Blogs and lawyerly ads
p2pnet.net News:- Do lawyers’ blogs constitute advertising and if so, should they go?
Chicago lawyer Evan Brown has a blog centering on legal developments involving the Net and in his current (as of today) post says, “A Lance Corporal in the United States Marine Corps was killed in the line of duty while conducting combat operations in Iraq in March of 2006. Members of the outspoken Westboro Baptist Church (’WBC’) attended the Marine’s funeral, uninvited, to express their views against homosexuality, Catholocism, and the military.”
Brown acknowledges his blog has had some “unintended business benefits,” says The Chicago Tribune, and says through it, he’s met about a dozen clients through who’ve “sought his advice on intellectual-property matters”.
But does it matter?
Apparently it does and his blog, “puts him at the leading edge of a debate about how attorneys communicate – and advertise,” says the Tribune, going on:
“The marketing potential, whether explicit or not, of law-related blogs – or ‘blawgs’ as some attorneys have come to call their online journals – is raising some tricky ethical questions for the profession, which regulates lawyer advertising.
“Those issues have come to the forefront in recent months, after ethics monitors in Kentucky found lawyer-written blogs to be advertising and subjected them to increased scrutiny. Regulators in New York have made bloggers nervous by proposing new advertising rules that also include electronic communications.”
Ray Beckerman is both a New York lawyer and a blogger. His site, Recording Industry vs The People, is “devoted to the RIAA’s lawsuits of intimidation brought against ordinary working people” and is now among best known sites which regularly report on the many and various infamies visited by the corporate entertainment industry, with the Big Four Organized Music cartel to the fore, on customers.
Is he nervous?
“While I think it is fine for lawyer’s blogs to be subjected to the same rules as any other form of communication, I don’t think they should be singled out for special treatment that makes them virtually impossible to maintain,” he told p2pnet.
“The initial proposed rules for New York State created crushing administrative burdens, and imposed a requirement that each page of the blog be labeled an advertisement even if it is not.
“The comment period for those rules has been extended, and various bar associations and other organizations have pointed out the overbreadth of the proposed rules, so I’m anticipating that the rules will not be enacted in their present form.”
Meanwhile, “Most large corporate firms eschew advertising,” says The Chicago Tribune. “In its place, they employ marketing departments to generate news about the firms with the hopes of generating publicity. It’s not advertising but it can achieve a similar purpose: promoting the firm’s name and activities.”
And, “Law bloggers see their forums as a public service, not huckster advertising,” says the story.
“If I blog and I talk about the law, why should that be treated any differently from a lawyer who goes to a senior center and gives a free talk about elder care?” – wonders another New York lawyer, Marty Schwimmer, in the story. He blogs on trademark and copyright law
Accordng to Kevin O’Keefe, president of LexBlog, a company that creates blogs for lawyers to use as a marketing tool, there are now between 2,000 and 3,000 law blogs across the US, says the story, and, “some states are updating their antiquated guidelines regulating lawyer advertising to take into account the rise of electronic communications.
“New York, for example, wants to ban Internet pop-up ads. The state’s office of court administration also has proposed some requirements that may pose a burden to lawyer bloggers. One amendment would require attorneys to provide copies of all ads. The definition of advertisements would include Web sites, e-mails, blogs and speeches.
And another proposed amendment would, “require law firms and attorneys to disclose in every e-mail or blog a listing of all office locations and jurisdictions in which the attorney and firm members are licensed,” says The Chicago Tribune, adding:
“The amendments have been criticized as too broad. Even the Federal Trade Commission has objected to some of the rules. The filing requirement, the FTC said, “will likely raise the cost of doing business for attorneys and thus likely raise prices for consumers.” There were so many public comments to the proposals that the state extended the deadline by two months, to Nov. 15.”
There’s no question sites such as Beckerman’s, which indisputably provides a service by offering short summaries and links to court case documents relevant both to Big Four victims, and to media on both sides of the fence which cover the sue ‘em all scandal, would be in deep trouble.
What’ll happen to Recording Industry vs The People if New York decides to go ahead with its new lawyer blog laws?
“If they were to be enacted,” says Beckerman, “I’d have to take it down my blogs and I think it would be a shame for the great debate over public issues that takes place on the web to lose the voice of the legal profession,” he says.
Also See:
The Chicago Tribune – Lawyers face right to blog, November 7, 2006
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November 9th, 2006 at 9:36 am
The law is so obscure yet so vital to the public that it’s a good thing if lawyers are blogging. But when they use that LexBlog tool that is just more shameless commercialism, of which there is too much of. Those guys are giving people like Beckerman a hard time. And blogs themselves have became tainted due to things like splogs~blam. See here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spam_blog