Q. What do you call 100 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean.
A.  A good start.

Old joke, but it makes a point.  From those thoughtful folks at Above the Law, and echoed by those friends of the law at Overlawyered, comes a report that a Wisconsin legislator proposed to do away with the University of Wisconsin Law School because of lawyer overpopulation. 

The notion, of course, is facially bizarre, but behind this stupid idea lies a small idea that might be worthy of greater consideration.  Many of the problem that the public perceives with the legal profession has its roots in the hard reality that there may well be more lawyers in the United States than it can handle.  As lawyers find it increasingly difficult to find clients and earn a living, they stretch to find new revenue streams,  New causes of action are raised.  New client bases are created.  New views of ethical limits are developed. 

These things aren’t happening solely to defend the rights of the downtrodden in post-industrial society.  In large measure, they happen when our traditional role in society doesn’t pan out the way it is supposed to, and lawyers find that their ticket from the bar no longer guarantees a ticket for a meal.

Now I realize that when kids are reaping $190,000 as first year associates, the very idea that not all lawyers have a Ferrari on back order strikes some as shocking.  But this trend has been happening for as long as I’ve practiced law.  I doubt that anyone enters law with the intention of being a scoundrel, but the unfulfilled promise of a bright future drives many to push the envelope.  And many push it too far.

Thinning out the herd is one way of addressing this situation.  Law schools take in, and push out, a lot of new blood every year.  Sure, there are the handful who will get the Biglaw jobs.  A few of those will even stay there long enough to reap the real rewards a dozen years later.  But there will be a group who will be very disappointed to learn that the practice of law didn’t work out too well for them.  Some will wallow in misery.  Some will turn to those lawyer adds that make you want to puke.  Some will have the government seal of approval on their livelihood, but will end up being a parasite on society.

It’s unclear to me how the many law schools in America decide how many lawyers to churn out year after year.  Somehow, I imagine it has more to do with how many chairs they have then any other rational criteria.  Schools must see what the rest of us do, but which school would want to be the first to cut its entering class for the good of the herd?  Maybe it will take some yahoo legislator’s inane proposal to give more thoughtful minds pause to think.

Another path would be for bar examiners to cut back on the pass rates for the bar exams.  While would serve the dual purpose of upgrading the knowledge requirements for lawyers as well, it seems markedly unfair to let kids sit through 3 years of school (and pay for it as well) with the knowledge that a percentage of them will never be permitted to become a lawyer.  Of course, by cutting the number of law school seats nationwide, schools will upgrade the quality of their students through selectivity, which should serve a similar purpose.

Is this idea elitist?  The laissez faire amongst us would argue that the marketplace should weed out the weak and incompetent, and survival of the fittest will naturally do the job for us.  Ironically, these are the same people behind the overlawyered concept, complaining that our over-swelled ranks is the cause of our litigation explosion and ridiculous abuse of the system for crass profit.  Of course, the latter point has merit.  If fewer lawyers practiced, then they would be too busy litigating strong, significant cases to have time to grasp at litigation straws.  And the pool of funds for lawyers would be distributed over a smaller group, thus increasing each lawyers’ share.   

When the herd has grown too large for the available food, it must either be thinned or some will starve and die.  Does this apply to lawyers as well? 

Mark Bennett writes about the “victory” of getting a client life plus 20.  Lest you misunderstand, this can be a huge victory when plan B is a death sentence.  But even this is a bitter pill to a criminal defense lawyer, who by nature and vocation is more inclined towards a fight.  Mark notes:

A part of me says that he should have kept on fighting, that there is always a chance of winning, and that twelve years or so in prison followed by a needle in the arm is no worse than life behind bars.

But as succinctly noted in a comment by Colin, “idealism works a lot better when it’s not your neck.”  True dat.

