Over at Mark Bennett’s Social Media Tyro blog, issue has been kinda joined when Jenni Buchanan, ghostblogger, responded to his challenge as to the ethics of a lawyer having someone create blog posts under their name.
Thank you for including my company in your blog post yesterday about the ethics of legal ghostblogging. As a (relatively) new form of communication, blogging is still in many ways going through its growing pains, and as more and more professionals and businesses begin to see the value of blogging I know that there will be many more debates about various aspects of it, including continuing ethical debates. Like you, I think these debates are important, and I look forward to seeing (and perhaps being a part of) how the field evolves.
Buchanan then asks Bennett to delink from her testimonials page, so as not to embarrass the lawyers who are busily scamming their potential client pool by concealing that they aren’t doing the writing attributed to them, and to take this “important” debate offline and pursue it in private emails. Bennett, of course, does just the opposite. He’s just not a very compliant sort of guy when it comes to concealing dubious conduct and protecting the guilty.
In the comments to the post, Amy Derby, author of unwritten international best-seller, Chronic Bullshit Syndrome, offers some interesting observations.
In the comments to the post, Amy Derby, author of unwritten international best-seller, Chronic Bullshit Syndrome, offers some interesting observations.
While I agree with the integrity/ethical debate behind not outsourcing certain things, I am not convinced it always matters with blogging. Here’s why: Not all lawyers understand blogging well enough to know that it doesn’t need to be done.
I think the problem is that these types of folks shouldn’t be blogging in the first place, but they’ve been convinced by the hypesters that blogging will get them business. Similar to the way people who think flinging up SEO articles will get them business, and the way people think spamming blog comments will increase their page rank…. ugh! There are many many idiots doing a lot of things I don’t understand.
I’ve little doubt that Amy is right, that lawyers who have yet to spend 5 minutes of quality time in the blawgosphere are pumped up by the hype that blawging is the road to vast wealth and success, and succumb. They may know squat about blawging, but when it comes to marketing, it’s only a check away.
But ignorance isn’t a defense to unethical conduct. To claim ownership of something that’s not yours is to lie. It may be understandable that lawyers have fallen prey to the hype, particularly since legitimate bar associations are tripping over themselves to put on Marketing CLEs about it, staffed by presenters whose business model is selling crappy marketing blogs to dumb-as-dirt lawyers. It’s pathetically sad that lawyers fall for this rather than do a little investigation to learn what the blawgosphere is all about, and more importantly, to learn that good blawging isn’t likely to change their fortunes, and bad blawging can destroy a reputation.
In another comment to Bennett’s post, Antonin Pribetic, better known as The Trial Warrior, makes a painful observation of his own:
Granted, some guys like me have been harping on this nasty ethics and integrity thing for a long time, but the voices of those whose livelihoods depend on your buying into the lie that blogging is the magic bullet to success are loud, strident and unrelenting. There is little reason for guys like Bennett, and me, to speak out as a counterbalance to the hypesters. We aren’t invited to speak at the bar association CLEs or industry conferences to undo the damage the promoters and cheerleaders inflict. We aren’t inclined to dig deep into our pockets to fly across the country to unsell you on the marketing juggernaut. And we’re not making ourselves any more popular with those who desperately need your business, at the expense of your hiding your ethical thoughts in the sand, by being disagreeable.
But if nobody challenges the hypesters, the unethical, the marketing scammers, then the ignorant, the self-promoters, the ghostbloggers, the marketers, will overwhelm the blawgosphere and ruin it for all of us.
But ignorance isn’t a defense to unethical conduct. To claim ownership of something that’s not yours is to lie. It may be understandable that lawyers have fallen prey to the hype, particularly since legitimate bar associations are tripping over themselves to put on Marketing CLEs about it, staffed by presenters whose business model is selling crappy marketing blogs to dumb-as-dirt lawyers. It’s pathetically sad that lawyers fall for this rather than do a little investigation to learn what the blawgosphere is all about, and more importantly, to learn that good blawging isn’t likely to change their fortunes, and bad blawging can destroy a reputation.
