Denise Howell is a seasoned appellate and intellectual property litigator based in Los Angeles. Denise writes one of the first and most popular law-related blogs, Bag and Baggage, coined the term "blawg" and helped pioneer podcasting for lawyers. Microcontent obsessed since 2001, she is frequently quoted in the media on legal issues involving intellectual property and technology law. "Sound Policy" is Denise's show at IT Conversations, and it's also what she hopes results from the briefs she submits to court. Email Denise at dhowell@gmail.com.
Dennis Kennedy is a computer lawyer and legal technology expert based in St. Louis, Missouri. An award-winning author, a frequent speaker and a widely-read blogger, he has more than 300 publications on legal, technology and Internet topics, many of which are collected in his e-books. Dennis has been described as someone who knows almost every rock song in existence and, more importantly, how they apply to technology and law. Email Dennis at his gmail address.
Tom Mighell is Senior Counsel and Litigation Technology Support Coordinator at Cowles & Thompson in Dallas. He has published the Internet Legal Research Weekly newsletter since 2000 and blogged about the Internet and legal technology at Inter Alia since August of 2002. With Tom's singing, Ernie on guitar and Dennis' encylopedic knowledge of rock music, we may have the beginnings of a good band, if this whole blog thing doesn't work out. Email Tom at tmighell@swbell.net.
Marty Schwimmer left a partnership in the largest trademark practice in the world and founded Schwimmer Mitchell, a full-service IP micro-boutique in Westchester County, New York, where he represents owners of famous and not yet famous trademarks. He founded The Trademark Blog, the first IP law blog and the one with the most pictures. He is the first to come in and the last to leave in his firm. Email Marty at marty@schwimmerlegal.com.
Ernest Svenson practices law with a mid-sized law firm in New Orleans, specializing in business-related lawsuits. Most of his practice takes place in federal court, especially the Eastern District. He is best known for his weblog Ernie the Attorney, which he started as an experiment. Like many experiments it got out of control. Nevertheless, he continues to practice law and, occasionally,
to seek enlightenment. Email Ernest at esvenson@gmail.com.
About this blog
Between Lawyers provides just-in-time group commentary on the issues
raised when technology, culture and the law intersect. We take you
behind the firewalls and conference room doors to show you how
experienced lawyers deal with these issues and help you prepare for
the new challenges we all face. For more, see our introductory post.
So — what should Nixon Peabody have done when its embarrassing firm non-theme song made its inevitable way onto the Web? (And into the atmosphere of countless homes and offices, as its hapless victims hum and mutter it against their will and better judgment?)
If they'd have asked me (or perhaps 95% of the over 1,000 people who have voted in the Volokh Conspiracy poll), I'd have told them the last thing they should be doing is invoking the DMCA. Instead I'd have recommended:
applying an appropriately liberal Creative Commons license,
holding a mashup contest, and
showcasing the winner and the top 9 runners up on the firm's home page.
TechnoLawyer's new free eBook, BlawgWorld 2007, features a selected post from 77 different law-related blogs. It's a good introduction to the current state of blogging for everyone, no matter what your familiarity, or lack of familiarity, with blawgs. You'll even find a choice post from the Between Lawyers blog.
This might be better suited to Overlawyered than Between Lawyers, but I'm posting it here anyway because it's a great series of posts. One thing I don't see addressed: one of the most powerful features of Facebook (and a host of other social networking sites) is the fine-grained privacy control users have over the visibility their data. Often, only "friends" have access to the kinds of details George discusses. But, lots of people do make their data more generally visible. It's ironic that employment laws are such that though "the public" may be invited to view such information, lucrative damages awards or settlements could be associated with doing so in the context of employment or potential employment.
I was listening yesterday to the terrific CalacanisCast interview with Dan Albritton of iminlikewithyou.com, and was struck yet again by the way indicia of reputation, trustworthiness, and credibility are shifting and quantifying. I'm not sure what tomorrow's AV rating will look like, but I suspect it will be less subjective, more egalitarian, and more task-oriented.
Blog carnivals are an interesting blog phenomenon, with a long history. Dave Winer has referred to a blog as "the unedited voice of a person," and blog carnivals turn that notion on its head, being "voices of many different people in many different places." However, that's what makes the blogosphere so rich - there are so many ways to create compelling blogs and blog content. In that respect, it's even more amazing to keep a blog carnival going for 100 editions (and even more in the case of some blog carnivals), especially as blog search tools improve and people increasingly consume information through RSS feeds and newsreaders rather than individually visiting blogs.
I know that I am not alone in saying that my favorite Blawg Review post remains Marty Schwimmer's highly-regarded Blawg Review #60, which seemed as timely and incisive this morning when I reread it this morning as it did on the day it was posted.
Marty's money quote:
This is an opportunity for the blawgosphere to assume a leadership position. It can be more than a compendium of firm brochures. Practitioner blogs can provide cool-headed legal analysis of issues such as the Niger Documents, Plame Affair, Torture Memos, NSA issues and Signing Statements, to a broader audience than the prof blogs can reach.
Is it a poison for a practitioner to discuss politics? Partisan politics, yes.
However I don't see a downside in arguing for equal application of and respect for the law. That may even be one of those civic duties they may have mentioned at the bar admission ceremony.
I would hope that there is a centrist bloc of practitioner bloggers who simply want the truth to come out. Jack Nicholson is wrong, we can handle the truth.
So let's continually ask whether our Government is acting lawfully.
Attorney and Chicago area blogger Mazyar M. Hedayat has drafted and released a blogging policy for the DuPage County Bar Association, "as well as any committee, firm, or bar association thinking of establishing blogs or wikis in order to foster communication with their members or the public." It is a concise nine points in length, and I like every one of them:
#1 know and follow bar association guidelines for conduct, as well as the rules of good legal writing. no need to use Blue Book citations, but be accurate in your posts: others will look to them as a source of information and news, if not actual research.
#2 be mindful of what you write. remember that you have an audience.
#3 identify yourself and write in first person. make it clear that you are not necessarily speaking for the bar association as a whole. be sure to disclose any information necessary to keep your statements from being misleading. use the following disclaimer on your blog or wiki with respect to all posts:
unless indicated to the contrary posts do not reflect the views of the bar association, its members, executives, staff, board, or committees, and are the opinion of the writer
#4 respect copyright and fair use. do not plagiarize. give credit where due by citing to the author of a statement or passage.
#5 do not reveal confidential information that could result in liability to yourself, your committee, other bar association members, or the bar association itself.