Real defense lawyers, and by this I mean those of us who are, in the truest sense, ready, willing and able to try our case, giving up for anything less than a dismissal with full apology is painful.  We want to win.  Yes, there’s an interest in justice (provided justice means we win), but our gut motivation is that of the gladiator in the arena. 

Those who think that lawyers should somehow bear personal responsibility for a “just” outcome (as in, if your client is ‘really’ guilty, then we should slam the jail door shut on our own) will not be happy about my attitude.  But then, that is not our job.  Our job is to zealously represent our clients within the bounds of the law.  Or as I like to say, to win.

Mark likes to win.  He’s really not a half a loaf sort of guy.  He believes in justice with a passion.  And he wants to win.  So taking a hit like life plus 20 is just slightly better than sticking a needle through his eye.  Sure, he can rationally explain why it was the smart thing to do.  He can provide a list of reasons why it benefited his client.  And he sits there feeling pain and anguish at taking the plea.

There have been many posts around the blawgosphere lately about how to pick a lawyer.  This is the thing you, dear client, need to see in a lawyer.  The passion and ability to win.  No, of course it doesn’t guarantee you a win.  But its lack pretty much assures you that you won’t win.  The lawyer who is thinking plea bargain from the second he pockets your payment is the lawyer who slams the jail door on you.  Unfortunately, this is about a fire in the lawyers belly, not a slick rap to potential clients.  Talk is cheap.  It’s the lawyer who feels the pain that has the passion.

It’s become trite for a lawyer to say that he will “fight for your rights!”  Take a look at the sidebar for my “Angry Lawyer” video (I love this video).  It’s makes for a great joke.  This happens when the cynical and incompetent come to recognize that mouthing the words that come naturally to a real lawyer will get them clients.  And the real lawyers, the ones who are the gladiators (update, my dear wife thinks I’m getting far too macho here. Mea cupa), appear to be the same as the scam lawyers.  Mark thinks clients can see through this.  I think otherwise, but then I’ve got a few years on Mark and have seen a bit more than him. 

A current client, who is awaiting trial when the police finally return from the donut shop to be prepared as witnesses, recently asked me if I cared enough about him to win.  He asked in a whiny voice, clearly concerned that I tell him that he mattered as much to me as my own son.  It soon became clear that his father had gone to trial with a lawyer who wrote a check when he was retained that he couldn’t pay at trial.  He lost.  The lawyer was miserably bad, and he didn’t want his son to suffer the same fate.

I explained to my client that I would try that case as if he were my son.  But not because I cared about him like I would about my son.  Unfortunately, he was a client to me, not that being a client was a bad thing.  But I would try that case as if he were my son anyway, because that’s how I try cases.  I try them to win.  I prepare to win.  I develop a strategy to win.  Because I try cases to win.

Winning is part of a greater strategy, which may include giving up a lesser charge to beat the top, but sometimes that’s how a win is defined.  And, I stared my client square in the eyes, I do it because I want to win.  I do it for me.  He just gets the benefit.  I doubt he fully understood, but he walked away happy.  I believe the only word he heard was “win”, and it was the only word he wanted to hear.

While not the normal course for me, this has been a strange week for fees.  A bounced check, a million excuses and a diamond.

It’s not uncommon in criminal defense that clients make promises regarding payment that they can’t keep.  Sometimes it’s a scam, but more often than not it’s a reflection of overly positive thinking.  Criminal defense lawyers are, by nature, vigilant of these issues.  If they aren’t, they go hungry.  It’s just the nature of the beast.  Unlike Biglaw associates making $190,000 out of the box before they are able to correctly identify the various parts of the human anatomy, criminal defense lawyers earn their keep on a day to day basis.

So when a client’s check went south, we had to have a chat.  Despite his assurances of good intentions some day in the future, I was unpersuaded.  Legal fees can very quickly turn into a horrible conflict between lawyer and client at the very moment in time that the two need to work together seamlessly.  This isn’t good for anyone.

