When a niche blawger like me says something, nobody listens.  But when a Master of the Internet speaks out, his voice is heard throughout the blawgosphere.  Kevin O'Keefe has called for a Revolution.  I'm with him.

As everyone with eyes knows, Kevin is the Big Guy at Lexblog, home of the Lexblog family of Lexblogs.  His goal is to put a blawg in every lawyer's hands, and if they all happen to be created by Lexblog, like Iowa Dirt Lawyer (his latest and my favorite new blawg name), the better.  But there is a line.

I'm getting sick of lawyers leaving comments here under the name 'DC Divorce Lawyer' or 'Injury Lawyer.' Is that what your kids call you? Is that how you get introduced when speaking to a group? You mean you use your real name. Amazing.

Why not have the decency to use your name when participating in conversations on my blog and other blogs around the net? Blogs really are conversations.

Even if you don't care whether you look like an idiot, lawyers publishing blogs aren't blogging for the benefit of sleazy lawyers looking for a free way to get SEO for their blog or website. It may sound unbelievable, but lawyers are blogging to provide value to a growing Internet discussion, not for SEO to get traffic to a website.

Kevin and I have had a number of discussions about the future of the blawgosphere, and how what we do now impacts on how bright, or dull, the future looks.  We disagree about a couple of things.  But we agree about one very important thing.  The vitality of the blawgosphere depends upon lawyers using it to offer substantive content.   Put another way, if the blawgosphere exists to serve as a big, ugly, nasty infomercial, no one will come.  No one should come. 

When someone comes to Kevin for a Lexblog, he implores them to use this tool carefully.  It is not, he tells them, a bludgeon to beat potential clients over the head.  It is a scalpel, they are told, with which to surgically dissect the legal world in fascinating ways by providing interesting, informative and entertaining reading.  Write things that people want to read is the mantra of Lexblog, and you will attract readers.  Write crap, or worse still, write about how wonderful you are, and you will be very lonely.

Kevin markets Lexblog to lawyers who want to market in the blawgosphere.  Yes, it leaves a sour taste in my mouth.  But I'm not so foolish as to think that my aversion to marketing will change lawyers' motivations, and I am not against lawyers having clients and making a living, even though I don't think this is the right way to go about it.  Nonetheless, I admire Kevin's position that substance is the right path.  After all, had Hemingway written novels for no other reason than to get pocket change for his next drink, would his stories be less macho?  Of course not.

Of all the horrors perpetrated on and by lawyers seeking to elevate their online presence, aside from the mass emails seeking link exchanges and faculty positions at Solo Practice University, the most nefarious is the commenter who seeks SEO supremacy.  And of these, the lowest is the one who pays the legal marketer to have some starving third-world child spam comments on their behalf. This is the true nadir of the blawgosphere.

It outrages Kevin.  It outrages me.  It should outrage you as well.  But do you see it?  Do you get it?

Lawyers can be a funny breed of human being.  Many possess agile minds, which allow them to perform their functions well in the face of adversity.  This same skill, however, also allows them to construct arguments that rationalize their own behaviors, deny that they are doing what they claim to despise in others.  Sometimes the dissonance is real, whether by intent or distinguishing act, and sometimes it's just a lot of hooey. 

Indeed, the irony is made plain in the comments to Kevin's post, where one commenter so fundamentally missed the point that he posted under the name of some blog rather than a real name, as did all others.  Yet, this comment was directed at distinguishing evil blawgers who market shamelessly from legitimate blawgers who market shamelessly.  One can only assume that this blogger places himself in the "good" category, evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.

Now that the Master of the Blawgosphere has called for Revolution, I echo (or retweet if this was tweeterville) his cry.  Join us.  Spread the word.  Save the blawgosphere.  And I join Grant Griffith in saying, thanks Kevin for taking the lead.