your state? Few, if any, states have specific rules applying to blogs.
3. Follow existing state ethics rules—particularly web advertising rules.
4. Use disclaimers on blogs—do not dispense legal advice or create an attorney/client relationship. See firm policy questions above.
5. Do not breach client confidences.
6. Do not engage in any false or misleading communication.

Related posts:

• Law firm blog policy : Points to consider
• Blog policy for law firms and professional services businesses
• Corporate blogging policy : Don't be a dumb ass
• Corporate blog policy : Blog in peace

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

...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

The Florida Bar is alleging Attorney Sean Conway violated 5 ethics rules, including impugning the judge's qualifications or integrity. From The South Florida Sun Sentinel:

In the Halloween 2006 posting on a blog, Conway denounced Alem�n for what he said was an 'ugly, condescending attitude' and questioned her mental stability after, he says, she unlawfully forced attorneys to choose between unreasonable trial dates or waiving their clients' rights to a speedy trial.

Conway, 36, also filed a complaint against [Broward Circuit Judge Cheryl] Alem�n with the Judicial Qualifications Commission, the state agency that polices judicial conduct, citing her 'deliberate refusal' to follow the law and insolent behavior. Conway says he hasn't heard from the commission since a May 29 letter acknowledging his complaint.

And who's to say the Judge didn't deserve it. She's facing reprimand and removal from the bench for 'allegedly threatening to hold defense attorneys in contempt and refusing to remove herself from cases in which she had an acrimonious relationship with the defense attorney.'

Conway must not have realized there's a save as draft button on the blog publishing software. It's to be used like the right corner of your desk for heated letters you let sit over night and take a second look at the next morning.

Reason for asking was that with the firm's permission she was going it alone on the blog. Though her relationship with the firm would be disclosed on the blog, the blog would not be branded in the firm's name and the individual lawyer would own the blog.

The situation of 'going it alone' is not an uncommon one for lawyers. Even in large law firms. But we've not had any clients, that I know of, set up a separate corporate entity for their blog.

Though I'm a lawyer I can't give legal advice. But I am not sure that setting up an LLC would be necessary on the liability side. In the unlikely event, someone came after the lawyer, plaintiff's counsel could make a compelling case that the lawyer was doing the blog to generate work for the lawyer (going through the firm) and the corporate veil may be able to be pierced.

One area where a corp may, I guess, be nice (hedging like lawyer) is to make clear the ownership issue. When the blog becomes a strong asset as far as a reputation enhancer and business generator, you do not want to have any grey area as to who owns it. The blog would be branded as the individual lawyers and copyrighted as theirs, but this could provide additional protection.

But even then, it's best to get ownership cleared up right from the start. A quick email exchange with a copy signed by each party (to override corporate bylaws or partnership agreements on firm owning everything) may do the trick. With many administrative partners holding blogs in such low esteem, getting such a sign off ought to be as hard as agreeing to your ownership of a rally monkey you picked while using the firm's tickets for an Angel's game.

What do you think of setting up a separate corporation for your lawyer blogging? Know of any lawyer who's done so?

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?

Related Posts

• Personal injury lawyer blogs victims' names in hopes they call his office - 12/14/07
  
• Personal injury law blog ethics picked up by WSJ and bloggers- 12/15/07

Better hide this news from the state bar regulators and the large law firm legal marketing professionals. They love creating rules and standards for things they don't understand. Can you imagine the likes of Shook, Hardy & Bacon, Reed Smith and Baker & McKenzie getting together with state bar ethics regulators to develop standards for lawyer blogging excellence? That way firms who had never blogged would know to use blogs and engage in the blogsophere in a responsible way.

Better than invent a new standard, let's just us the Airbag Department of Security Blog Advisory System. It was carefully developed last year in response to Tim O'Reilly's Blogger Code of Conduct. Though designed so that blog publishers could alert their users to the threat condition of words being used on a blog, with a few tweaks and a call to Greg Storey it may do the job.

Rather than trample free speech, we post warnings to protect the innocent. Take a look.

I've been approached by more than one lawyer to sit on a council or advisory board to develop standards for ethical law blogging. I'm serious. I declined as I did when they called to develop standards for the ethical use of a fax machine. We survived.

It's just too darn dangerous Joe to have some poor soul reach the conclusion that one lawyer has more expertise in a niche than another lawyer. We're not talking surgeons here. We're talking lawyers. It's just too risky.

You could play this out on Saturday Night Live and not change a thing. Viewers would think it was funny as hell. If they found out the truth - that we kowtowed to state bar associations saying we cannot advertise about our expertise, experience or the regard in which others hold us, they would think we were idiots.

