f/k/a . . . the archives

  It seems obvious to me, but, the California Supreme Court finally got around yesterday to declaring that “an attorney may be held liable for malicious prosecution when he commences a lawsuit properly but then continues to prosecute it after learning it is not supported by probable cause.” See Zamos v. Stroud, 04-19-04 (New York Lawyer, Lawyers Can Be Sued Over Bad Cases, 02-20-04).  George Wallace covered the case at length yesterday at Declarations & Exclusions. 

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  Personal War Story: Circa 1990, here in the NY Capital Area, I won a motion for sanctions against a personal injury defendant for trying to shift blame in an auto accident to a motorist who was stopped 200 feet behind the struck car.  The lawyers continued the claims for four years after their client had pled guilty to vehicular manslaughter (caused, after he had downed approximately 14 beers and then drove a U-Haul truck over a hill, across to the opposite lane, striking a disabled auto pulled off on the shoulder, killing two and badly injuring a third victim).  Soon after winning almost $20,000 in sanctions for frivolousness, I was congratulated on the victory by a prominent local plaintiff’s personal injury lawyer, who was not connected to the case.  However, he shook his head and added that it was a bad result — bad policy to sanction lawyers for not withrawing a claim after they find there is no basis in fact or law for the allegation.   I bet my favorite p/i lawyer, Evan Schaeffer would disagree, good guy that he is.

I was born a yabut, and it looks like I’m going to die one.  There’s just too much to do to retire any time soon.  Lately, ellipses are the problem — or, more precisely, the misuse of ellipses, omission of ellipses, and the use of deceptively elliptic speech.

• I was reminded to write on this topic yesterday, when I saw Judge Kevin S. Burke’s statement: “[T]oo often the current method of policy disagreement is to take the other guy’s idea, mischaracterize it and announce your profound disagreement and outrage.” And, I knew it was in the stars this morning to post on it, when the Quote of the Day at May It Please the Court was Mark Twain’s remark “Get your facts first, then you can distort them as much as you please.”

So, listen up, quote-benders and word-weasels:  An ellipsis (according to the American Heritage Dictionary) is “1a. The omission of a word or phrase necessary for a complete syntactical construction but not necessary for understanding. b. An example of such omission.”    Ellipses are not an ethical way to justify a quote that has been taken out of context or stripped of important information or modifiers.  Using an ellipsis allows the skeptical (that is, wise) reader to check up on you.  As Ronald Reagan aptly quipped about the Soviet Union, “Trust, but verify.”

• Again, am I being too cynical?  The Curmudgeon Online says, quoting Robert Benchley, “The surest way to make a monkey of a man is to quote him.”

Just when did the first lawyer use an ellipsis to show he or she had omitted part of a quote?  Problably, right after he was held in contempt of court for a truncated quote that misled the judge.  Almost immediately, I am sure, the “tactical” advantages of ellipses became apparent to the profession.

Another highly annoying habit that is indefinitely postponing the retirement of Prof Yabut is the use of the elliptic form of speech in general — that is, using a deliberately sparse or obscure style or expression in order to mislead.  That often means leaving out important modifiers from one’s own speech or taking them out of another’s when disagreeing.  Admen, politicians, and lawyers do a lot of this, and lately I’ve seen it in the weblogiverse far too often.

So, here are some representative examples from the “Yeah, but” Man . .  :

• Don’t say “it works” when you mean “it might work” or “I hope it works,” or “it has been known to work.”
  • And, when your opponent says “it might not work very often,” or “there’s no proof it works,” don’t answer as if he said “it never can work.”
• When someone says “X is more likely to do Y,” don’t go into a snit and respond as if the quote was “X is likely to do Y.”
• Similarly, if a humble editor says “you haven’t shown the connection between a and b,” don’t accuse him of saying “there is no connection between a and b”, and please don’t just keep repeating that the connection exists.
• Adverbs and adjectives are very important words — they make lots of statements more honest and truthful, so use them when appropriate.  On the other hand omitting them from a quote or a paraphrase can often be deceptive when trying to counter an argument.

This campaign is not likely to end any time soon.  As Fyodor M. Dostoyevtsky noted, “Lying to ourselves is more deeply ingrained than lying to others.”  Nor, as Plato knew, is it a pleasant task: “They deem him their worst enemy who tells them the truth.”  Thus, the Professor has quite a few more semesters ahead of him.