In another comment to Bennett’s post, Antonin Pribetic, better known as The Trial Warrior, makes a painful observation of his own:
I support professionalism and ethics, both of which are becoming vestigial tails wagging the legal marketing dog. Having said that, I remember in my early days as an articling student ghostwriting for partners who sometimes didn’t give credit, or, if credit was given, it was never co-authorship but merely a footnote. Perhaps times have changed, but it is difficult to reconcile promoting a lawyer’s or law firm’s website to prospective clients, while using a third party ghostwriter to post blog content. It’s like getting a rectal exam at the doctor’s office and then finding out that the doctor was away that day.A well-turned phrase and a vivid image, but then Antonin is Canadian and thinks curling is a sport. That lawyer marketing has become the overarching purpose seems to trump all considerations of integrity when it comes to social media. That lawyers have adopted the methods of used car salesmen to try to get warm bodies in the door, and can justify it as necessary to hop aboard the speeding marketing locomotive of blawging so they aren’t left in the dust, is simply goofy. It’s hype, pure and simple. Stop allowing yourself to be played for the fool, and don’t sell out your ethics in the process.
Granted, some guys like me have been harping on this nasty ethics and integrity thing for a long time, but the voices of those whose livelihoods depend on your buying into the lie that blogging is the magic bullet to success are loud, strident and unrelenting. There is little reason for guys like Bennett, and me, to speak out as a counterbalance to the hypesters. We aren’t invited to speak at the bar association CLEs or industry conferences to undo the damage the promoters and cheerleaders inflict. We aren’t inclined to dig deep into our pockets to fly across the country to unsell you on the marketing juggernaut. And we’re not making ourselves any more popular with those who desperately need your business, at the expense of your hiding your ethical thoughts in the sand, by being disagreeable.
But if nobody challenges the hypesters, the unethical, the marketing scammers, then the ignorant, the self-promoters, the ghostbloggers, the marketers, will overwhelm the blawgosphere and ruin it for all of us.
I’ve often wondered, in the ethics debate, is there a difference between the unscrupulous lawyer who buys into it to make money (and knows it’s wrong), and the guy who just doesn’t know any better. Same for those folks providing these services.
I know plenty of lawyers who get client inquiries through their SEO driven websites and ghostwritten blogs. Many of them I know personally. They’re not bad guys. But business got slow, and this seemed like the answer. In many cases, it’s worked to bring in some extra clients. Same with PPC ads — are those ethical?
When those people, or people who naively think they’re providing a needed service — I was one when I did blog consulting — don’t know any better till someone like you educates them, are they equally at fault? When all you know comes from the altar of the CLE Church of Social Media, do you know it’s a bad religion?
Yes or no, it’s scary. The Internet is already a cesspool. Every profession is falling for it. Look at the FTC “future of news” webcasts. Our future is sad. The future of lawyers even more so.
I appreciate you and the few others who argue for what’s right. But I’m looking at a future where our kids are being taught in 6th grade that wikipedia can be a credible source. Not to be morbid, but once your generation is gone, I’m fairly certain this is what is left.
(Excuse any typos, as I’m on my iPhone.)
There is a difference, and I’m doing this to help educate those who are being fed a load of social media BS, as well as save the rest of us who don’t care to belong to a former profession filled with marketing scoundrels and deceptive self-promoters. But the ignorant can chose to learn. As I believe you mentioned in your comment at Bennett’s, I’ve sat around with the clueless who want to be a part of social media but are so truly, utterly ignorant that they almost have no chance of realizing that the gurus are scoundrels. They’re babes in the woods, but that doesn’t last forever. Eventually, they must take responsibility, and ignorance is only a shield for a brief period of time. After that, they’re no better than the unscrupulous lawyer.
The best answer is to be honest and try to help illuminate things for the newbies. It’s not enough, but it’s all we’ve got.