Good to hear via a post from Connecticut civil rights and criminal defense lawyer Norm Pattis that lawyers may not have to 'roll over and play road kill' when, as Norm calls them, the 'geriatric souls' at the bar associations come rattling their swords about you referencing your expertise and experience.

I am heartened by an 11th Circuit decision I learned of only yesterday while attending a presentation on regulation of lawyers. The lawyer who litigated the case was told that he could not list the following in his ads: ''AV' Rated, the Highest Rating Martindale-Hubbell National Law Directory.'� Why not? It could mislead the public.

The lawyer fought the case. He went to the District Court, which pusillanimously refused to strike the regulatory requirement on First Amendment grounds. Undeterred, he went to the 11th Circuit, where he found judges who acted like judges. In the absence of evidence of harm, the bar could not forbid the lawyer to list his rating. Mason v. Fla. Bar., 208 F.3d 952 (11th Cir. 2000).

The speaker Norm references also said that despite host of states scrutinizing Martindale-Hubbard, Super Lawyers and Chambers ads, no one is aware of one complaint in the state's 350 year history that a consumer ever felt misled by a lawyer's ads.

Regulation of ads, we were told, is referred to by one high placed regulator as 'the perfect solution to a problem that does not exist.'

Lawyers, not wanting to take a chance, seek informal ethics opinions approving the lawyers plans to tell the world about themselves. I am already seeing it with blogs. Lawyers are asking me, 'should we submit our blog to the bar for ethics approval?'

As Norm says, few (I'm not aware of any) decisions seem to be directed toward the blogosphere. But unless lawyers, presumably the defenders of the First Amendment, take a stand we're going to find lawyer blogs regulated on the basis that someone may reach the conclusion the lawyer publishing the blog has some expertise and experience. God forbid. Protect the children.

A Nebraska opinion (pdf) says a lawyer may advertise in internet-based lawyer directory if, among other things, 'no recommendation is made as to a particular lawyer.' An Oregon opinion (pdf) goes so far as to say a 'Lawyer is responsible for content that Lawyer did not create to the extent that Lawyer knows about that content.'

Following this logic, Doug believes lawyers need to monitor what is being said about them in social networking/social media sites to make sure that there are no endorsements or recommendations of their legal services.

Sounds archaic not to allow consumers of legal services to comment on the service of a lawyer they may have used. But I'm not sure legal ethics rules on advertising ever had the public's interest in mind.

These opinions also fly in the face of services like AVVO, a lawyer ratings website, and Martindale-Hubbell, which is now offering client reviews of their attorneys.

A strict conservative interpretation of legal ethics rules so as to hide the ball from consumers of legal services is misguided. Why shouldn't the public have at least the same right to consumer feedback when selecting a lawyer as they would have when buying a new dishwasher? We're all going online looking for reviews when selecting a service or product. Let's move the process of selecting a lawyer into this century.

Snead uses IM as an example of where unfounded fear causes lawyers to advise clients to significantly rein in technology.

...[T]hat IM may lead to accidental disclosure of confidential information.� I've heard many attorneys spout this rationale for advising their clients to wall off IM.� But how true is it?� I've used IM for over 7 years to communicate with my clients, often with several different conversations going at once, and maybe one or two with friends chirping away as well.� Not once have I told client X what client Y was doing, or one of my friends that the other hated his guts.

Why the lawyer fear of technology? Per Snead:

First, we're trained (and like it or not, paid) to spot all the possible problems that issues may present our clients.� In the case of new technology, that may result in one of two outcomes:� the number of problem issues spotted by the attorney becomes so overwhelming, that the client simply abandons the technology fearing that any potential upside will be overtaken by liability issues; second, the lawyer fails to identify ways that the client may mitigate any liability, or work around it.� This second reason seems to stall or kill many projects.

So how does a host, who would like to use many different and potentially untested products deal with this?� The first is to recognize that there is no such thing as a litigation proof strategy or product.� People sue for many reasons, and occasionally for no reason.� You need to be comfortable with the fact that, particularly with new technology, your lawyer isn't going to be able to assure you that there is no, or even little, risk with a new product.� Second, it's going to be impossible for your lawyer to quantify every element of risk.� This is particularly true with uses of new technology:� there's simply nothing to benchmark your risk against.� Also, pressed to the wall, your lawyer is likely to become very conservative.

And Snead is spot on that fear mongering lawyers need to be challenged to identify solutions allowing the use of innovative technology.

Any idiot can spot issues and advise stopping. It's the good lawyers who craft solutions that allow innovation to move forward. Imagine in-house counsel at Google running around saying 'we can't do this, we can't do that' trying to put a stop to innovation. They'd be thrown out on their ass.

Each day lawyers tell me they want to get started with blogs in their firm, but that those in control (executive committees, administrative partners, chief marketing officers) believe the legal liabilities and ethical issues are too great. Rather than craft a law firm blog policy (an hours worth of work to follow what other firms have done), unfounded fear stops everyone in their tracks.