So, an offer was made to fulfill the obligation by way of a diamond.  Notwithstanding my general inclination against taking chickens, cars and jewels in lieu of fees, it gave me pause to think.  A diamond?  What’s the point of a diamond?  Have you ever pondered the question?  Well, neither had I until yesterday.

Diamonds cut glass, but I don’t really have any glass that needs cutting.  Some women and rappers like diamonds, but the reason for this is not entirely clear to me.  It’s a rock.  An interesting one, to be sure, but not a lot more than, say, I nice piece of quartz.  Yet it’s deemed sufficiently valuable that men spend huge portions of their income to buy it to give to women to prove their love.  Wouldn’t their love be better proven by a nice condo?  And what’s with the carat conundrum?  Quantity versus quality has long been the dilemma, even though most of us couldn’t tell a real one from a fake if our lives depended on it.  We can, however, discern big from small (most of the time).

And yet, this doesn’t answer the question why.  Why do we care about diamonds?  Well, somebody has done one heck of a job convincing us that they are worth a lot.  And believe me, for something with so little actual utility, this is not easy.  Their rarity is clearly an important factor, though I have some serious doubts that they are anywhere near as rare as we are led to believe.  Walk through the diamond district in Manhattan and you will see enough for every man, woman and rapper to have a dozen.  From what I hear, there even more in the back rooms, being held back to stem a flood of the market with cheap, flawless, huge diamonds. 

Of course, I’ve seen the deBeers ads on TV.  They are terrific.  Every time I see the guy put the diamond necklace on the sleeping woman, I feel like a cad for not doing the same for my beloved wife.  Somehow, the feeling passes.  But diamonds were special before these ads.  Even before TV.  So while these commercials may keep the love alive, they can’t be the cause.

Mr. Freeze needed diamonds to keep his freezing suit cold, but that’s a special use so it doesn’t apply to everyone.  Diamonds are used in cutting blades effectively, but they take the crappy ones that are too visually flawed to prove undying love. 

I remember my sister-in-law informing the family that her longtime boyfriend, who was imminently bound to propose, had better pony up a 2 carat rock if he expected a positive response.  Talk about a couple who really could have used a condo, but this was her priority.  Would she have been ashamed to hang with her engaged friends with some puny stone on her finger?  I guess. 

In the end, I could think of no particularly good reason to want a diamond.  Granted, it might be marketable on eBay if I could somehow prove that (a) it was in fact a diamond, and (b) there was someone out there in the eBay world who would buy a diamond from the likes of me.  But this involved yet further work and risk, and one bounced check was enough of a problem for the day.  So I passed on the offer.  But he was wearing a nice watch.

Courtesy of New York Legal Update, the New York Department of State has promulgated emergency regulations requiring the installation of a pool alarm.  This comes in reaction to the tragic drowning of 3 year old Anthony Muniz.  You may recall the bizarre story, where young Anthony scaled fences to reach a pool three houses away.

Once again, H.L. Mencken’s admonition that for every complex problem, there is a solution that is easy, simple and absolutely wrong, comes to mind.  The Anthony Muniz story is indeed a tragedy.  Any time a child dies, it’s a tragedy.  But mankind cannot find a simple cure for every act that can be performed, and we need to get that bone out of our heads that makes us think otherwise.

This is a particularly expensive cure to boot.  These pool alarms cost $200 to $300 apiece, meaning that the people who own the companies that make them were having a huge party last night.  Woo hoo!  And for some pools, and pool owners, these are great devices, perfect for making sure that their pools are safe and protected.
But the cost to New York pool owners will be in the millions, and there will necessarily be a huge percentage for whom this cure offers absolutely nothing.

Not to mention, this quick fix would have done nothing for little Anthony, since the owner of the pool in which he drowned would have been exempt anyway.  Mind you, the local reaction to this tragedy has been mixed, with many wondering why blame the pool instead of Anthony’s parents, who somehow failed to notice that there son (who was known to “wander”) was long gone.  Of course, it’s a lot easier to blame an inanimate object that parents who have just lost a child.