J. Craig Williams doesn’t just attract clients with his weblog May It Please the Court (see below), he scores points with webgrumps like myself with his prompt and insightful replies.  Less than two hours after I wrote to Craig, asking for his views on weblogs as marketing tools, he gave us a gem.  Since the New York Times made Craig a weblawging idol today, I’m especially grateful that he would so quickly find the time to respond to a stranger’s plea. 

After over a week debating these issues and collecting opinions, I believe Craig’s thoughts are too valuable to hide inside our Comment box, so I’m presenting them in full on the front page.  Despite the opening line — “David, you’re right” has a  nice ring to it! —  I think Craig has a lot to say that will encouarge Kevin O’Keefe at lexBlog.

    David, You’re right. I spend about an hour or more a day (in my business that’s over $10K a month in invested time), and my blog is stamped with my personality and quirkiness. I think that would be hard to achieve in a packaged blog – at least I hope so if other lawyers ar going to be competing with my blog.

We also host another blog – posted to monthly – A Criminal Waste of Space. That’s written by a local appellate court justice.

May It Please the Court has driven both small and large clients to our firm. We get emails and calls about the items that are posted on it – most of which relate in one way or another to our practice. Of course there are the occasional posts that are about topics I can’t resist, and that’s where you begin to see the full range of my personality.

Sure, Kevin’s got a great product, and I expect that it will sell, and hopefully he’ll make money. But, the lawyers’ personality won’t show through. Let me put in a self-serving quote from Amy Langfield’s New York Notebook on Business Blogging Models:

“This, I think, is a case where businesses who know nothing about blogs should pay attention. What his law blog is doing – I suspect – is showing a potential client exactly where he is coming from. You get a mix of his personality and his expertise before you even pick up the phone to talk to him. Possibly most importantly, he starts to develop trust. Brilliant.”

OK, very self serving. But, the point she’s making is where I’m driving. Most people hire lawyers based on recommendations from others. A blog allows my potential clients to get to know me first, and develop their own relationship.

That’s what drives marketing. It’s how others view you.  s/Craig Williams 

   As if the above contribution weren’t enough, Craig supplemented it with the following email message at 9:43 P.M.   As you can see, you can’t just launch a weblog and start counting the cash (emphases added):

To; David Giacalone

From: J. Craig Williams

 

My weblog, May It Please The Court, is a part of an overall marketing strategy for my law firm:  we use it in email responses, it is on our letterhead and announcements, in our brochure, and even has its own business card.  I speak about it regularly at continuing legal education seminars for lawyers, and to others who are developing marketing projects. 

 

We send out email “pushes” once a month with the last 20 postings so readers can go right to the article of their choice.  I think, actually, that’s where most of my direct responses come from.  Sure, I may already have a relationship with those people, but it’s the blog that triggers them to call me.  It’s also a reminder.

 

But, the success of it (I think what drives clients) is that it is, at the same time, none of those things. 

 

It has it’s own life.  I love to write (I teach legal writing at Chapman University School of Law), and I love to publish.  Blogging allows me to do that without an editor.  It’s really me, and it’s not packaged.  I think Kevin’s prepackaged blog is no different than the prepackaged newsletters you get from lawyers, doctors and dentists.  For those people, they’re trying to develop brand recognition.  They want to get their name in front of you.  Kevin’s product will do that. 

 

  Will it [Kevin's product] result in business?  Compared to legal bloggers who write their own content, I’m not quite so sure.  I think you have to put yourself out there, who you truly are, and let people see that.  You show them that you’re the one they want to hire because you either write well, they understand what you write, or you’re writing about the very thing that they need help with (admittedly, the last is very rare).  But, it’s you.  It’s not an editor that gets hired. 

 

Just as important to getting clients, however, is that the blog teaches me.  In order to write it,  I read slip opinions, cases from other jurisdictions, other blogs and lots of legal news each day.  I am consequently more informed about the law than if I did not write it.  As an example, I got an email from an environmental consultant this morning (April 19, 2004) about a decision from the Ninth Circuit on the attorney-client privilege and attorney work-product doctrine.  It was a new decision to him.  I had a target written about the case back on December 11, 2003.  He was impressed that I already knew about the case, and I was able to point him to my blog entry for more information about it.  Lawyers who use prepackaged blogs will not have that benefit. 