#6 do not comment on active cases or client matters by name except with the approval of those referred to in the post.
#7 do not use ethnic slurs, insults, or obscenity. Avoid writing about inflammatory topics solely to pique prurient interests.
#8 always try to add to a discussion constructively and ultimately to add value. do not let your ego get in the way. you are here for the good of the bar association after all.
#9 have fun. a blog or wiki can be loads of fun and a terrific way to share the best of your committee with the world.
Legal Internet pioneer Erik Heels is conducting an interesting experiment around the question: "are blogs dead?" Take a look and help him with his experiment.
Martin Veitch, The Inquirer: "[T]he day that the language of the billiards hall reaches such depths here, we shall be forced to leave the United Kingdom. "
Unless you're our colleague Ernie, that is: "I don't want to put any disclaimers on my blog," said Ernest Svenson, a blogger better know as Ernie the Attorney. "It's a buy-in to a mindset that I want to go away." Well said, as to what should by rights be able to remain unsaid.
WisBlawg's Bonnie Shucha reports that LexisNexis is now including a lengthy list of blogs (including this one) in its Newstex database. Yet another example of the paid online legal database companies tying their business models to the location of relevant information that already is online for free. Makes me wonder how long it will take before a well designed, ad-supported free legal search competitor comes in and seriously syphons off subscribers. Google undoubtedly does this already, even though it doesn't (yet) do vertical search.
History in the making and participatory law in action — behold LawClinic.TV. From the press release: "Fordham University School of Law today became the first academic institution to launch a video blog or 'vlog.' The vlog, LawClinic.TV, features one-to-two minute videos of clinical law professors and students sharing their thoughts on clinical law education and written commentary from Fordham’s director of clinical education, Professor Ian Weinstein."
This is cool. Legal technology wizard Ross Kodner has debuted his new blog, Ross Ipsa Loquitur. I know that it will be a source of great info. I've learned a lot from Ross and had a lot of fun presenting with him on legal tech topics. Welcome to the Land of Blog, Ross.
There's an excellent article at APC Magazine, warning businesses who lock down their Internet access that they're in danger of losing employees. But that's not all they're in danger of losing. There's a reason "digital natives" are so reliant on the 'Net they will resort to elaborate and policy-violating workarounds: they get things done there. They knowledge-gather. They connect. They market. They produce. What's at stake for businesses who fail to grok this goes far beyond recruiting and employee retention. I give any such outfit five years of soulless survival, at the outside. (Via Techmeme)
On February 26, 2003, Robert Scoble penned (keyboarded?) his Corporate Weblog Manifesto, possibly the single most important thing business people can read (other than, of course, Robert's book) to understand what it takes to navigate and thrive in the blogosphere. Over time there have been a couple of addendums (I may be missing some), which also are key reading. Today, Robert has more in the same vein with Rule #1: Don’t pull down posts — a real world cautionary tale that warrants taking to heart.
Indianapolis Star columnist Dana Knight has a thorough and balanced piece on employee blogging: Words of caution. There's a little bit of everything there, including approaches of different companies, blogs and marketing, recent Pew blogging survey results, and do's and don'ts for employers and employees.
Looking for something to read this weekend? Look no further -- check out Nexus, a "Journal of Opinion" from Chapman University School of Law. The current issue is titled How are Blogs Affecting the Legal World?, and it contains 12 articles from law professors and law blog lumiaries alike. Included is Blog You (PDF File), an article from BL's very own Denise Howell.
The Yale Law Journal is looking for submissions on topics "both contentious and suitable to thorough and engaging discussion." If you have something in mind you'd better get a move on, the deadline is August 1.
While that bit of information is interesting in its own right, perhaps more interesting is the way I know about it: YLJ went out of its way to thank blawger Sean Sirrine, and ask him once again to help get the word out about the opportunity (which he did). Just another example of blawgs throwing a courtyard bazaar at the ivory tower and fostering a culture of participatory law. I can't think of a more effective way to engage those who might have something intriguing to say.
Illustrating the approaches toward blogging policies should be context-specific and not cookie cutter:
Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz: "Our blogging policy is 'Be authentic. Period.'" (It's been awhile since I was showing up bright eyed and bushy tailed for Larry Sonsini's Securities Regs class in law school, but I'd be willing to bet Sun's securities lawyers might want a qualifier or two.)
Summer camps, with camper identities to protect and other considerations, might understandably go a different route. That article also highlights, and Dennis pointed out (by pointing here) on our mailing list, the camps' attempts to police bloggy uses of their trademarks. I'll have to defer to Marty on this but what they're concerned about sounds like nominative fair use.
Rob Robinson takes us on a nice pictorial, perhaps even pastoral, tour of the blawgosphere. It's interesting to see the geographical component of blawgging. Nicely done and a pleasant diversion form the work of the day.
Corporate blogging aficionista Debbie Weil is poised to unleash her Corporate Blogging Book on August 3. In the meantime she's offering freebies to tease and entice &mdash the complete first chapter, called "Top 20 Questions About Corporate Blogging," and, if you preorder at Amazon, the book's chart highlights — which you can check out at the book's site.
A colleague recently asked me what concrete steps I thought an organization could take to help ensure the concepts underlying a blogging policy are actually understood and implemented. Bearing in mind I am so not an employment lawyer, I did have a few thoughts.
Blog. I suspect that companies pursuing their own blogging initiatives in addition to implementing policies intended to cover unsanctioned employee blogs will run into fewer problems with employee mistakes or misunderstandings. This is because the management and culture throughout the organization is bound to better grasp the process and related security and compliance issues. IMO, the best "training" occurs by example and widespread use.
Breathe. As I've pontificated here before, there's a pretty good case to be made that blogs and their ilk are
actually the least risky form of corporate communication. If a company adequately gets across the reasons it expects certain employee conduct with regard to external communications, confidential
information, and technology use, blogs, etc. are at least as "safe" as email and the phone; in fact, because people are more likely to understand up front these technologies are designed to accomplish wide and persistent information distribution, people are more likely to approach their use with caution and respect.
Mix. Organizations need to make sure their P.R./marketing and legal arms are communicating about how employees should be relaying work related information to third parties or the world at large, and they need to have an open-eyed appreciation of all the ways people might be or are using technology to do so. Brace yourself: P.R. and legal goals just might compete. Management needs to understand those conflicts and decide what resolution best fits what they're trying to accomplish (and what the law insists they accomplish).