Please understand, I am not against safety or protection of children.  Nor am I primarily concerned with safety as a cost / benefit issue.  What does concern me is the constant use of aberrational tragedies to justify new laws.  It has become a given in criminal law, where every law now has somebody’s name attached to it even though it is then used for purposes entirely unrelated to its inception. 

This knee jerk reaction of passing a law in response to every tragedy may be a terrific way for some legislator to get his name in the paper, but it is creating a world of ever-increasing restriction and a populace that believes that passing laws is the answer to every problem.  Where does it stop?

I didn’t realize how neglectful I had been about keeping abreast of British legal fashion until I read that they were doing away with wigs at Lowering the Bar.  Since I’ve always epitomized cutting edge fashion (yes, seersucker is classic summer wear), I couldn’t let this pass without note.

Itchy?  Perhaps, but it wasn’t entirely without purpose.  The trappings that have long characterized the British barristers and judges were not mere anachronisms, flying in the face of American egalitarianism by their air of nobility and recall of the days of titles and landed gentry.  Wigs and robes were a mechanism to separate the world inside the courtroom from the world outside. 

Just as some American courtrooms are huge, heavy and overbearing, all intended to provide a physical manifestation of the Majesty of the Law, and inspire just enough awe to keep witnesses, defendants and their lawyers in line, the Brits added an extra couple of punches by the wigs and robes.  Notice that our judges kept the robes for themselves.

Before turning too serious, it is important to note that the argument for keeping the wigs was that they lended an air of authority and anonymity.  The best line in the piece was “anyone whose ‘anonymity’ is preserved by wearing a wig probably isn’t wearing it right.”  At least they didn’t modernize by adding hair extensions.

But bringing wigs to the front burner made me wonder, why didn’t American lawyers follow suit with the Brits?  First, the absence of wigs and robes means that we have to give thought to what we wear to court every day, and we all know what a pain that can be (does this tie match?).  Second, the whole wig issue relates only to barristers, raising the barrister/solicitor distinction. 

Personally, I like the idea of wigs and robes in the courtroom.  In my time in the trenches, I’ve watched lawyer attire go from formal to comfortable, with men wearing blazers and women in capri pants.  Suits are often in need of a pressing, and black sneakers have substituted for wingtips. And let’s not even touch the way some defendants dress for court, with their pants hanging somewhere slightly above their knees.  It didn’t happen all at once, but little by little we followed the popular mode of dress down the slippery slope of casuality.  It was a mistake.

What we do in courtroom is serious.  What happens to our clients in courtrooms is serious.  It is inappropriate for us, the lawyers, to appear as if comfort or fashion trumps the lives that are at stake.  The atmosphere for all the players in the room should maintain that level of seriousness.  It reflects an attitude that we are all having a jolly time coming to court, and that our concerns are as casual as our attire.  More significantly, the impact of our presence before a judge, when we are dressed casually, is very different than when we stand up in a dark suit.  The latter gives an impression of gravitas.  The former gives the impression that we don’t really care.

If I had to wear an itchy wig, I would likely fall on the side of tossing such archaic trappings in the trash.  But the purpose and benefit of wearing unusual and formal attire in the courtroom has merit.  I still wear the white shirt and dark suit (properly pressed) and real shoes to court.  It is my purpose to let my client, the prosecutor and the judge know that I am serious about what I do, and I intend to be taken seriously.  Impressions matter.  While I’m hardly alone, I do not reflect the majority view.  Upon reflection of the trend, the idea of robes, and even wigs, makes increasing sense to me. 

And while we’re on the topic, the lack of the barrister/solicitor distinction has become an increasing cause for concern.  In the public’s mind, lawyers are fungible.  But as lawyers well know, some of us try cases and some sit behind desks pontificating to clients who couldn’t possibly distinguish knowledgeable advice from pap.  While each serves a purpose, you wouldn’t want to have your life on the line with a lawyer who has no clue how to ask a question or make an objection. 

