It would be a grave mistake... for bars to begin equating blogs with advertisements, and treating them the same. Rules regulating attorney advertising are pernicious and elitist to begin with; they shouldn't be expanded. And characterizing blogs as merely advertising for the attorney who writes them is so reductive as to be absurd.

It's true that blogs written under law firm auspices may function to promote the writer and his firm, but they function in many other ways as well - and their myriad functions ought to take them out of the First Amendment category of "commercial speech," for which regulation is more liberally allowed.

Julie's detailed arguments are compelling, well founded on US Supreme Court rulings, and definitely required reading by every lawyer publishing a blog. After reading the article, I'm with Ernie and Cathy Kirkman, who did not view lawyer blogs as advertising in a National Law Journal article (though my clients may still treat them as such).

And read what Julie has to say about the importance of lawyer blogs for the marketing of a lawyer's services.

With most people still stuck relying on personal referrals to find a lawyer, states should be welcoming - not threatening to crack down on - lawyer blogs.

Before blogs, all one could glean about a lawyer - beyond information from informal gossip networks and personal recommendations - would typically be which schools the lawyer attended, which clerkships he had, and the like. (I'm still waiting to see a site pop up on the Internet that compiles comments by clients on particular lawyers. Though such a site doubtless would draw numerous suits, they'd be easy to defend: The defamation immunity of the Communications Decency Act, which I discussed in a prior column, would offer strong protection.)

Blogs allow a potential client to, in effect, listen to his potential lawyer think legal issues out. It's hard to conceive of a more substantive, less elitist way to choose an attorney than this: Not on credentials or connections, but on sheer merit in one of the skills that matters most.

For clients to actually, in a sense, overhear lawyers think provides them with an invaluable opportunity. Indeed, for those who still cling to the idea that law is somehow "above trade," it shows off the only aspect of the profession that really does, arguably, make it special: The law's ideal is to let the best thinkers, and the best arguments, win.

If we want the best arguments to win in court, why shouldn't we let the best bloggers win clients, too? State bars should affirmatively encourage legal blogs, rather than chilling them by regulating them as if they were no more significant than a banner on the back of a bus.

Julie, now beginning a career in screenwriting, is no light weight. She was an associate at the law firm of Williams & Connolly in Washington, D.C., where she worked on First Amendment, criminal defense, appellate, and other issues. Her legal commentary on First Amendment and other issues may be found collected on her webpage at FindLaw.com. Her columns frequently also appear in CNN's Law Center. Julie has been a legal commentator on Good Morning America, Court TV, CNN, and NPR, as well as local television and radio stations.

As I said in an email to Julie tonight, I would love to have been as eloquent and compelling on this point. But I was one of those kids that got out of law school by the skin of their teeth, not by their brains.

Note: Though lawyer blogs may be exempt from state's ethics rules, LexBlog is suggesting that lawyers label their blog as 'Advertising' in small text in the footer of each page of their blog so as to comply with a strict interpretation of NY's ethics rules and to include a disclaimer linked to from each blog page.

The article provides a nice discussion on the ethics of blogging and possible restraints quoting lawyers from around the country, including myself. But rather than jump into such a discussion, why not just recognize that this discussion itself is nuts.

Blogs are just a different medium of communication. Lawyer communications take place in person or via mediums such as the phone, mail, fax, email, websites, and now blogs. We do not need separate ethics rules governing each medium of communication. The same rules apply when talking in person as on a blog.

Sure, many lawyers like to get into esoteric arguments splitting hairs as to the difference between different communication mediums. That's just one of the many ways lawyers prove they left their common sense behind the second year of law school.

Put some things in perspective. I'm sure there were lawyers debating the ethics of using phones. Some lawyers used them when first invented and did a more effective job communicating with people. At the same time I'm sure there were other other lawyers debating the ethics and looking for their state's ethics body to say yes, it's okay to use the phone.

In 1996 when I put up a Web site to market my law firm, I loaded it chock full of helpful questions and answers for injury victims and their families. I worked with AOL to develop on line chats with lawyers and consumers.

I participated everyday in message boards at AOL and then created my own so other lawyers and I could help people. I created 4 listservs so the best lawyers in the country could interact with people in need of straight talk on personal injury, medical malpractice, workers compensation, and employee rights matters.

I didn't give legal advice (just general information for education purposes), didn't do anything where a reasonable person could argue there was an attorney client relationship, didn't saying anything misleading, didn't solicit work, didn't violate conflicts rules, and did not do things which result in blowing client confidences.

At the same time, lawyers were saying why the heck would anyone need a website - and of course that ethics rules would prevent websites and all the things I was doing to try and help people. Heck some 'experts' were saying law firms with web sites would have to put 'controls' on their websites so they could not be viewed in states where the lawyers did not have a license to practice.

I took two positions. One, I was going to follow existing ethics rules. As part of doing so, I read everything I could on the issue and sought the counsel of ethics experts. And two, that lawyers were put here to serve people. I just could not believe ethics rules would prevent me (and a very dedicated team in my law office) from serving people who were starved for practical legal information.

The outcome? We built a virtual law community of legal articles, message boards, chats, listservs and the like covering numerous areas of the law. We moderated the community to make sure that existing ethics rules, not new rules governing virtual law communities, were being complied with. It's now incorporated into Martindale-Hubbell's lawyers.com.

Not once did I stop to ask for permission from a state's ethics governing body nor did I spend a lot of time worrying about them clamping down on what were doing. Neither I nor the thousands of lawyers who proudly participated in that community were ever the subject of an ethics grievance for the work we were doing to help people.

Of course there were the Chicken Littles running around then saying the sky was falling and it's happening all over again with the advent of lawyer blogs.

It's this Chicken Little mentality and the discussion generated from it that is attracting news coverage on the ethics and lawyer blogs debate. Covering a story that no one in the their right mind could believe (lawyer ethics rules preventing lawyers from sharing helpful information with the public?) is highly entertaining. And of course plays into all the articles which cast lawyers and our profession in bad light.

Let's just tell it like it is. We do not need new ethics rules addressing blogs written by lawyers and judges who don't know the first thing about blogs or for that matter communicating with real people via the Internet. And that this cat is out of the bag - lawyer blogs are here to stay. Lawyer blogs break down the barriers between non-lawyers and lawyers, share helpful information with the public, help people evaluate lawyers, and are improving the image of our profession.

No ethics body is going to put a lid on lawyer blogs. Any lawyer who fears they may is screaming the sky is falling.