Dahlia Lithwick, Blawgs on a Roll: "The blogosphere thrives precisely because it exists at the interstices of the ivory tower and pop culture. As a result, it's the most fertile ground for cutting-edge law talk. " [via Bob Ambrogi]
Be sure not to miss the Memorial Day edition of Blawg Review this week, and get ready for next week's #60, to be hosted by our own Marty Schwimmer. (I picked a fine week to slack off on my blogging activity.* And WTF am I doing driving more traffic to Marty? Ah well.)
Our co-blogger Dennis Kennedy is quoted today in the New York Times: Interns? No Bloggers Need Apply. Dennis' interesting, and I'm sure far more nuanced, discussion with reporter Anna Bahney was distilled down to a truth about modern attitudes toward personal values and employment — "It's like, 'This is who I am. Consequences are what they are. I'll go work for someone who doesn't have a problem with it.'" Just as she missed the chance to round out her piece with more of Dennis' well-considered insights on this topic, the reporter missed the opportunity to tell the more accurate, important, and complicated story. Specifically, Ms. Bahney took the approach that the issue of individuals, their blogs, and their employers, is one of youth culture vs. Killjoy Lawyer III and co. E.g.:
[T]he line between what is public and what is private is increasingly fuzzy for young people comfortable with broadcasting nearly every aspect of their lives on the Web, posting pictures of their grandmother at graduation next to one of them eating whipped cream off a woman's belly. For them, shifting from a like-minded audience of peers to an intergenerational, hierarchical workplace can be jarring.
(Emphasis added.) While I appreciate the clever juxtaposition, and the point that there undeniably is a generation gap between the online mores of under-thirty-somethings and their elders, to suggest that boundary blurring of this sort is an issue unique to the young is to ignore at least the last six years of Web-enabled communications. And to note almost in passing that "some bloggers" say "[a] blog and a job don't necessarily have to clash," is to ignore at least three years worth (and counting) of seismic shift in corporate attitudes toward communications with the outside world. Yes, it's a slow change. But to suggest the change isn't happening — "No Bloggers Need Apply" — misses the boat, and here, I fear, resulted in an alarmist headline and a story that attempted to paint the varied picture of today's business attitudes and relationships with a two-color palette.
Spherepromises not only excellent blog search but a bookmarklet that will "change your life " ("Note that the Sphere It! Bookmarklet finds blog posts related to the content of the page you're reading, instead of just using links...").
Paul McNamara at Network Worldthinksthis post by Marquette law professor Eric Goldman, critiquing recent lawsuits against Yahoo!, may be defamatory, because the post says Professor Goldman "think[s] these lawsuits are nothing more than a shakedown for cash," and calls the plaintiffs "extortionists." According to Mr. McNamara, "[Professor Goldman's] words practically scream libel." But, as Mr. McNamara clarifies, a lawyer for the Media Law Resource Center assessed things as follows:
In doing a quick search, I found court decisions holding both ways when dealing with similar accusations of 'extortion,' ... The legal issue would likely be whether the statements were actual imputations of a crime, or were 'rhetorical hyperbole,' essentially a statement of opinion, not of fact. The former could be considered libelous, while the latter could not.
Also notable is an observation from one of the plaintiffs' lawyers, Thomas More Marrone, about the amplification role the Web adds to the mix: "It's like a guy standing on a street corner talking to his friends except he's writing it down and disseminating it to hundreds, thousands, millions of people."
The moral, I suppose, is that if you're going to use an online medium to discuss others' potentially wrongful acts (and there's no getting around that a blog or podcast is an attractive place for commenting on disturbing conduct), a little attention to phrasing and characterization can wind up going a long way. (See also thesediscussions of the limited nature of the fair reporting privilege.)
There are a host of reasons (and probably a host of laws) why you wouldn't expect a prosecutor in a criminal case to blog tacky comments about opposing counsel and potentially inadmissible and prejudicial information about a defendant. Notwithstanding, some recent events have prompted the San Francisco D.A.'s office to specify "that criminal cases and office business should not be mentioned on the Internet."
I recommend reading the whole interview because it clearly points to the future and may suggest to many lawyers that the future will arrive much more quickly than they anticipate.
The money quote:
9. What advantages and disadvantages do legal blogs have when compared to law reviews and other traditional forms of scholarship?
The advantages are obvious: speed, availability, and topicality. I don’t see real disadvantages.
Jake Parrillo got my attention today with his post "Blawggers Getting Their Due." And not just by mentioning the Between Lawyers blog and several of our individual blogs.
What interested me were his comments on the possible uses of FeedBurner's new FeedFlare tool in connection with blawgs.
Brad's idea was to add a Flare that would 'add a disclaimer' on each post that would be a small 'bio' link that would list the firm where the blawger is an attorney. That's a great start, but I'm sure there's bound to be more ideas. What about adding a Flare that would link back to the lawyer's latest publication?
Take a look and give it some thought. Let's collect and share ideas in the comments section for this post and we can get back to Jake with some good ideas. I agree with him that this idea has a lot of potential, especially if Rick Klau is involved.
Kevin O'Keefe considers the growing volume of content on law-related blogs and says:
It's very possible, if not probable, that the depth of law content being published on law blogs is greater than that being published by the largest legal media company, American Lawyer Media (ALM). Sure, ALM publishes The National Law Journal, numerous state law journals, and newsletters, but for law from practicing lawyers, law blogs have it all over ALM's content.
Kevin goes on to reflect on this:
This is not to slight the value of ALM. But it's amazing to think that the aggregate power of personal publishing platforms run by lawyers has in only a couple years equaled a major publisher that's been around for decades.
The key point here is not whether,empirically, when can determine whether blawgs or ALM have more content, but instead to marvel at what a huge information resource blawgs have become in such a short time.
For now, it is likely that the traditional defamation standards, including the private/public figure distinction, will continue to apply to defamation cases involving blogs. The very accessibility of blogs, however, may lead courts to reevaluate defamation law standards.
[Via Ian Best] She also looks at the protections afforded by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, and I agree with her that "the policies underlying Congress's enactment of the law may encourage courts to extend the provisions immunity to bloggers." (Context; more context.) Also by Jennifer, a more condensed piece on the same themes: Blogs Raise Thorny Legal Issues.
[Update]: This musty Bag and Baggage post is also on point, Are You A "Public Figure?" "Can the day be far off when a blogger will attempt to answer libel allegations . . . by pointing to the subject's Daypop and Blogdex numbers?" (Or the like; Technorati's just a baby you know, albeit a mighty precocious one.)