 

s/Craig

Here are additional thoughts from Amy’s New York Notebook (thanks for the pointer, Craig):

I think Channel 9 and May it Please the Court are two strong examples of how businesses will start using blogging successfully. And if you think about how much distrust is still in the air from the stench of Enron, Worldcom, Shell, the mutual fund industry scandal, the accounting industry scandals, etc. and so on, you figure people are hungry to find someone they can trust and blogs could go a long way to providing more transparency for honest businesses.

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  For a change, I’ll refrain from offering my inflated two cents. . .  

Update (04-22-04):   I’m pleased to report that Kevin O’Keefe has re-written the lexBlog premium services page, removing a quotation from author Rebecca Blood, which we have noted was taken out of context (leaving out the importance of hands-on weblogging for achieving expertise and authority status), and which seemed to suggest that Ms. Blood endorsed lexBlog’s services. 

With entrepeneurial enthusiasm and hyperbole, Kevin O’Keefe just left a Comment about the potential of lawyer weblogs to generate clients (and posted about it at his site), quoting this paragraph from today’s New York Times:

“J. Craig Williams, a lawyer in Newport Beach, Calif., began his Web log, May It Please The Court.net, in August. He said his postings, which focus on his particular area of law, have brought him hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of legal business.”  (NYT, Many Started Web Logs for Fun, but Bloggers Need Money, Too, by Julie Flaherty, 04-19-04)

  Kevin writes (his emphasis): “That’s hundreds of thousands of dollars – six figures – in new business in less than a year folks. This type of evidence should begin to silence those who say lawyer blogs do not work as a means to market the lawyers services.”

Of course, we here at ethicalEsq are interested in finding out what’s really happening, and preventing deceptive practices, not in defending our initial skepticism.  As we pointed out last week, we have never said that a lawyer weblog could never work as a marketing tool.  We did say there seemed to be no useful evidence “supporting the theory that any significant number of consumers or businesses seeking legal services have found a provider through a law firm weblog.” 

  We asked last week whether Kevin had any such evidence, but so far the NYT article, giving the May It Please the Court experience, is the only example Kevin has proffered.  Now, I only took a one-credit statistics course in law school, but I’m fairly certain one is not a significant number, especially to back up claims that weblogs are “More effective than advertising,” and can “easily” be used to “cultivate new business,” and that Kevin knows they “work to bring in new clients.”

The NYT article about BloggerCon II noted:

• “The blog watchers agreed that the vast majority of the estimated 2.1 million Web logs out there today would never even attempt to make money. But even now there are exceptions, like AndrewSullivan.com, DailyKos.com and PaidContent.org, and bloggers speak of them with reverence because of their profitability.”
  
• “Mr. [Jeff] Jarvis, who led a discussion on blogging as a business, has been watching all the ways that bloggers have managed to bring in a buck. Some bloggers have made money by selling books, T-shirts or CD’s on their sites. Some have tried selling access to individual articles or content through micropayments (99 cents for a poem, for example). A very few, like Andrew Sullivan, have made tens of thousands of dollars simply by asking for donations from loyal readers .”
  
• “But the most talked about route to profit was selling advertisements that pay by the month or by the number of blog visits.”
  
• “Before advertisers will flock to blogs, Mr. Jarvis said, bloggers will need to develop data on who is visiting their site, and how often.”
  
• “Many participants said that their Web logs had made them money indirectly, through promoting their businesses. Some credit blogs with helping to increase their consulting work. Some say blogs have helped lead to book deals, freelance writing jobs or lecture tours.”

  J. Craig Williams, the lawyer behind May It Please the Court, is an accomplished attorney, lecturer and writer.  His weblog is stamped with his humor and personality, factors that seem hard to capture with any packaged weblog or weblog content.  Unlike the paradigm suggested by lexBlog, May It Please the Court does not contain lots of useful information for the public — it is an idiosyncratic collection of links to items that interest Lawyer Williams, with brief commentary. 

While Williams told the Times that the weblog is “focused” on his practice areas, it’s a broad focus, as the 4-lawyer firm [which will soon need a fifth] lists its practice areas as: Environmental Practice, International Trade & Tax, Environmental Due Diligence Employment Law, Corporate & Business Advice, Appellate Law, Real Estate & Natural Resources Practice, Entertainment Law, General Negligence, Premises & Product Liability Insurance Law     

I’ve just written to Craig, asking him to share his insights with us.  [And, he did!].  Information makes for wise choices. 

