Lawbizblog raised a bit of a storm when it promoted the idea that busy lawyers should get someone else to ghostwrite their blogs. Mark Bennett castigated the idea, as did Steve Gustitis. My first thought was that it was so fundamentally wrong as to be unworthy of comment. My second thought was that it required comment because it was so fundamentally wrong.
While I agree wholeheartedly with Mark and Steve, I view this from a somewhat different perspective. To Ed Poll at Law Biz Blog, this is just another marketing opportunity for lawyers. Nothing more. From the law biz perspective, I suppose that’s true. But from where I sit, this is a cynical, destructive understanding of what blawging is about and it sickens me.
I’m truly sick and tired of those people whose view of the world centers on the mercenary. Maybe Ed sees no point in doing anything unless there’s a sheckle in it for him. Maybe he sits at home, along in a room, late at night, rubbing dollar bills over his body and getting excited. I don’t know Ed, so I can only speculate from his writing that he sees the world through purely cynical eyes.
This is not only the sort of world view that brings disrepute to lawyers (and other senscient beings), but one that reduces all of us to the lowest common denominator, feeding those who would believe that the law is merely another scam intended to separate client from his money.
I reject Ed’s view. I am disgusted by Ed’s view. I will not be tainted by the fact that Ed sees no point to any of this unless it produces a revenue stream. And just because Ed thinks that there is no purpose to setting words to computer screen unless it markets one’s wares does not mean that this reflects anyone other than Ed’s point of view.
In the practical blawgosphere, we have discussed (and even had polls) on the subject of why we blawg. Some (indeed many) are Public Defenders, who by definition have no financial interest at stake. Others are professors who aren’t looking for clients. Still others, private lawyers who do enjoy the largess of private clients, blawg because there are idea in our heads and we needed an outlet to express them.
If you read these blawgs, much of what we write has nothing to do with marketing, even in the most abstract sense. Indeed, some of our posts are anti-marketing, in which our posts are more likely to chase away potential clients than attract them. We don’t post about how wonderful we are and why clients should hire us. We don’t post about how we are the ginchiest lawyers in town, or how our competition is only half the lawyer we are. We just post. We do it because we see, hear or read things and it makes us want to write something. We have opinions (sometimes more opinions than we should) and we feel the compulsion to express them. And if nobody wants to read what we write, it wouldn’t change a thing. We still write because it’s what we do.
Given the foregoing, the concept of “ghostwriting” a blawg is utterly pointless. If you fall into the Ed camp, and carefully craft your blawg and posts to maximize its marketing impact, then have someone ghostwrite for you. Hell, just steal posts from others and pretend that they’re yours. What’s the difference. It doesn’t mean a thing beyond whether you can scam some potential client into believing that the lawyer he or she thinks he sees on the blawg is worth throwing money at.
But make no mistake. It reduces blawging to a scam. Must everything be reduced to a scam, to its most cynical and worthless level? If that’s where you want to be, or where you belong, then so be it. But stay away from here.
While I agree wholeheartedly with Mark and Steve, I view this from a somewhat different perspective. To Ed Poll at Law Biz Blog, this is just another marketing opportunity for lawyers. Nothing more. From the law biz perspective, I suppose that’s true. But from where I sit, this is a cynical, destructive understanding of what blawging is about and it sickens me.
I’m truly sick and tired of those people whose view of the world centers on the mercenary. Maybe Ed sees no point in doing anything unless there’s a sheckle in it for him. Maybe he sits at home, along in a room, late at night, rubbing dollar bills over his body and getting excited. I don’t know Ed, so I can only speculate from his writing that he sees the world through purely cynical eyes.
This is not only the sort of world view that brings disrepute to lawyers (and other senscient beings), but one that reduces all of us to the lowest common denominator, feeding those who would believe that the law is merely another scam intended to separate client from his money.
I reject Ed’s view. I am disgusted by Ed’s view. I will not be tainted by the fact that Ed sees no point to any of this unless it produces a revenue stream. And just because Ed thinks that there is no purpose to setting words to computer screen unless it markets one’s wares does not mean that this reflects anyone other than Ed’s point of view.