Many, maybe most, weblogs involve some combination of personal and professional material. In recognition of this fact, and in an effort to understand how people are striking this balance in the real world, BlogHer recently conducted a survey and gave a presentation at SXSW, entitled "We Got Naked, Now What? Blogging Naked at Work." From the panel description: "Can you open your kimono in one blog post, and wear a button-down shirt in another?"
Lisa Stonelive-blogged the panel, moderator Elisa Camahort gives this rundown of the survey results, and The Washington Post has this postscript. Among other things, the survey found the majority of the respondents "draw distinct boundaries between public and private information," and (perhaps accordingly?) "83 percent of professional bloggers who responded to BlogHer’s survey indicated that they had never received negative feedback to the personal opinions, feelings and experiences included on their business blogs." The survey also showed the respondents, whether they self-identified as more "personal" or "professional" bloggers, shared a tendency to exercise judgment and discretion as to subject matter:
The top subjects that were considered not suitable for business blogging include romantic/sexual feelings (84 percent), salary/income (77 percent), religious/spiritual beliefs (63 percent), and sexual orientation (57 percent). Surprisingly, the personal bloggers were also likely to consider salary/income (68 percent) and romantic/sexual feelings (50 percent) off-limits. In addition, personal bloggers showed reluctance to discuss feelings about events at work (54 percent).
If you've been following our posts concerning business blogging issues and blogging policies, or if you've just been paying attention to mainstream reporting over the last year or so, you know there has been a good deal of handwringing (some media prompted, some lawyer prompted, some both) about the unique or remarkable legal perils that weblogs and other Web-oriented communication tools supposedly pose for businesses. It was clear to me at last week's New Communications Forum that this meme has had an impact. Even in that very blog-friendly environment, concerns and uncertainties about the legal risks of wholly or partly unfiltered employee communications with the outside world were much in evidence.
Something interesting occurred to me along these lines in the course of being interviewed by Debbie Weil for her podcast. Specifically, of all the various communication tools available to employees, whether while on the job or off the job or both, blogging may actually be the least risky and most innocuous from a corporate risk management standpoint. Consider first that people commonly assume phone, email, cocktail party, and/or hallway discussions are invisible, transitory, and/or confidential. Any one of those situations is thus fairly likely to involve remarks that the speaker, rightly or wrongly, does not expect to come back to haunt them in a public way. Then consider the extent to which public blogs, podcasts, and similar tools are conceptually different from the get-go. The accessible nature of the information put out by these means is part of of the compact. Except in the limited case of behind-the-firewall blogging or podcasting, people using these tools are much more likely to comprehend that a broad audience is possible (usually, desired), and to tailor their communications accordingly.
Unlike a great deal of the reporting I read about the dangers and pitfalls of blogging, I have a hard time isolating any primary legal problems that inevitably go along with employees using communication tools of any sort. Instead, the potential problems are a direct product of the extent to which clear expectations have been set, and the extent to which a particular employee is oblivious or doesn't care. Though there are a host of situations whereby an employee's blog, podcast, photo, or video clip could conceivably subject an employer to third party liability — inadvertent disclosure of confidential or regulated information; harassment, discrimination, or other civil rights violations; false advertising or other unfair competition concerns; and much more — not only are none of them unique to online communications, but it seems to me those using such methods would be almost certain to appreciate that what they're doing is not "private."
Picture a world in which it was a newsworthy event every time someone was fired due to something said in an email or a hallway. Or every time company secrets were clandestinely or inadvertently shared over the phone or over drinks. You'd never hear about the dangers and pitfalls of blogging, because it would constitute such a small part of the overall "problem." (And we could all get back to concentrating on what's reallyimportant.)
The first subject is an 'inter-disciplinary' analysis of the protection of design and three-dimensional objects. Practitioners experienced in trademark, trade dress, copyright and patent law will provide news and commentary on the legal treatment of design and any object that incorporates design.
The second subject will be 'personal fabrication.' The creation of Shape Blog was inspired by the book 'Fab' by Professor Neal Gershenfeld To over-simplify:-just as the dropping prices and widespread dissemination of computing power led to the personal computing revolution, dropping prices and dissemination of CAD/CAM techniques will lead to a personal fabrication revolution, where the average home will have the ability to 'fabricate' exact replicas of three-dimensional objects (replacement parts, artworks, furniture) according to software instructions, perhaps downloaded from the Internet.
We will therefore be tracking not only advances in IP protection but advances in the technologies that may lead to a personal fabrication industry (such as desktop prototyping).
In short, we will be discussing the opportunities and dangers that arise for design when you can email an Eames Chair.
Whether you call them blogs or blawgs, you have to admit that law-related weblogs (and the people who publish them) occupy a pretty special place on the 'Net. The guys at Rethink(IP) and Kevin Heller recognized that uniqueness when they created Blawgr, a community weblog "where blawgers and attorneys discuss whatever is on their minds." They freely admit it's a weird concept -- and yet it also makes perfect sense. Check it out.
Do you write a blog that falls somewhere along the broad continuum between "personal" and "business?" If you sometimes write about personal things on your business blog, or business things on your personal blog, or you're not sure you can cubby-hole whatever it is you do into one category or ther other, the answer is "yes." In that case, you should go take the BlogHersurvey on Blogging Naked at Work. (Po Bronson would approve.) I for one am interested to see what sort of mores, norms, and expectations are developing, and this is a great way to begin to get a handle on it. All genders welcome.
The Employment Law Alliance (self-described without blushing as "2,000 of the finest employment and labor lawyers from more than 50 nations") today released the results of a poll on "Blogging and the American Workplace." Though I don't yet see the report or a press release on the ELA site, the pertinent details are summarized here: Work related blogs proliferate. The gist, if you trust the methodology and/or sample:
at least 5% of U.S. workers are blogging; and
15% of U.S. employers have "specific policies addressing work-related blogging."
There's more, go read. Though I haven't seen the actual results yet, I have a number of questions and potential areas of concern. First, it doesn't sound to me from the summary like the survey made an effort to distinguish between purely personal blogging, at one end of the spectrum, and officially sanctioned blogging, at the other. By the same token, it doesn't sound like it begins to address the enormous gray area between the two poles: i.e., blogging that can be sometimes personal, sometimes work-related (like, say, people are), and which may or may not be acknowledged or embraced by an employer. The survey also seems like it could be hyper-focused on issues like whether an employee's blog might include "confidential or proprietary information concerning the employer," "damaging, embarrassing, negative information about the employer," and "criticism or satire about employers, co-workers, supervisors, customers, or clients," while ignoring the myriad potential benefits that also go along with a blogging work force.