Access to Justice Partnerships State by State (April 2004) is a newly completed study from SPAN: Access to Justice Project that gives information on programs in existence in each state that are working to improve access to justice by all citizens.  The report says there is an accelerating trend toward creation of state Access to Justice Commissions or the equivalent—formal state-level bodies dedicated to expanding and improving civil legal assistance in the state, often created by state Supreme Court rule, composed of appointed representatives of the bar, the judiciary, providers and other key  constituencies.

“In 1999, only five states had active entities of this type. Today, the nationwide total has risen to 16, including new bodies created in 2003 in Alabama, Arkansas and Vermont. And, that number is likely to grow by at least half a dozen by the end of 2004.”

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  States where a proposal to create a commission or similar body is pending or under consideration include Georgia, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, Utah, and West Virginia, as well as the District of Columbia.

   The SPAN website has lots of information, papers, and links to governmental and private entities interested in access to justice.  Also available is the SPAN Access to Justice Update can is a newsletter that “reports on the latest information about the efforts of Access to Justice partnerships around the country, as well as upcoming events, descriptions of new documents in the SPAN Access to Justice Document Library, and other useful information.”

Each of the personalities at this weblog sends his sincere thanks to Judges Sam Sparks and Lee Yeakel of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, Austin Division, for cracking down on irresponsible dog owners who “failed to live up to their representations and legal obligation to remove their pets’ deposits.”  (law.com, “Judges fed up with dogs that violate courthouse lawn,” 04-17-04, and AP/Houston Chronicle, 04-16-04).  And, we don’t care if “the courthouse grounds has one of the few patches of grass anywhere in the downtown area.” (Fox7, Austin, TX)

•   Just yesterday, haikuEsq was sitting in his backyard along the Mohawk River waiting for an inspiration (while ethicalEsq was taking a break from worrying about ghost-writers), when a serial-offending neighbor brought her dachshund to said lawn, let it relieve itself, and walked away without scooping — totally aware that she was being observed from just a few feet away by someone who actually had the right to be in that yard.  Prof. Yabut, who often finds himself “stepping in it”, is outraged.  None of “us” has had a haiku moment since then.

Virginia Postrel isn’t too happy with some of the ads showing up on her weblog, and she shares her Google Ad Secrets for attracting fraudulent term paper ads, or term life insurance solicitations, in a posting dated 04-05-04.  A single mention of people selling term papers brought the unwanted ads to her website.   

Here’s her explanation of the “mattress store principle”:

Most of the time a mattress store has no customers, but nearly every customer who comes in buys a mattress. The same is generally true of term life insurance and probably of fraudulent term papers

  You can’t say we were asleep on this issue here at e&hEsq.  In January, we reported that folks responding to our December survey on the ethics of content-targeted ads felt such ads were too tacky and ”too likely to hawk the services of competitors and/or unsavory types” for weblogging lawyers like themselves to use them.

We ethical worryworts still fret that visitors to a website/weblog might conclude that the lawyer was associated with the advertiser or was endorsing the product.  If being an “ethical lawyer” requires more than saying “I won’t be disciplined for this” [or, "it's not a felony"], a lawyer using such ads should — at the least — check regularly to see what is being offered in the targetted ads and by whom; and arrange to filter out inappropriate advertisers.  Otherwise, the lawyer is profiting from the deception or fraud — offering a platform for the ads and then turning a blind eye to their content in order to make a few dollars.

John Palfrey noted on April 15, that Kevin O’Keefe is asking whether lawyers should be running ads on their weblogs.  Kevin says:

“[A]dvertising on your blog diminishes your reputation. A good lawyer blog is providing valuable information on a niche area to the public, media, colleagues and prospective clients. Such a blog says you are knowledgeable and care – the blog will garner new clients based on this online reputation you are establishing. If people think you are blogging to sell ads as opposed to providing free information, your reputation will take a hit.”

(Thanks to Jerry Lawson at netlawblog for pointing to Brad DeLong‘s post and to our prior discussion of the issue.)

Hey law students, I just learned from the weblog of Andrew Sinclair (a 3L at Boston University Law School), that lexBlog is looking for volunteer interns.  An April 13 discussion board posting by Kevin O’Keefe asks: “Have other paying employment and looking for ways to enhance resume or to work towards part-time employment?”  And replies: ”Doing virtual volunteer work for new Internet company in the business of helping lawyers help people could be the answer.” 

LexBlog interns would be:

“helping publish content to blogs and in effect creating online magazines/broadcast channels for leading lawyers around the country.”