Watching a lawyer in a courtroom who clearly has neither the experience nor skills to be there is worse than a painful experience. It is dangerous.  I often have greater concern for the harm that will be done to my client by co-counsel than by the prosecution.  I’ve always got my eye on the other table, but it’s far too easy to be stabbed in the back by another defense lawyer.  More on this another day, but I have long believed that lawyers who can’t try a case have no business being allowed into a courtroom.  This isn’t a game to prove to Mom that her money was well-spent on law school  What we do impacts the lives of real people, and if you’re not up to it, stay away.  Being a lawyer just isn’t a good enough reason to allow someone to try a case, even if they’re wearing a wig.

Court TV has announced that it will be changing its name, effective January 1st, to truTV.  According to the Turner Network President, Steve Koonin, the change “reflects the network’s popular lineup of series that offer first-person access to exciting, real-life stories.”

The impact on lawyers, the primary stable of unpaid and undistinguished talent, will be devastating.  Without Court TV, lawyers who lack both knowledge about a subject or insight into a particular matter, will now be left without any media outlet willing to put them on the air. 

The impact on the truth, on the other hand, will be curious.  The line-up of shows will include shows about bickering neighbors, renegade snowboarders and oil drillers, so at least Court TV will be able to keep the same audience.  But what part of shows about renegade snowboarders compels a network to tout itself as showing the “truth”?  Don’t ask me.  It may be reality based, but calling it tru seems quite a stretch.

Seriously, as I’ve previously written about Court TV, it was one of the most worthless wastes of bandwidth known to man.  About the only use was to provide a home for former prosecutors and a means for lawyers to claim that they were legal commentators. 

More significantly, Court TV was one of the primary forces pushing for cameras in the courtroom.  Trials provided a wealth a ever-available, and always free, content.  Without the ability to put cameras into New York courtrooms, the station lost a huge pool of top notch content.  On the other hand, New Yorkers gained a little extra fairness at trial in return.

Good bye, Court TV. 

In case you missed it, open warfare has broken out amongst the New York judiciary.  Since this doesn’t happen too often, I feel obliged to take note.

Justice Emily Jane Goodman has gone public (yup, really public) with her reactions to Chief Judge Judith Kaye’s “top secret” missive to the judiciary about their inchoate pay raise in a piece at Judicial Reports.  Justice Goodman’s anger, frustration and sarcasm are palpable.  Nowhere in memory has the angst boiled over in such an open fashion.

The Chief Judge writes that she understands my “mounting frustration,” though I suspect she will find it unseemly when I, a New York State Supreme Court Justice, am forced into bankruptcy.

Forced into bankruptcy?  Well, that would be ugly.  Though the millions of New Yorkers who don’t make $136,700 will probably question certain financial and lifestyle choices should bankruptcy be the outcome.  If that pittance will force some poor judge into bankruptcy, imagine what a minimun wage income would do.  Still, that’s a shockingly harsh thing to say, especially to your Chief Judge.  But it gets worse:

I’m sure the Chief Judge believes that these contacts will do the trick. But, by the way, she and the other administrators have never been elected, have never run for office or been touched by politics, in a way that would enable them to understand politics and political negotiation. Those who are appointed are the beneficiaries of politics, without experiencing the dynamics themselves. Almost all court administrators (I can think of few exceptions) are appointed, and almost none have ever been elected to the Supreme Court.

Wow!  I could feel that slap all the way over here.  Now we’re getting personal.  The seething hostility between elected and appointed judges has never come to the surface like this before.  Who knew that there was this much resentment.

Justice Goodman concludes:

Of course, it is not really about the lawsuit; it’s about being pumped up and let down yet again.