I was surprised the survey found 15% of the participants' employers had an actual policy; I would have guessed lower. I was also surprised their research shows "as many as 10 million bloggers among the American workforce;" I would have guessed higher. Whatever my quibbles and questions, I agree with the ELA's implicit suggestion that companies and their lawyers should be paying attention to the impact of employee blogs. I would just urge them to endeavor to address the overall picture, and not limit themselves to a knee-jerk pouring of cold water on potential IP and liability fires; it's bound to splash on PR and marketing ones better left to rage. (Put another way: anyone have 2,000 copies of The Cluetrain Manifesto and/or Gonzo Marketing handy? For dessert: might I suggest a little World of Ends and Long Tail?)
[Update:] I wanted to clarify this is not intended as a criticism of the ELA, its members, or this survey. In fact, I applaud the organization for recognizing an important area of discussion, and adding to the discussion with its polling. I've chatted often with at least one ELA member, my colleague Sara Begley, who understands these nuances perfectly. It's worth emphasizing that I've only looked at a summary of the survey and its results, and — though my suggested reading list is an excellent one, if I do say so myself ;) — that it's highly unlikely Sara is alone in her insights.
[Update:] Related information is now available on the ELA site, including seven pages of charts (PDF). Among the additional items reported:
"Among workers employed by companies with blogging policies, 18% say that the policy encourages employees to promote the company's business or reputation on their blogs."
"49% of American workers employed by companies with blogging policies report that the policy distinguishes between blogging done from the employer's computer system and blogging done from home or other non-workplace locations."
Austin American-Statesman, Judge takes Congress to task in bankruptcy case. Among the interesting aspects of the article is its mention of the role of the blawgosphere in propagating the discussion. Though I came up fairly empty with related — "monroe bankruptcy" — searches in Technorati and Feedster, I did find more from Steve Jakubowski.
A December '05 "Monthly Question" from the ABA Section of Litigation found 57% of the respondents are reading blogs, and 19% are authoring them. (It also found our Ernie Svensen to be among the most widely read blawgers, something that surprises none of us and likely none of you.) [This one's a triple, coming my way via Ron Friedmann, via Alan Goodman, via Blawg Review #41] Says Ron Friedmann of the survey: "I would guess that respondents are lawyers who already spend a fair bit of time online, which would likely bias the sample toward blog readers and writers." I'd say that's a decent guess, given it was an online survey on an ABA section site — though I think it's just as possible the type and location of the survey made it more likely to attract those who don't read or write blogs; I know as one of the 19% I tend to spend my online time in places other than ABA section sites. Whatever you may conclude about the reliability of the survey, note that nothing about it keeps Ron (or me) from thinking blogs are "for real."
We want to welcome the Wall Street Journal to the world of blawgs. Peter Lattman, WSJ journalist via Forbes Magazine and former New York litigator, is the author of the just-launched (and cleverly-named) Law Blog. (feed). Check it out.
Peter writes:
Our mission: to scour the universe for compelling stories in two related areas: business and law, and the business of law. Law and business is a broad intersection, encompassing such current news as the Enron trial, the Merck litigation and the RIM patent dispute. The business of law is focused on law firms and in-house law departments. We’ll write about industry news and legal trends, with a sprinkle of good old-fashioned gossip.
We’ll link to the best coverage of law and lawyers from around the Web, report some news of our own and look to you for contributions. We heartily invite your comments, tips and insights.
We want to welcome Peter to the "blawgosphere" and look forward to the topical coverage the Law Blog will be providing.
Gary Stein writes about the end of blogs as we know them. He believes that next year this whole blog phenomenon will fold back into the Web, and become part of the plumbing, like RSS. More people are going to read the content published on blogs, but they may not know where the actual content is coming from. That reminds me of a recent Yahoo! survey that found that while a small percentage of Internet users knew about RSS and used it on a daily basis, 27 percent of Internet users consume RSS content through sites like My Yahoo! and My MSN.
There are some great things to think about in this article, such as the rise of syndication and blog networks, as well as the effect of advertising on weblogs.
Like AKMA and Dennis (and probably everyone who posts with any degree of regularity — and my regularity is anything but), I too get asked about time, time, time, all the time. No one has time. I'm certainly no exception.
Which is why I thought it was pretty funny when Sandra Rosenzweig, the California Lawyer's technology editor, included me in her send recently to "the ten most efficient people I know." (Sandra, we need to see about getting you out more often.) She's doing a story on time management and wanted tips. When I got a little time, I sent her some. Here they are:
Pick the 1 or 2 devices you like best and consolidate your
activities on them. If you can manage most aspects of your life with
one or maybe two devices, you can do almost anything from almost
anywhere and make efficient use of downtime. In my case they're a
cell phone and a PowerBook. You could get away with a laptop alone,
using Skype or Gizmo to handle the phone part, but WiFi penetration
isn't yet ubiquitous and cheap enough to make that work well, and I
spend too much time in the car to make the laptop my only means of
audio communication. Key to this is getting a phone that is both full
featured and easy enough to use that the features don't just languish.
Aside from its traditional function, the features I use the most on
my phone are email and the camera. With this system, I've never felt
the need for a Blackberry or a Treo.
Get a Gmail account. If it makes sense, get several. Eliminating time once spent searching for and/or attempting to organize email is
enormously helpful.
Try making all online communications (e.g., writing and responding
to emails, blogging) a secondary priority, turning to them only when
the day's "offline" communication tasks (meetings, calls, errands) are
complete. Most online communications are meant to be asynchronous
(i.e., unlike offline communications, the participants need not
participate simultaneously). Take advantage. (Can you tell I'm not a
big IM-er? This is why.)
Make your errands come to you rather than vice versa. E.g., four
words that will change your life (if they have not already done so):
home delivery dry cleaning.
Read The Support Economy, then
do your best to help it along (both in the services you use and in
those you may provide).
So that's how I find the occasional two minutes to blog. Tiny investment, immediate dividends. Speaking of which, thanks Sandra, for getting that bloggers who contribute to such pieces are genetically hardwired not to wait for the print production schedule to run its course before posting their bit; that's what the next two spare minutes are for.