  I know using volunteer interns is not inconsistent with creating high-quality content, but it does shed a different light on the lexBlog claim that “All content is regularly revised, updated and improved by a staff of lawyer-editors, to make sure that it’s the best it can be.“

I’m not sure why, but this week-long angsting over the implications of lexBlog’s services  reminds me of the cliche about making laws and sausage.   Like Peter Merholz, who coined the word by cruelly butchering “weblog”, I continue to believe that “blog” sounds far too much like the reaction one might have to watching sausage being made.  Now, “lawBlog” is giving me agita, too.

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    Yesterday (04-16) Denise Howell at B&B updated her posting on ghost-weblogs.  Denise added:  ”I’m happy to say the conversation continued in my comments, where Kevin clarified that weblog material purchased from lexBlog appearing on its clients’ sites will be identified as such, so it won’t be anonymous ghostwriting but more like ‘value added.’ That’s great, as is Kevin’s likely well-founded hope that once his clients experience blogging for themselves their garrulous nature will take its course.” 
  
  
  
  
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    I agree with Denise that this is good news, if third-party content is clearly designated as such — that is, in a manner that will not leave the ordinary consumer confused as to the source of the materials.  [See the discussion earlier today on this page, in response to Jerry Lawson's Comments and post.]  I’m looking forward to seeing how lexBlog sites look and feel in operation. If any already exist, I hope Kevin will point us over.

I wonder what my good friend foolEsq would do after a week like this? . . . . (or, any week?)

Update (04-18-04): Check this thread for another good debate between Jerry Lawson and your Humble Editor.  For example:

Jerry Lawson:  Criticizing the practice of lawyers taking personal credit for ghost-written materials, could serve a useful purpose, but please don’t leave the impression that the phenomenon is somehow new and exclusive to blogs. It’s been around a long time.

Your Editor:  Far from saying that lawyer ghost-writing is particularly a weblog problem, my entire point is that it has not previously been a problem with weblogs — which is why I want to help stop that practice before it becomes entrenched or accepted

If you are too busy to actually maintain a weblog, you perhaps shouldn’t try to become a weblog editor-poseur

I’m also pleased to note that 3L Andrew Sinclair has accepted my invitation to join this discussion, with a thoughtful post at his weblog.   Andrew opines, inter alia, that:

“I might not want to see how Hillshire Farms makes their delicious Polish Sausage, but I want to see the ingredients listed on the package, and I definitely want food inspectors in there checking things out. The same is true for web site content. I expect a certain amount of labeling (who wrote what) and I expect checks against misrepresentation of expertise. It doesn’t sound to me like O’Keefe plans to dodge either of these.”

Update (04-22-04): “Delete Key Neg”  I’m pleased to report that Kevin O’Keefe has re-written the lexBlog premium services page, removing a quotation from author Rebecca Blood, which we have noted was taken out of context (leaving out the importance of hands-on weblogging for achieving expertise and authority status), and which seemed to suggest that Ms. Blood endorsed lexBlog’s services. 

Hey law students, I just learned from the weblog of Andrew Sinclair (a 3L at Boston University Law School), that lexBlog is looking for volunteer interns.  An April 13 discussion board posting by Kevin O’Keefe asks: “Have other paying employment and looking for ways to enhance resume or to work towards part-time employment?”  And replies: ”Doing virtual volunteer work for new Internet company in the business of helping lawyers help people could be the answer.” 

LexBlog interns would be:

“helping publish content to blogs and in effect creating online magazines/broadcast channels for leading lawyers around the country.”

  I know using volunteer interns is not inconsistent with creating high-quality content, but it does shed a different light on the lexBlog claim that “All content is regularly revised, updated and improved by a staff of lawyer-editors, to make sure that it’s the best it can be.“

I’m not sure why, but this week-long angsting over the implications of lexBlog’s services  reminds me of the cliche about making laws and sausage.   Like Peter Merholz, who coined the word by cruelly butchering “weblog”, I continue to believe that “blog” sounds far too much like the reaction one might have to watching sausage being made.  Now, “lawBlog” is giving me agita, too.

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    Yesterday (04-16) Denise Howell at B&B updated her posting on ghost-weblogs.  Denise added:  ”I’m happy to say the conversation continued in my comments, where Kevin clarified that weblog material purchased from lexBlog appearing on its clients’ sites will be identified as such, so it won’t be anonymous ghostwriting but more like ‘value added.’ That’s great, as is Kevin’s likely well-founded hope that once his clients experience blogging for themselves their garrulous nature will take its course.” 
  
