Marty's post with his draft of a letter to his Congressional representative got me thinking about our idea to have Between Lawyers show you what happens behind the conference room doors in law firms. I thought it make for a good case study to react to Marty's draft in the same way I might if we were practicing in the same law firm.

So, here are my initial reactions to Marty's letter and the directions he/we might take it:

I can't believe that I finally get the chance to say to Marty what he always says to me - I think your letter is way too long. I really like what you are saying, but I think that it takes too long to get to the point. How about a few bullet points about what you want the congressperson to do?

I think that you are saying:

1. Current methods of getting good information about pending legislation are not only inadequate for those of us who want to learn more about the bills but they also create the impression that bills are the products of secret negotiations with "special interests."

2. You have two recent examples to illustrate this.

3. The lack of information about these laws will increase the suspicion people have about legislators, increase public skepticism about laws and increase the level of cynicism about the political process in general.

4. No one thinks that any of these results can be good things.

5. You have seen the benefits that discussion in the blog world can bring to these kinds of matters and it is a simple and free way to provide citizens with information they really want to have, with the side benefit of giving legislators credit for opening the process and better serving their constituents. Note: I'd expand the notion to blogs in general, not just legal blogs.

6. If they need help setting up a blog, we can help. ;-)

I suggest that you change your approach to the letter/post in the following
ways:

1. Simplify and shorten the letter - some of the explanatory material makes sense in your post but not in a letter that someone with a busy schedule will read. Make it simple enough that even a lawyer will read it.

2. Turn the letter into an action. Post the letter as something that readers who agree with you can copy and send to their Senators and Representatives. Add some links so people can get the contact info easily, so that they will in fact send copies to their Senators and Reps. Tom probably has some good suggestions for those types of resources.

3. Turn the core idea into a movement - Congress should be more open and more blog-friendly and produce RSS feeds for bill tracking and the like. Why not try to make it happen? Why not see if you can show the Congressperson a real-life example of what blogs can do? Why give them one letter from you when your opinions reflect a much bigger constituency? As they say, let 'em know.

4. Invite people to comment on and even revise the letter. See if we can improve it over the next few days.

My two cents.

I hope that your interest in bankruptcy law isn't a reflection on the amounts of money most bloggers currently make from their blogs.