Where have you gone, Joe Dimaggio...? Wait — wrong generation. Where have you gone, Article III Groupie? (A.k.a. Asst. U.S. Attorney David Lat.) We hardly knew ye. This article from Amy Klein at a New Jersey newspaper suggests that Underneath Their Robes has vanished from view due to discomfort or discomfiture on the part of the Groupie, the Groupie's employer, or both. Whatever the cause, the New Yorker article linked above ran yesterday, and apparently by 5:00 p.m. over a year's worth irascible irony was no more. The *still* anonymous editor of Blawg Review offers this tribute. (He or she emailed that he or she thought I might have been A3G, which I took as a big compliment; would that I had A3G's unflagging wit and fervor for the federal bench.) And the rest of the blog- and blawgospheres are rending their hearts and garments as well. Howard Bashman, who has been followingthestoryclosely (provinghimselfaGroupiegroupietothecoreofhisbeing), had this headline this evening while pointing to a story about a cross-dressing policeman: At least he wasn't blogging like a woman.
Apple, Creating Video Podcasts on Mac OS X: "The next generation of podcasting has arrived. Now you can create video podcasts and have them posted in the iTunes Podcast Directory for millions to view and download to their iPods." (Via Podcasting News)
The folks at Lulu have come up with The Blooker Prize, "the world's first literary prize devoted to 'blooks': books based on blogs or websites." And don't miss the Blooker Blog.
Earlier this week, Professor Bainbridge (and others; see the links at the end of the good Professor's post) blogged a conference call to which they were invited, featuring RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman on the Harriet Miers nomination. From Professor Bainbridge: "It was a lot of assurances but not a lot of facts. And facts are what we need." From the Financial Times: "Within minutes, bloggers posted their reaction to the call: most were unpersuaded."
A few notes on upcoming appearances by members of the Between Lawyers group:
Tom and I (Dennis) will be at the ABA Law Practice Management Section's Fall Meeting in Philadelphia. There will be some other bloggers there as well. We're planning to do some kind of blogger meet-up (very informal and very lightly organized) in Philadelphia, probably on the evening of October 20. We'll post details, but let us know if you are interested in meeting up with us.
We're still waiting for the first combined appearance of the entire Between Lawyers group (other than Lawyer X, of course). However, you can see a number of us at the BlawgThink 2005 conference on November 11 & 12. If you are interested in blogging, especially blawgs and blogging by and for lawyers, BlawgThink is the place you'll want to be. More information here or contact me directly.
We'd greatly enjoy getting the chance to meet readers of Between Lawyers in person at events like these.
Matt Brodie over at Prawfsblawg asks the question: what is the future of [legal] blogging? He offers three suggestions for where law blogs are headed in the future. Orin Kerr at Volokh offers a fourth future with which I'm more inclined to agree: "A continued increase in the overall amount of law blogging until we reach a natural equilibirum, and then a roughly constant amount of blogging with frequent turnover among active law bloggers."
I've been tracking blawgs over at Inter Alia for over three years now, and if there was a year for a "gold rush" in lawyer blogs, it was 2003 -- by my highly unscientific count, over 260 blawgs were created that year; just over 200 were created in 2004. 2005 stands an excellent chance of beating the 2003 total, however. I suspect that the numbers are increasing for a few reasons: 1) blogs are now considered much more "mainstream," and the average Internet-using lawyer is getting in on the act; and 2) lawyers are realizing (thanks to folks like Kevin O'Keefe) that blogs are good marketing tools.
Here's where I think growth is going to come in law blogging over the next year or so: 1) Law professors. Blogs by law profs have exploded over the past year, and as blogging becomes a tool not only for communication but for scholarship, more professors will look to participate. 2) Group blogs. Lawyers that started out on their own will find blogging partnerships beneficial, leading to virtual collaboration. 3) Solos, small firms and large firms alike who see blogs as a marketing tool will continue to enter the blogosphere. 4) Law student blogs, I think, are a constant -- they are continuously coming and going, and a few of them have made successful transitions to full-fledged lawyer blogs once they graduate.
'Twas the night before Zeitgeist, when all through the fog,
Not a creature was stirring, not even a blawg.
The shingles were hung on the Web with such care,
In hope that Saint BusDev soon would be there.
When out in the Ninth there arose such a clatter,
(And not just 'cause the Supremes think us Mad as a Hatter).
On over to Howard's I clicked (without Flash),
Tore into the case, and turned down the mash.
It took a few moments, though I'm far from deaf,
for the file to load up ('twas a cursed PDF).
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
A lustrous dissent! And the word "blawg" so clear!
With a little old author, so lively and hot,
I knew in a moment Kozinski I'd got.
More legal than eagles, his sources they came,
And he chided and scolded and called them by name!
"Through these lengthy proceedings, this judge, if he's that,
based his actions on something right out of a hat.
Not a case, not a statute, not treatise nor tome,
Was cited to justify where he did roam."
As questionable authorities before the wild hurricane fly,
when they meet with sound precedent, up to the sky,
So up to the house top, and on through the smog:
"Not a law review article — not even a blawg!"
And then, in a twinkling, I heard in the land,
the wailing and weeping of Unlearned Hand.
As I drew up my head, and was turning around,
I knew I had run the cause right to the ground.
Oh why, Judge Kozinski? Your timing does blow! Just 400, you know, will be all who will go!
A bundle of blawgers would give their eyeteeth,
to hear Larry and Barry and Sergey — (no Keith?).
Our hopes — how you've dashed them! The world now — how chary!
Of those at the end of your list they'll be wary.
Your nod to our presence, though lovely and fine,
Has put us, no bones, at the end of the line,
Of writers whose words perhaps warrant belief.
Your list does encircle our PageRanks like a wreath.
It has a broad reach, near as broad as the telly,
And leaves little blawgs in a heap sort of smelly.
We were clubby and pumped, a right jolly old meme,
With more juice when we posted than it might have seemed.
But a blink of your eye and a shake of your head,
Soon gave us to know we had much left to dread.
For together with those who think "blawg" is distasteful,
(And those who think words not in Webster's are wasteful),
I'm afraid that the finger is all that we've got,
From Google, re Zeitgeist — invited, we're not.
(Rick or Glenn, if you are, I just don't want to hear it.
There's already too much that's crushing my spirit.)
But I heard them exclaim, as they blawged late at night,
"If you're going to dis us, then link us — all right??"