  
  
  
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    I agree with Denise that this is good news, if third-party content is clearly designated as such — that is, in a manner that will not leave the ordinary consumer confused as to the source of the materials.  [See the discussion earlier today on this page, in response to Jerry Lawson's Comments and post.]  I’m looking forward to seeing how lexBlog sites look and feel in operation. If any already exist, I hope Kevin will point us over.

I wonder what my good friend foolEsq would do after a week like this? . . . . (or, any week?)

Update (04-18-04): Check this thread for another good debate between Jerry Lawson and your Humble Editor.  For example:

Jerry Lawson:  Criticizing the practice of lawyers taking personal credit for ghost-written materials, could serve a useful purpose, but please don’t leave the impression that the phenomenon is somehow new and exclusive to blogs. It’s been around a long time.

Your Editor:  Far from saying that lawyer ghost-writing is particularly a weblog problem, my entire point is that it has not previously been a problem with weblogs — which is why I want to help stop that practice before it becomes entrenched or accepted

If you are too busy to actually maintain a weblog, you perhaps shouldn’t try to become a weblog editor-poseur

I’m also pleased to note that 3L Andrew Sinclair has accepted my invitation to join this discussion, with a thoughtful post at his weblog.   Andrew opines, inter alia, that:

“I might not want to see how Hillshire Farms makes their delicious Polish Sausage, but I want to see the ingredients listed on the package, and I definitely want food inspectors in there checking things out. The same is true for web site content. I expect a certain amount of labeling (who wrote what) and I expect checks against misrepresentation of expertise. It doesn’t sound to me like O’Keefe plans to dodge either of these.”

Update (04-22-04): “Delete Key Neg”  I’m pleased to report that Kevin O’Keefe has re-written the lexBlog premium services page, removing a quotation from author Rebecca Blood, which we have noted was taken out of context (leaving out the importance of hands-on weblogging for achieving expertise and authority status), and which seemed to suggest that Ms. Blood endorsed lexBlog’s services. 

I just discovered the weblog of the German American Law Journal, which has the following notice in its left-hand margin, with a hyperlink to our post earlier this afternoon:

GALJ does not use ghost-written third-party material. It prefers original weblog content.

What a wonderful idea! (Eine wunderbarische Idee!) . .  

The weblog is available in English and German versions and its Mission is stated as being ”A forum for information sharing in the areas of German and American law, mainly where the two intersect, vary or intrigue.”   Right now, there are several sehr interessant postings on the site, including one on umlaut domain grabbing, and another on abusive cease and desist demands in the internet context.

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  I haven’t studied German in about 35 years, but GALJ might get me to scrape off some of the rust.  Please correct my German usage above, if it needs it.
  
  
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  Update (04-18-04): Having just visited the GALJ weblog for the second day, I want to alert all who are interested in internet and hi-tech law (e.g., CyberSpaces,  NetLawBlog, tins/RickKlau, LawMeme, John Palfrey, Patently Obvious, et al.) to place GALJ on their Favorites list.  In addition to the two topics I cited here yesterday, you can now find a blurb on the futility under German law of Link Disclaimers, and one covering the Supreme Patent Court’s citation to Wiki, when chiding the trademark office for failure to consider current sources in its trademark examinations. 

I just discovered the weblog of the German American Law Journal, which has the following notice in its left-hand margin, with a hyperlink to our post earlier this afternoon:

GALJ does not use ghost-written third-party material. It prefers original weblog content.

What a wonderful idea! (Eine wunderbarische Idee!) . .  

The weblog is available in English and German versions and its Mission is stated as being ”A forum for information sharing in the areas of German and American law, mainly where the two intersect, vary or intrigue.”   Right now, there are several sehr interessant postings on the site, including one on umlaut domain grabbing, and another on abusive cease and desist demands in the internet context.

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  I haven’t studied German in about 35 years, but GALJ might get me to scrape off some of the rust.  Please correct my German usage above, if it needs it.
  
  
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  Update (04-18-04): Having just visited the GALJ weblog for the second day, I want to alert all who are interested in internet and hi-tech law (e.g., CyberSpaces,  NetLawBlog, tins/RickKlau, LawMeme, John Palfrey, Patently Obvious, et al.) to place GALJ on their Favorites list.  In addition to the two topics I cited here yesterday, you can now find a blurb on the futility under German law of Link Disclaimers, and one covering the Supreme Patent Court’s citation to Wiki, when chiding the trademark office for failure to consider current sources in its trademark examinations. 