In the practical blawgosphere, we have discussed (and even had polls) on the subject of why we blawg. Some (indeed many) are Public Defenders, who by definition have no financial interest at stake. Others are professors who aren’t looking for clients. Still others, private lawyers who do enjoy the largess of private clients, blawg because there are idea in our heads and we needed an outlet to express them.
If you read these blawgs, much of what we write has nothing to do with marketing, even in the most abstract sense. Indeed, some of our posts are anti-marketing, in which our posts are more likely to chase away potential clients than attract them. We don’t post about how wonderful we are and why clients should hire us. We don’t post about how we are the ginchiest lawyers in town, or how our competition is only half the lawyer we are. We just post. We do it because we see, hear or read things and it makes us want to write something. We have opinions (sometimes more opinions than we should) and we feel the compulsion to express them. And if nobody wants to read what we write, it wouldn’t change a thing. We still write because it’s what we do.
Given the foregoing, the concept of “ghostwriting” a blawg is utterly pointless. If you fall into the Ed camp, and carefully craft your blawg and posts to maximize its marketing impact, then have someone ghostwrite for you. Hell, just steal posts from others and pretend that they’re yours. What’s the difference. It doesn’t mean a thing beyond whether you can scam some potential client into believing that the lawyer he or she thinks he sees on the blawg is worth throwing money at.
But make no mistake. It reduces blawging to a scam. Must everything be reduced to a scam, to its most cynical and worthless level? If that’s where you want to be, or where you belong, then so be it. But stay away from here.
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Scott:
It seems all I do is compliment your writing!
sg
Thanks Stephen. I appreciate your kind words.
I truly enjoyed reading your comments on what I did not say; quite amusing. I think, however, that you miss the true value of blawging (blogging). It is to convey value, to convey information and to convey help to the reader. Oh, yes, it can be to vent and it can be to journal, but that was not the context in which I made my comment. Lawyers use the blawging process to communicate their existence to the world – to express their expertise so as to make prospective clients aware of them … and, hopefully, to become clients. If this is true, and I believe it to be and can point to many examples, then it is a marketing tool. Just as large firms have marketing and business development departments, producing quality material that may or may not be written by attorneys (but for which the attorneys/law firm are responsible), so to can blogging be performed under the direction of an attorney though not written by him/her.
Attorneys do not do everything done in a law firm. That doesn’t make the information or the service a “scam.” There are trial briefs written by paralegals — is this a scam? There are deposition summaries written by paralegals — is this a scam? There are many things done for lawyers under the lawyers direction/responsibility that provide benefit for clients .. and enable lawyers to more effectively market their services to new prospects.
Take this out of the context of the law office, there are many books written for famous people that appropriately convey the intent and meaning of the “author.” Are these scams? Does the public not get value in better understanding the character and message of the famous person? Lee Iacoca is one that comes to mind quickly. We learned a lot about him, his life and his message … though he didn’t write the book himself.
Blogging is not the last, great American novel … it is a business tool. As such, one can take a business-like approach to its application. Google certainly does, so I’m not sure why you don’t.
Again, thanks for writing about my belief system and allowing me the opportunity to expand on it a bit more … though I certainly didn’t say all the things you said I said.
Law firm marketing truth
Scott Greenfield takes me to task about my comment that a busy lawyer can have a ghostwriter help out in blog posts. He apparently believes that only the lawyer should write the post … and perhaps he further believes (though…
Scott,
I don’t have an ethical problem with a lawyer who is not using his blog for marketing using a ghostblogger. It would, as you say, be pointless for a lawyer to pay someone to blog for him if there wasn’t profit to be found in the blogging.
The problem I have with ghostblogging is that Ed is partly right: clients do read what we write and base their hiring decisions on it. True, some of our writing, taken separately, might chase away potential clients. But clients can get from our blogs — and expect to get from our blogs — a more accurate picture of our characters (warts and all) and our communication skills.