For those who missed it, Nico Pitney of Think ProgresscapturedSenator Grassley's comments about the nefarious blogosphere and its, in his mind, unfortunate but now unavoidable role in the judicial confirmation process. Good for a laugh. Sez Nico: "Bloggers, always characterizing documents and opining! Why won’t they just stop paying attention and let Senators hold the trite 15-minute hearings they really want?"
Weblogs Work is running a series of interviews with blogging lawyers (I was one of the interviewees, and John Day's is also up): "Weblogs seem to work well for lawyers. We tried to find out why."
Yesterday Larry Bodine announced that there is a new "King of Blawgs," and it's Patrick Lamb, of the great In Search of Perfect Client Service blog. Larry's pronouncement is based on the fact that Patrick's blog is now listed as the Number One "Most Popular All-Time" blog as measured by clickthroughs at Blawg.org.
With all due respect to Patrick (who has a great blog and who is indisputably the current "King of Blawg.org"), I don't think this is a measurement of anything other than what people are clicking on at Blawg.org. Furthermore, when I listened to J. Craig Williams' and Bob Ambrogi's great new podcast Coast to Coast this past week, I learned that they are "America's Top Webloggers in the Legal Profession." By what standard? It got me to thinking, how do you measure the popularity of a law-related weblog?
-- Back in 2003, Jerry Lawson proposed (in a Net-Lawyers listserv message, as well as Lessons from Ernie the Attorney) that one way to measure a weblog's popularity was to run a Google search, and count the links. I didn't agree then, and I don't agree now. If you create a large number of links in your blog pointing back to your blog, those links will show up as results in a Google or Yahoo! search. That doesn't make your blog any more popular.
-- Some of the blog search engines are better at judging blog popularity through link popularity. Technorati has its Top 100 Blogs list, and Feedster recently came out with the Feedster 500 (a great new tool is TalkDigger, which aggregates the results of a number of blog and traditional search tools). Are the number of links to a blog a good judge of popularity? Partially, I think. They are certainly evidence that somebody thinks enough of a blog to link to it. But just because I link to a blog one day doesn't mean that I like it enough to visit it every day.
-- And that's where I think real blog popularity lies -- readership. The best blogs are those that bring readers back on a regular basis. But measuring popularity by this standard is not easy, because currently it can only be done on a blog-by-blog basis. You can use a service like Sitemeter to measure the actual visitors to your site, but with the advent of RSS, that number is likely to be deceptive; individuals who subscribe to an RSS feed don't register as "site visitors." A service like FeedBurner helps you determine how many subscribe to your RSS feed, but those figures are not available to the public.
Until we can come up with a reliable way to measure readership combined with link popularity, it may be premature to crown a king (or queen) of the blawg world.
Here's FindLaw's lawyer marketing page, launched this week, including this article mentioning BL, quoting Tom, and weighing in on the "are blogs advertising" issue: "Do lawyers need to be concerned about the ethics rules on lawyer marketing when they blog? Well, yes. But no more so than in any other forum in which a lawyer writes or speaks."
Like the Becker-Posner blog, it illustrates (to me) the point of blogs, in that it disintermediates the whole publishing industry thing, and makes it easier to hear from a brilliant person on a regular basis.
IBM has released a trial enterprise blogging tool that will integrate with its Workplace Collaboration Services: "Weblog Preview provides the basic functionality usually expected of personal weblogs. For instance, Weblog Preview supports the posting of content in a journal format, emphasizing a personal point of view. The weblogs are public by default; that is, any authenticated Workplace user can read the blog. In addition, all authenticated users can comment on or link to the posts via 'permalinks.' The weblog owners, however, can restrict access to their blogs via the Workplace membership portlet, just as with any Workplace component." I don't know much about "portlets," but this strikes me as a positive and useful step in encouraging weblog use by businesses. Via Techworld, which has this quote from IBM's Ed Brill: "By putting that into Workplace, we are saying that we expect everybody in an organisation to be able to be a publisher, not just a consumer of information." Mr. Brill's blog looks like an excellent related resource.
I don't have anything to add to Dennis on the parallels (or desired parallels) between tax and copyright policy, except that I enjoyed it (and I assume his concluding sentence is either rhetorical or hoping to prompt a discussion). In somewhat similar vein, don't miss Marty's post on blogs, print, and trademarks.
Perhaps the commenters in question have read Cluetrain and might be have focused on Cluetrain #6 - "The Internet is enabling conversations among human beings that were simply not possible in the era of mass media," although perhaps not in the way the authors intended.
From David Giacalone comes a troubling, but not unexpected, story of the Kentucky Attorney's Advertising Commission's efforts to treat all blogs by lawyers as advertising. At the heart of the story is one of the nicest people I've met through blogging, Ben Cowgill, who, ironically, writes the Legal Ethics Blog. Ben has been working hard to explain blogging to the commission and pave the way for other Kentucky lawyers to blog without falling under difficult rules, and I want to thank him publicly for all of his efforts and wish him success in his efforts.
If those of us in the legal blogging community can do anything to help, Ben, just ask and we'll get the word out.
As I've mentioned before, it is quite difficult to understand when and how legal advertising rules might apply to blogs, which traditionally are geared toward providing education and information and have done a good job of improving the reputation of lawyers. What will be especially difficult is if disciplinary bodies decide to treat blogs differently from how websites have historically been treated. Let's hope that we don't see a case of "letting no good deed go unpunished," especially in the case of a good-hearted and well-intentioned lawyer like Ben Cowgill.
I've always considered Between Lawyers to be a pure education and information blog. Now I'm wondering if we need to load it up with a bunch of advertising and other disclaimers. Blogging is a lot of fun, but being a lawyer who blogs makes it harder to have fun blogging. That's sad to me.
My nominee for clueful thought of the day from Bruce MacEwen: "Too flaky for your firm? If that's your reaction, are 'pens and paper' flaky? Email? Blogs and wikis are among the new tools in the technological arms race. Are you going to let your competitors steal a march?"
When you see the word 'blog' in a sentence, substitute the word 'brochure' to see if the sentence still makes sense (or is interesting):
Here are some starter sentences:
1. Every law firm should have a blog.
2. There should be blog risk assessment teams.
3. The consultant charges $500 a month to write the firm's blog.
4. What will blogs be like in 5 years?
5. Every lawyer has a moral obligation to blog.
6. How will blogs affect the practice of law?
I agree with everything my cohorts have said about the value of blogs in general, and of law blogs in particular. Obviously blogs are, at their core, nothing more than an easy-to-use communications tool. But the successful ones require a certain kind of committment, which is why the blog craze was incubated by passionate individuals rather than corporations or partnerships. Corporations and other legal entities don't possess passion, although they may employ people who do. The best corporations harness that passion.