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  I recommend reading Jerry’s Comment and my reply, which focus on whether the definition of “weblog” is the crux of the problem.  I think the issue is whether the term “weblog” is being used in a misleading way: ”To my mind, lexBlog, for example, is offering to create and maintain websites that utilize the very easy-to-use and flexible ‘weblog technology.’  But, if it is going to call the resulting website a weblog, it needs to make clear to lawyers buying the service that their results may differ greatly from the personal, traditional weblog, and let the visitor to the site know clearly and unambiguously when the purported owner-editor is not the actual producer of the content.”

   At NetlawBlog, Jerry asks (1) “Is it unethical for lawyers to use marketing material written by third parties on blogs?” and responds:

The first question is particularly easy: It is not necessarily unethical for lawyers to use materials written by third parties in their marketing efforts. Paper versions of such materials have been around for many years from a variety of vendors, including the American Bar Association. If lawyers can use such material in the form of paper newsletters, then there is no apparent reason why they can’t be used on blogs.

Here is the Comment that I left on Jerry’s website, in full:

I’m always a little surprised to find out that an ethical question I’ve raised is “particularly easy to answer.” You’ve made it so easy, I guess, by slightly changing the issue to a bland, general question “Is it unethical for lawyers to use marketing material written by third parties on blogs?”

Your wording leaves out a final clause that goes to the core of the ethical problem — something like “without acknowledging that the weblog editor/owner did not find, choose, summarize, analyze, provide the commentary, or otherwise create the content presented on the site.” I think the issue of acknowledging the source of the content poses a far more difficult question (at least if you’re trying to justify the practice).

For example, the YourLaw newsletter for clients that you have linked to at the ABA website clearly indicates that the AMA is the source, and the sample picture of an “imprinted” edition states — right under the masthead and easy to see — that the newsletter is “compliments of” the law firm sending the material.

You don’t seem to have answered question 2 or 3 at all (by, for example, showing a connection between the ability of weblogs to permit easy communication and the way prospective clients actually choose a lawyer), so I look forward to the further thoughts you have promised.

  As usual, we hope you’ll straighten us out!

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  I recommend reading Jerry’s Comment and my reply, which focus on whether the definition of “weblog” is the crux of the problem.  I think the issue is whether the term “weblog” is being used in a misleading way: ”To my mind, lexBlog, for example, is offering to create and maintain websites that utilize the very easy-to-use and flexible ‘weblog technology.’  But, if it is going to call the resulting website a weblog, it needs to make clear to lawyers buying the service that their results may differ greatly from the personal, traditional weblog, and let the visitor to the site know clearly and unambiguously when the purported owner-editor is not the actual producer of the content.”

   At NetlawBlog, Jerry asks (1) “Is it unethical for lawyers to use marketing material written by third parties on blogs?” and responds:

The first question is particularly easy: It is not necessarily unethical for lawyers to use materials written by third parties in their marketing efforts. Paper versions of such materials have been around for many years from a variety of vendors, including the American Bar Association. If lawyers can use such material in the form of paper newsletters, then there is no apparent reason why they can’t be used on blogs.

Here is the Comment that I left on Jerry’s website, in full:

I’m always a little surprised to find out that an ethical question I’ve raised is “particularly easy to answer.” You’ve made it so easy, I guess, by slightly changing the issue to a bland, general question “Is it unethical for lawyers to use marketing material written by third parties on blogs?”

Your wording leaves out a final clause that goes to the core of the ethical problem — something like “without acknowledging that the weblog editor/owner did not find, choose, summarize, analyze, provide the commentary, or otherwise create the content presented on the site.” I think the issue of acknowledging the source of the content poses a far more difficult question (at least if you’re trying to justify the practice).

For example, the YourLaw newsletter for clients that you have linked to at the ABA website clearly indicates that the AMA is the source, and the sample picture of an “imprinted” edition states — right under the masthead and easy to see — that the newsletter is “compliments of” the law firm sending the material.

You don’t seem to have answered question 2 or 3 at all (by, for example, showing a connection between the ability of weblogs to permit easy communication and the way prospective clients actually choose a lawyer), so I look forward to the further thoughts you have promised.

  As usual, we hope you’ll straighten us out!