The clueless ones I feel for are the ones who will never sit in a room with you, or who will never read this. Or perhaps worse, the ones who do happen to come across posts like yours and Mark’s and aren’t able to see that you’re ultimately trying to help the profession — not attack for the sake of attacking.
I don’t know Jenni Buchanan and have never heard of her clients. But if I were her or her clients, I’d probably have been more receptive to a private email than I’d be to being publicly called out by a lawyer I don’t know on a blog I’ve never read. That sort of tactic breeds fear. Fear clouds judgment and puts folks on the defensive. Respectfully, if the collective goal here really is to protect the profession and try to help illuminate things for the newbies, I’m not sure that “branding” – sorry, couldn’t resist — yourselves as cyberbullies is the best way to accomplish that.
Maybe I’m wrong. Just a thought.
Both Bennett and I do quite a bit privately. But by definition, you wouldn’t know about it since it’s, well, private. But neither of us named any of Buchanan’s clients in our posts. As for linking to her testimonials, they chose to be the public face of the ghostbloggers clientele. It’s not like we went searching for them.
The point is that there are far too many lawyers out there to individually chat up each one and explain our point of view. So we take a more macro approach of necessity. Neither of us tries to harm people needlessly, and invariably the people who end up named put themselves in that position, whether through overly aggressive unethical conduct or malignant neglect of their ethical duties. But if you feel that going to each individual lawyer across the country privately, and having a nice chat about ethical obligations in the use of social media, is viable, I fully support you. Go for it!
I do, quite a bit. No, it’s not viable to talk to everyone, nor would I expect you to.
As I said, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe making a public spectacle of a select few does serve as fair warning to others. Maybe they deserve it. I don’t know.
I respect you guys. You know that. I just wish there were a better way — one that doesn’t feel like standing in a landfill, being armed with a plastic Happy Meal shovel, and knowing that there’s no hope of cleaning up this mess.
For the record, I named some of Buchanan’s clients in my second post. But only because she was begging me to.
For all practical purposes there is no outside regulation of online lawyer marketing.
People engaging in or supporting unethical or sleazy lawyer marketing on the internet have three things that they hide behind:
1. “I didn’t know they were doing that for me.”
2. “This is all so new.”
3. “I can get away with it.”
Lawyers are responsible for their marketers’ conduct, even if they aren’t aware of it. Making a public example of a few transgressors makes this point better than anything.
This really is not “all so new.” The ethical principles that have applied to lawyer marketing since the beginning apply now. Publicly calling out the rulebreakers reminds the others that this stuff really is simple.
Perhaps most importantly, though, the quiet private approach doesn’t work because the lawyers who are privately reminded of the applicable ethical rules too often think that the quietness of the reminder means they can keep getting away with it.
Looks like I went out of town at the wrong time. Another scam on the net for worthless lawyers trying to make themselves appear worthwhile? Today’s lawyer need not be of any quality, as long as they can get to the top of Google, and anyone that can get them there, or convince them they can get them there, is golden.
As for calling these people out – and when I say “these people, I mean those playing the pied pipers – I say climb to the top of the mountain and speak up. No reason to privately “help” them, when they are trying to scam the public.
As for the lawyers who buy into it – screw them
I myself am new to the blawgosphere so forgive me if I am missing something here. But to say that the lawyers who hire a ghostblogger are trying to “scam the public” sounds a little bit simplistic to me.
I’m not big on public humiliation. In fact, if you asked me what has the greatest potential to “pollute” the blawgosphere, it would be precisely that. Someone else referred to it as cyberbullying.
I have no problem with people hiring other people to write things for them. And, while I see the distinction between ghostwriting for a website and ghostwriting for a blog, I’m not convinced the distinction is that significant.
Why the need to personally police other lawyers’ ethics? Why the need to personally patrol the blawgosphere for pollution? Good luck with that. One person’s spam might be another person’s enjoyable reading.
Ghostwriters will actually improve the quality of writing, and readers will be able to tell the difference between canned language and the distinctive voice of a lawyer writing for him or herself. If not, who cares.