Like cell phones, which we lawyers were told not to use because of confidential info being tapped into, blogs will be used by the vast majority of lawyers in a few years. Just disappointing today to see talented lawyers try to kill the use of blogs rather than crafting solutions allowing effective technology to move forward.

The whole discussion arose out of Bashman's publishing a 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on a case filed by a Sept. 11 detainee. Turns out the case was filed under seal because of national security issues. The Court mistakenly made the decision public. A court clerk called Bashman asking him to take the discussion down from his blog. Bashman declined arguing as a journalist and member of the media, he needed to keep a post up which thousands had already seen, emailed to others, and blogged about.

Regardless of what folks think about Bashman's refusal, whether as a journalist or officer of the court, there's not much argument that as a law blogger, folks believe Bashman is a journalist.

• Matthew Felling at CBS' Public Eye: As far as this writer is concerned, Bashman fits the bill.
• Law Professor Daniel Solove at Concurring Opinions: I believe that anybody can be a journalist -- a journalist is what a journalist does. In other words, being associated with a mainstream media entity doesn't determine who is a journalist and who is not. One doesn't need to be part of any organization to report information to the public.
• Law Professor Eric Goldman, commenting at Concurring Opinions: If we were building the law from scratch today, there is no way we would try to "privilege" journalists from other types of content publishers and disseminators. That distinction is simply too incoherent in an era where everyone has equal access to an infinite audience.
• Mark Obbie at LawBeat of The Carnegie Legal Reporting Program at Syracuse University: Bashman's backbone is even more admirable than the average journalist's -- if put in a similar position -- because Bashman's day job depends on the good graces of appellate courts. When the government overreaches to keep the public's business secret, journalists must stand up and be counted. That's easier when the worst they can do is be mad at you. Bashman did more.
• The Blog of the Legal Times: Bashman then took the classic stance of journalists in opposition to government secrecy: "In my role as a member of the news media, I determined that it would be inappropriate to take down my posting of the decision based on a general claim that the opinion, issued earlier in the day to the public over the internet, referred to information contained in an appendix whose contents remained under seal."

Not much question either following Wikipedia's definition of a journalist:

A journalist is a person who practices journalism, the gathering and dissemination of information about current events, trends, issues and people.

As an aside, today I'm unable to pull up Bashman's posts on the subject (or any of his posts after 10/8/07) so not certain what is transpiring.

Every product team at Google has a blog but their focus is strictly PR, not to give rise to a conversation on the blogs, none of which allow comments.

And as Karen Wickre, 'mother of Google's blogs', on her work as editor & 'gatekeeper' of the official Google blogs told Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land in an interview, all blog posts are reviewed before published live to the net.

While it's important to have a review, I never want to overwrite what a Googler is saying about their topic or product. All posts are reviewed by a few relevant people on the immediate team, plus a PR person for approval. As a rule, this isn't labor-intensive or overbearing. We try to encourage original perspectives and stories insofar as company blogs can feature those. We share drafts in Google Docs and do edits there. Again, I try hard not to overwrite or have the team wordsmith to death. That's not going to get us interesting reads.

Google's blogging does work. Even though comments may not be allowed on the blogs themselves, blog posts from Google often generate vibrant discussion on the blogosphere. Who wouldn't want to know what to know what Google is up to? And for many of us, who wouldn't to spread the fact on their own blog that they follow what Google is doing?

Law firms may also want to follow Google's lead on the use of blogs in place of press releases. As Karen told Danny, 'Much more often than a press release ... we'll issue a blog post.' Because of the tens of thousands of bloggers and reporters who subscribe to Google's blogs, a blog post is more widely disseminated than a press release.

Source on post: Google Blogoscoped

The Free Flow of Information Act, which Anderson says has received support from both sides of the aisle, would ultimately work to keep the government in check.

The bill would offer protection of sources and documents to journalists (including professional bloggers) caught up in federal investigations, and could put an end to images of reporters led from court in handcuffs after refusing to testify.

And while it may be receiving bipartisan support at the legislative level, the executive branch is less receptive, according to Editor & Publisher.

The White House issued a statement Tuesday afternoon saying President Bush's advisers would recommend he veto the legislation unless it's changed, claiming the bill is too broad and could harm national security.

"It is likely that the legislation will encourage more leaks of classified information by giving leakers such a formidable shield behind which they can hide," the statement read.

While the law only covers professional journalists (those who report news for "financial gain or livelihood"), there are undoubtedly bloggers out there who do just that - and who should legitimately not have to fear prosecution or jail. Whether the bill becomes law or not, it is apparent by the vote that politicians from both sides of the political spectrum understand the value of journalistic checks and balances.