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Lawyers making asses of themselves on net

October 26, 2006

Lawyers’ foolishness in clamping down on lawyer blogs has made its way to the tech community. Slashdot, a highly popular technology-related news website, shared the absurdity this evening.

An anonymous reader writes ‘While you might not guess it from watching late night TV, advertisements by lawyers are regulated by a web of regulations intended to protect potential clients from deceptive claims in such ads. Generally, these rules require lawyers to submit their ads to a review board, often with a filing fee paid with each new advertisement. The New York bar has proposed new rules which would define blogging as advertising. Should these rules be enacted, any New York lawyer who blogs on any legal topic in New York would be required to submit any new blog post to the New York Bar for review. For New York lawyers who write frequently updated blogs, this could force them to make multiple (and potentially expensive) reports to the New York Bar every single day.’

We’ve got to get with it guys. It’s okay to run garbage ads on late night TV, on the side of busses, and on the walls behind urinals (yes, ads for dui lawyers), while we’ll clamp down on lawyers providing helpful info via blogs. Defies common sense. But suppose that’s how we got the reputation we have.

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