That’s why ghostblogging is unethical for the sole practitioner. If clients are expecting to learn about the lawyer’s personality by reading his blog, it’s deceptive to pass someone else’s writing off as the lawyer’s own.
Do you presume, then, that every brief and contract prepared by a sole practitioner is solely written by him/her? Do you suggest that sole practitioners should refuse to have their writing edited for better quality, context, etc.? Is this somehow unethical? Frankly, if one’s work were not edited for improvement, I would suggest that the individual is (you fill in the word, but the word the comes to mind is foolish, if not worse!).
And why do you make the distinction of sole practitioners? Do you think it’s o.k. for large firm practitioners to have a different standard of excellence in writing skills than sole practitioners?
Just my $.02 worth …
I appreciate your view, Mark. I have additional issues with Ed’s ghostblogging position, as noted in my latest post on the subject.
I do not want anyone, whether they be clients, other attorneys, law students or anyone else who reads Simple Justice, to suspect that there are ulterior motives for my posts, particularly mercenary motives. My problem isn’t that marketing guys like Ed see potential in blawgs and provide some mechanical pointers to enhance their marketing benefits. My problem is the suggestion that blawgs are mere marketing ploys.
Right now, people who read Mark Bennett’s blawg say to themselves, this is a lawyer who truly stands up for his clients, and who is willing to take in on the chin if need be to do the right thing. But if this is just marketing, then it becomes a meaningless informercial designed to give the impression of what type of lawyer you are for the sole purpose of persuading people to hire you. I know that’s not why you post, and I am opposed to anyone projecting such a motive on you. Or me.
Ed,
You effort to equate attorney work product with personal opinions expressed on a blog is way off base. They are not the same thing, nor should they be. As for large firm practitioners, I do not think it’s ok for them to have a different standard of excellence in writing skills than sole practioners. I think they should strive to be every bit as good as sole practitioners.
Solos don’t hold their ghostwritten briefs or contracts out as evidence of their personal abilities, philosophy, or communications skills.
The message implicit in a sole practitioner’s blog is not only “this is the sort of work I do” but also “this is who I am.” From my blogging, people get an accurate idea of who I am and what I believe. If I had someone else writing my revelatory prose, I’d be deceiving my readers.
As I’ve written elsewhere, it’s like using an actor to portray you in a commercial, but worse.
Large firms are different because when the client hires “the firm” he’s not choosing a personality any more than the person buying a Toyota is buying the CEO. The people within the firm are fungible; the anonymous person who writes the blog might as well be the person doing the work, or he might as well not. Anyone can be the face of the firm.
If I hire someone to be my face, I’m lying.
We’re back to what I see as the major philosophical difference between you and me. I’m Little Miss Sunshine, thinking that the clients — at least those clients whom I’d care to represent — are going to see my character when they read my blog, just as they will when they meet with me in the office. I don’t think that clients (again, those whom I’d like to have as clients) are going to be fooled by crass lawyers pretending (or hiring ghostwriters to pretend) that they stand up for their clients.
There’s nothing dirty about marketing. If you’re worth a damn, it’s okay to show the world. But it’s still not okay to show the world a face that isn’t yours.
I should add that a client who is thinking about hiring a trial lawyer (not a litigator, a trial lawyer) should make the decision based not on the firm’s credentials or a writing sample, but on the philosophy and character of the lawyer.
I’m old school. I’ve never been comfortable with marketing. But that’s just me, and you (and everyone else) is welcome to market at will. I’m not saying you can’t market, if that’s you decision. I’m saying that its wrong to state that all lawyers who blog do so for the sole purpose of self-promotion.
That said, I do meet with clients, former clients, friends of former clients, all for the purpose of marketing. Hey, they can’t retain me if they don’t know who I am. But my blawg is a different matter. It’s a not for self-promotion, though I’m happy to promote friends and others who I feel are worthy of promotion. But like I said, that’s just my choice. And I am, apparently, pro-choice.
Maybe you’re marketing, even if you don’t know it.