It’s nice to know that judges really are human.  Maybe now they will remember how it feels for the rest of us, especially the defendants who walk in believing that there is a place where the rule of law prevails and the Constitution is alive.  Maybe they won’t be “let down yet again.”

During the discussion of whether there is a New/Old Guard in the blawging world, one of the tangential issues that arose related to the nature of the Blawger.  As Mark Bennett astutely picked up, the old world was largely populated by academics.  He described the new world of blogging as the Practical Blawgosphere.

Mark’s point (besides Mark’s having a real knack at a pithy phrase) is very well taken.  In the early days, most of the blawgers were law school professors, who were apparently more inclined to venture into the as yet unknown world of blogging, and had the time to do so.  For most of us, it wasn’t even a twinkle in our eye.

There were exceptions of course.  Notably, people like Norm Pattis at Crime and Federalism and Gideon at A Public Defender.  But the universe was largely populated by LawProfs and CrimProfs and whateverProfs.  Publish or perish.

But the issue remained.  Who were they writing for, and who wanted to read it.  Some profs were quite taken with the importance of being a law professor, operating under the belief that academic credentials gave them an intellectual cache that allowed them to opine to the masses.  Personally, they do have a lot to offer, as practicing lawyers often forget that theory and nuanced discussion provides a context to shape our thought and focus.

On the other hand, few law professors have the experience of finding their stomach in their throat when a witness drops a bomb in the middle of questioning that blows your client’s story out of the water.  Their time is spend in thought, not in the trenches.  The real world of the courtroom is rarely as sanitary as an ivory tower.

As lawyers, ever swift on the uptake, discover the world of blogs, discussions, issues, and most importantly, a resource to answer the conundrums that they will face during their cross-examination of a witness today, turn to the web, the finely honed approach of the law profs, with their 50 year review of reversed precedent leading to the conclusion that you lose, offers little.  But the Practical Blawgosphere is another matter.  The law in courtrooms rarely matches the law in school.

Mark has nailed this.  The Practical Blawgosphere is the working man’s web.  It’s for folks who get their hands dirty.  It’s for lawyers who hold responsiblity for real people.  It doesn’t fit into a neat little box, but expresses the daily concerns of people who live the daily grind.  Maybe the reason that the old timers haven’t noticed its emergence is that we offer nothing for them.  Maybe that’s only right and fair. 

But from the comments I get here, and the community that has developed out of nowhere in the Practical Blawgosphere, real lawyers want and need a place to discuss, learn and chill with others who share their understanding of the world.  So the blawgosphere is dynamic, at least the practical one.

I bet I’ll get my butt handed to me by Turkewitz for behaving like such an amateur, but that’s what I am at blawging.  Hey, I didn’t even know what a trackback was until Gideon told me about them the other day.  And yet I didn’t lose any sleep at night. 

Turk got on me for not upgrading my blawg a couple of weeks ago.  He’s right, of course.  It’s definitely second rate in appearance and function compared to most out there.  And like all men, being left behind in the world of tech is tantamount to being, well, just a little short of satisfying. 

But then I thought, what’s this about?  Who am I trying to impress, and where is this going?  I took a look at the big time blogs and blawgs.  There are some with technorati authority in the tens of thousands!  Holy moley.  The pressure must be awful!  There are blogs that get dozens, if not hundreds, of comments on their posts.  That IS a full time job, just keeping up with the comments.  No way, baby. 

So here’s the bottom line.  I’m a criminal defense lawyer.  I also blawg.  The tail does not wag the dog.

If you don’t like the way this blawg looks (or, it could look a lot better), sorry.  If I knew more about putting this stuff together, or was doing this for profit or self-promotion or any such nefarious purpose, I’d spend a lot more time thinking about form rather than substance.  But I’m not, and I won’t.