Maybe, as a neophtye to the blawgosphere I am missing something here, but the whole thing strikes me as paternalistic, futile, and, well, mean-spirited.
Twenty years ago, Milli Vanilli had this hit song. Everybody loved it. That is, until they found out that Milli Vanilli was just lip-syncing, and someone else was singing the song. What’s the difference? If you like the song, who cares who’s singing it, right? So what if Milli Vanilli wasn’t actually singing the song that they were taking credit for singing.
The question isn’t whether you don’t think it’s a fraud to have someone else pretend to be you, write words for which you take credit, make you appear to the world to be knowledgeable, credible, caring even. Why shouldn’t a lawyer be able to present himself in the best possible light, even if its only a rented light from some basement store?
Blawging is a reflection of the lawyer, the actual person. When people read the words on a blawg, they learn what the lawyer has to say, how he feels, what he knows. It’s not just another piece of the marketing plan, an artfully crafted scheme to suck potential clients into his office to get the next fee. The marketers will tell you the opposite, but that’s not because it’s true. That’s because the marketer wants your money and couldn’t care less about your reputation, your ethics, your integrity. He’s doing to you what he wants you to do to potential clients.
The reason for “policing” the blawgosphere is that this has been the downward spiral over the past couple of years. People like Bennett, Tannebaum and I were here before the marketers tried to turn this place into just another marketing scam. You’re new. You haven’t watch the onslaught of scams that have worked their way through the blawgosphere over the past few years, They taint us all. We are accused by people we don’t know of being a part of the deception, the manipulation of the public, who attribute motives to our blawging based upon what the shills scream, that this is all done to lie to potential clients and suck the last dime out of their pocket.
Blawging offers the opportunity for real people, real lawyers, to join a large and quite significant community of their peers. Pass muster by virtue of your thoughtful analysis and you will find enormous support across the nation. A lawyer can show his stuff and quickly gain a large following of lawyers and laypeople who are impressed by his dedication, intelligence and skill. The downside is that he can also prove himself to be a fool or a tool. That’s the nature of peer review. No one guarantees that your thoughts will meet the approval of your peers. Once you put your thoughts out there for public recognition, they stand or fall on their own.
As for public humiliation, that’s reserved for people who do bad things. Do something bad in public and you should expect to be called on it. This is no free ride, and certainly not for the faint of heart. That’s the downside of seeking public recognition. If you can’t handle public disagreement, than don’t take your act public. And if you do something overtly bad, expect to be called on it. You can’t have it both ways, enjoying the wonders of putting yourself out there for everyone to adore and then crying because you’re not nearly as adorable as you thought.
Welcome to the blawgosphere. It can be a great place to be, or a horrible place to be. The choice is up to you. Having taken a quick walk through your blog, I think you’re going to do just fine. I like the young lawyer whose words appear in your posts, and I sincerely hope that they’re yours and not some ghostblogger’s.
This seems pretty simple to me. If Buchanan’s clients wanted to remain anonymous they should/would not have agreed to submit testimonials under their own name (with photo). If Buchanan now wants to protect these clients from further exposure, she can take down the testimonial section of her website–no need to rely on the cooperation of Bennett.
If people using ghostwriters truly believe that it is a good thing because it “improves the quality of writing” and “readers will be able to tell the difference between canned language and the distinctive voice of a lawyer writing for him or herself” then they won’t care if it becomes public.
But they don’t want anonymity. They want immunity. They want the right to go public, but only for adoration. There seems to be an epidemic of this problem lately, with whiners aplenty seeking to enjoy the wonders of the digital world with impunity.
Of course, going public has consequences. That’s the price of fame.
S:
You mean I am not supposed to use a ghost writer?
Seriously, I tried to read this and care, but it seems to me that blogs are sort of like Chinese food from a hand cart. So many are written anonymously; I pick favorites and stick with them. I’ve acquired a habit for yours. And for Cernovich. But I’ve yet to read some of the newer ones you hawk. What’s all the fuss? Folks will read what they like and ignore the rest. This is a self-regulating market.