The corporate-type blogs have been growing in number and they'll keep growing. And just like the individual blogs some of them will be well-done and interesting while some will fall flat on their faceless faces. But even the corporations that like to operate behind a committee-created mask will learn that when the clock strikes twelve, and the costume party ends, the masks have to come off.
My law firm has experimented with blogging, and at some point we'll develop a full-fledged blog strategy. When we do, we'll probably do it very well. After all, we have the desirable (and accurate) reputation as a place where good lawyers do serious work without taking themselves too seriously. For now, the fact that I blog is good enough for our firm. But eventually we'll feel more pressure to have a firm-sponsored blog. The pressure will come when other Louisiana firms start blogs. Just like this firm in Baton Rouge, which has just recently started a weblog called Louisiana Law Blog.
How quickly will law firms move to develop weblogs? It depends on a lot of internal and external factors. But the clock is ticking. And for some firms that sound is loud and annoying; for others it is stirring and prompting them to act. When will your firm create a blog?
Bruce MacEwen recently attended a couple of events generally reserved for insiders in the arena of law practice management. Except that Bruce attended these as an acknowledged blogger-in-residence, and has blogged his detailed reports of the proceedings. This is a classic example of the kind of information main stream media outlets can't or won't cover (and specialized media traditionally covers at a snail's pace), but that can be of great interest to a widely dispersed group of people who otherwise would have no way of taking part. So if that's you, go check out:
Today brings news that a group of bloggers has submitted an amicus brief in the writ proceedings concerning Apple's efforts to discover the sources of certain rumor site stories. As far as I know this is the first time bloggers have banded together to use the legal process to weigh in on a pending legal issue — in addition to blogging about it, of course.
[Update] Thanks to xrlq for pointing out this may be the first case, but (by a few days) not the first time: Bloggers speak up in Apple case
Though the legal field traditionally is considered part of the "establishment," with a fewnotableexceptions — all of whom are strong voiced individuals or groups thereof — on the Web legal types are firmly ensconced in the long tail. This might come as an eye-opener to some firms and other legal institutions, but it's a healthy reversal. With their typically specific focuses and narrow appeal (and the innate hurdles they must overcome to achieve a compelling voice), those members of the profession whose sense of self-importance might be a tad overinflated must accept and understand the reality that many "lowly" law students, associates, and librarians will garner more readers than they do, and Boing Boing will cream just about anyone in a Google Fight.
Marty's excellent post today is the kind of thing that, before this blog existed, we might have chewed over in email without ever seeing it expressed on the Web with such pure voice. It's good to see it here.
On the ability of blogs by legal professionals to reduce widespread negative feelings about the law and lawyers, they won't solve the problem but they'll help. As the seats in the infinite auditorium continue to fill (to pilfer Ernie's recent metaphor), a more complete picture of the humans comprising the profession will be there and impossible to ignore. The stereotypes and hatred will get a run for their money. Of course, there will be jerks and lameheads too, and there will be a huge, mostly clumsy rush by lawyers and firms to adopt blogs for their much discussed and undeniable marketing power, without really understanding that what makes the good ones good is the kind of candor and accessiblity exemplified by Marty's post. Even so, as more of the constituent parts of the profession continue sharing what they know and who they are in this format, the harder it will be to generalize about how evil we are, the more accountable the jerks and lameheads will be forced to become, and the easier it will be to help clients do business and dissipate conflicts with fewer undue lawsuits and less undue rancor.
The first email I received today was a trackback to our intro post from 'Cynical Joe' who challenged us to stop navel-gazing about blogging and instead write about how 'insurance lawyers' 'compound the problem' and big firms do other bad things, etc.
Well, we had our reasons for choosing those topics first, but Joe has a point. Let's talk about something real.
His post reminded me of something.
Two years ago four of us bloggers (including Denise) were profiled in the ABA. Three of us (not including Denise) had Jewish surnames.
A white supremacist linked to the article on his website and discussed each of us in turn as further proof of What's Wrong With This Country (he had trouble proving that point with me because trademark law isn't one of the real seats of power). If you read between the lines, it seems that he had had some unpleasant run-in with lawyers in his life.
Last year I wrote a piece on the Trademark Blog. The nominal subject was Michael Moore but I was making an arcane point about trademark law.
Although the post didn't express a view on Moore himself, this prompted an email from someone calling me a greedy Jewish lawyer (my guess is that he assumed that I was pro-Moore, which I'm not).
I wrote back, not contesting the Jewish and Lawyer bit but asking him what I had done to make him think I was greedy.
He wrote back and indicated that I was from New York. Touche.
He further argued that (1) Jews should show more gratitude to the U.S. for protecting Israel; (2) the rising price of oil at the time proved that the Bush family did not control the price of oil; and, (3) in his past, he had also had a bad run-in with a lawyer. I dimly recall that in his view, a lawyer had cheated him out of an inheritance.
This from his work email at a large telecommunications company, where he appeared to have a middle-management position.
But, I don't want to talk about the Jewish thing, I want to talk about the lawyer thing.
A couple of years ago a beer company had a commercial that featured 'fantasy' TV shows. One was about lawyer rodeo, where a cowboy roped a lawyer.
Imagine that commercial where instead of a lawyer, any other identifiable member of society, perhaps a minority or a woman, was roped like an animal, and then the implicit hatred behind that commercial becomes apparent.
Is hatred of lawyers socially acceptable because of a belief that they have all the power?
Is hatred of lawyers prevalent because many encounters with the legal system are involuntary, and we resent people benefitting from our misfortune?
Does the hatred 'come with the territory' and we should just suck it up?
Well, to a certain extent, probably.
But socially acceptable hatred of a class isn't good for the hated or the haters.
For example, when proponents of 'tort reform' ram through what they characterize as 'anti-frivolous lawsuit' legislation, they are counting in part that voters will not view the proposals on the merits, but will instead support it because they hate 'the trial lawyers.'
And how many people have used the expression "let's not get the lawyers involved" not because they desired expediency but because, well, because they wanted to screw you.
OK, this blogosphere is inter-active. Let's talk about how and why lawyers are hated.
And let's talk about whether lawyers can, through their blogs, practice and promote judicious thought.
Denise Howell
Dennis M. Kennedy
Tom Mighell
Marty Schwimmer
Ernest Svenson