I’m sure, as I learn more about the blawgosphere, things will change.  I’ve already learned plenty from some of the terrific, and quite brilliant, people I’ve met because I started this blawg.  And as far as I’m concerned, that’s payment enough.  Most of them have better looking blawgs than me.  Most know a lot more about technology and programming than me.  Some are really damn good at all this.  And I thank them for sharing what they know with me.  I’m very pleased with how all of this has worked out, and if I had entered this blawgosphere with a bill, it’s already been paid in full. 

David Hoffman, at Concurring Opinions, asked yesterday whether the blawgosphere is stagnant.  Being an accommodating sort of fellow, I answered.  Man, you would have thought I told him his Momma was ugly.  David, backed up by Gordon Smith of Conglomerate blog, took my comments very personally.  Of course, both are law professors (which explains the thin skins).

As any competent lawyer knows, if you ask the wrong question, you get the wrong answer.  Read through the post and take particular note of the blawgs mentioned as exemplars of the blawging world.   Then consider the sophistication of the various modes of blawging, models and groupings, etc.  For the uninitiated, you would have thought that blogging was done by a handful of geeking kids who grew up to be lawyers in their garages.  But as David’s post shows, the individuals and groups that started (apparently sometime around 2002, generations in webtime) up early have grown into conglomerates of their own.

They speak of stats and models.  They talk about group versus individual.  Oh my, how did something so free become so constrained, and how did these pioneers become so entrenched and protective.  No, they don’t see themselves that way at all.  The old immigrants never admit to being immigrants once they learn the language, when they can start complaining about the new immigrants not being as worthy as they were.

But here’s the rub.  Neither the blogs cited as examples, or the blogs in their blogrolls, reflect a dynamic of growth, new ideas, openness or recognition that the blawgosphere is an ever-changing community.  There are, naturally, exceptions.  I read their blawgs (well, some of them, at least), and have been struck by how inbred they are.  Note, by the way, that I do not speak specifically of, or direct my point to, Concurring Opinions.  I write this because David takes this so personally and I don’t want him to get a complex.

So let’s make a few points crystal clear.  While the new guard of blawgers may be new to the blawgosphere, we are not new to the law.  Indeed, many of us have a whole lot of experience, and much to say and add.  If we’re writing about trial strategy, would you rather hear from someone who has been blawging for 5 years but has only tried 10 felonies, or someone who has blawged for 5 weeks but has tried 50 felonies?

Next, what’s our purpose.  The old guard (the class of 2002) has pigeon-holed blawgs, and therefore tries to shove new blawgs into their holes.  I have no idea what motivated them to start their blawgs, but I defy their attempt to pigeon-hole.  Perhaps the most damning response I received to my comment was that my blawg was modeled after theirs.  Ouch. 

My blawg may have aspects that look like theirs, but I assure you it wasn’t modeled after anything.  I never put that much thought into its look, or its target audience, or what types of posts received the best stats.  My blawg is organic.  I write what I choose to write.  It changes from day to day, and often within a day.  Some posts are serious. Some are goofy.  Some are for defendants while others for lawyers.  Some are just plain rants, having nothing to do with the law.  It’s my blog, and I can write about any damn thing that interests me.  Nobody makes you read it.  My audience doesn’t drive my blog.  My business plan doesn’t drive it.  I’m at the wheel. 

Some of the new guys have modelled themselves.  They do the weekly column thing.  Maybe I’ll do that someday, but I doubt it.  I’ve done new cotent.  Did you se my interview with Paul Bloom of Avvo?  No else had a talk with him, yet when the Old Guard wrote extensively about Avvo, nobody mentioned this post.  The New Guard, on the other hand, wrote quite a bit about it.  Why?  Because they love me?  Because I’m “one of them?”  Nope.  It was just for the content.  

The Old Guard views blawgs in a business paradigm.  I don’t.  It just isn’t that complicated for me.  Apparently, the Old Guard expected blawging to be a financial end game in itself, providing a full time job with substantial revenues.  If that’s their purpose, great.  But I haven’t placed, or sought, advertising on my blawg, so don’t tar me with that brush.  Perhaps someday I’ll grow to need some cash from my blawg, but not today.  Don’t assume that the motive of monetizing the blawgosphere is universal.  If it was, I’d work much harder on branding and image, instead of putting my time solely into content.