N
I think this is all real simple-if its self regulating-lets just have lawyers state somewhere in their blog post that it “is” or “is not” written by the author. Lawyers are stand up people-yeah?
I love it when you poke your nose out of the covers, but these constant allusions to Chinese food keep making me hungry. I wonder what’s for dinner?
“Relativity applies to physics, not ethics” – Albert Einstein
Kung Foo You?
Curlings not a sport? What next, men’s figure skatings not a sport?
I’m not a fan of ghostwriting. I realize some lawyers have someone else write the static content for their websites, provide research assistance and draft (write?) briefs.
I decided to go to the underlying websites from the testimonials to see how they were dealing with the ghostwriting issue. Of the five sites, two were using the same content with a link at the bottom of the post that says “http://www.blogprofs.com“ which actually links to http://www.legalghostblogger.com.
I’m not sure why the text doesn’t match up to the URL. I was hoping that there would be some disclosure about who wrote the article. Of course that wouldn’t be ghost-blogging. That would avoid the deception that you are taking credit for another person’s writing.
The other three site did not seem to have any recent content that matched up to the others. Maybe they are writing their own stuff now?
Ghostbusting in the Blogosphere: Is Ghostblogging Unethical & What’s the Best Way to Deal With It?
Back in 2004, now my departed-from-the-blogosphere friend David Giacalone predicted that Ghostblogging Will Kill the Blogosphere. In a thoughtful post that considered the issue from all sides, David criticized the ethics of ghost blogging and lamented that that mass produced,…
Ya’ll got it goin on with the ghostbloggin.
What about the possibility of ghostanswers on Avvo?
Do you really think an attorney is actually answering over 300 questions a week and practicing law at the same time?
hmmmm
hmmm indeed. Point well taken. Where else are ghosties doing the public appearances for lawyers. I wonder if this might bother my dear friends at Avvo?
I”ve discovered that a blog is a like a small child or a plant. You have to feed it or it will die. Sadly, I’ve been a bit guilty of blog neglect lately.
I am embarrassed to say, but not the least bit surprised that the Ghostblogger writes for estate planning attorneys.
One of the things that I am constantly struggling with is the question of “who is my audience.” There are, generally, two types of estate planning “blogs.”
The first is the type of marketing “blog”, generally written by a very young, very pretty woman, in which she writes about why puppies and sunshine and flowers and baby Jesus all want you to have a Will, and how so very important it is for you to go out and hire her right now because your precious weshes little babies need you to do it. You can generally recognize this blog because the author signs it at the end using a handwriting font and her first name only. Blurgh.
The second type of blog discusses the latest Tax Court decision regarding fractional discounts afforded family limited partnerships and the best time and method to allocate generation skipping tax exemption.
I have gone between the two extremes and have tried to find a middle ground, not always successfully. And like I said, I’ve been a bit lax in blogging lately too.
My point is, that I’ve seen the ghostwritten estate planning blogs for years now, and they are almost ALWAYS of the first variety. Anyone smart enough to write the second type of blog is too busy practicing law to be able to write blogs for others. The ghostwritten bogs can barely be described as “blogs” but just as a series of inanities and common sense statements that generally end with, “So, if YOU want to show your children that you love them, call me. Love, David”
From a professional and competitive point of view, those blogs have never bothered me, because they are so bad. I’m thrilled to have a potential client, at least the type of sophisticated (read: rich) client that I’m looking for compare my writing with theirs.
It does however wreck havoc with The Google, and while I hadn’t really thought about it, I guess I agree with your point that it is dishonest and unethical. I’d be very concerned with getting the various State Bars involved though; only because they tend to be run by luddites. In Florida, they’d probably demand that all Blogs have huge disclaimers on them, or be banned entirely.
So I don’t know what the solution is, other than public shaming. I have, however, had the pleasure of meeting Amy Derby. I would fully support putting her in charge of some sort of blogging purity squad.