By the way, Dave is right when he says that my sidebar (the part with the videos) is a little too cluttered.  The fact is, my blogging program is pretty low rent and it’s hard to do a lot of the things I have come to realize that I would like to do.  But I put those “bells and whistles” (as David called them) in because I thought they were funny.  We need more humor to ground us, particularly given the nightmares criminal defense lawyers deal with daily.  So, I plug them it where I can.  It could certainly look better, but once again, it’s all about the content.  At least I have them if you’re inclined to watch.

One of the most odious comments was to attribute motivation to blawgers: Lawyers blawg as a marketing tool.  While that may be true for some, I don’t appreciate the projection of someone else’s motivations.  I write because I have things to say and want to express my thoughts this way. 

Before blawging, I was a frequent op-ed and editor-letter writer for certain associations who needed stuff written for their presidents to sign their name to.  I enjoyed doing it, and was able to crank out solid work.  But I was limited by the association’s position and interests, and wanted to say more.  I see about a dozen things a day that I want to write about, and have to really limit myself to a few to get things done.

When I started, it was a shoestring operation with no particular goal in mind.  I wanted to write, and I had no idea whether anyone would read it.  As it turned out, in the slightly less than 5 months that I’ve been doing this, my posts are read about 400 times a day.  It’s not as good as Eric Turkewitz at New York Personal Injury Law, but I don’t think it’s too shabby.  Is the blawgosphere stagnant?  Not for me.

When I cruise through the blawgs every morning, one point keeps jumping out at me.  I see links to subjects in the Old Guard blawgs on posts that I did first, or better, or differently.  Sometimes I know that they are aware of my posts, because one of the Old Guard has left a comment here.  Yet they will only link to one of their own, as if nothing new has happened in the blawgosphere since 2002.  I link to their blawgs.  Why don’t they link to mine.  I find new blawgs out there, and write about them or welcome them.  Why don’t they recognize new blawgs? 

David Hoffman asked me if I sent him an email when I s
tarted Simple Justice to let Concurring Opinions know that I exist.  No, Dave, I didn’t.  It never dawned on my to go begging for love.  That wasn’t my purpose, but I can understand why, given your business model, you ask.  Find me if you want.  Read me if I interest you.  Comment if you have something to add.  Or ignore me if I do nothing for you.

I’m just here to write and add my thoughts, for whatever their worth, to the body of thought that floats around the internet.  It gives me purpose beyond making a buck.  But there are others, like me, who are new to the game and who welcome our “naive” approach to blawging.  While the New Guard may not have a new model (as you guys feel compelled to frame the vision), we are nonetheless new in our openness to the old the new alike, lack of paradigm and exuberance (perhaps irrational) in doing something we want to do for no good reason other than the fact that we want to do it.

I’ve tried to cover a lot in this post, but have left much unsaid.  This of course leaves me vulnerable to being picked apart by the carrion who want to prove that the Old Guard remains the most worthy.  Whatever.  That’s the point.  We don’t advertise our wares, because we’re not selling anything.  Read us if you want.  If we have something to add, great.  If not, then continue to ignore us.  I’ll still read the Old Guard blawgs, with their big readerships, their pedantic tones and the links to only their brethren, to see what they contribute to the dialogue.  Those Old Guard blawgs that I find boring, or so bound by their politics that they amount to little more than a circle jerk with their fans, will do fine without me. 

But you asked the question, and I gave you my answer.  I’m sorry that you don’t like it, but then you should have asked a better question.  Now that I’ve said my piece, I assume you’ll put Simple Justice back on ignore and we’ll all go on with what we were doing.  You can make a blawg buck, and I’ll just write.