No such thing as a bad blog, you say?  Pushaw.  An email from Rob (Kevin’s other right arm) at  Real Lawyers Have Blogs arrived yesterday as a follow up to  my post about clogging the blawgosphere with garbage, which Kevin turned into a very interesting debate format.

Martindale is one of the venerable old names in legal services, back when there was no blawgosphere (and no Avvo).  They were the only game in town, if you wanted a lawyer rating.  Law libraries had their heavy tomes lining the shelves, listing every lawyer in the front with expensive, detailed information comprising the majority of their considerable bulk. 

Then everything changed. They are now owned by Lexis-Nexis, the once cutting edge online legal research giant.  The need to pay for those M-H books disappeared.  They started up an overpriced, half-baked lawyer website business, and then started charging lawyers to have their rating appear.  Oh, the mighty have to adapt just like the upstart.

And now Martindale-Hubbell is in the blog business.  And man, does it suck.  Here’s a taste of what they offer:

Wishes for Green
Posted by	:   Barry Solomon; VP Client Development
Date	:  Feb 4, 2008
Topic	:   martindale.com

Last year, to commemorate 10 years of martindale.com, we ran a “make a birthday wish” contest for legal professionals to e-mail us their own birthday wish for the legal industry. That’s just one of the many ways we’re making sure we get a conversation going with you, our customers.

Based on random selections and judge review, the winner has just been named….

…and it’s Continue reading >>

Now if that doesn’t make you want to add them to your RSS feed, then nothing will.

Nor can this be excused as just some corporate-type necessity.  Avvo has a blog, and while it doesn’t fall into the daily read category, it’s actually got some fun stuff as well as its self-promotional crap.  At least they have a sense of humor at Avvo, whereas the M-H blog has the stink of desperation.

In the grand scheme of the blawgosphere, there are always going to be some who just don’t get it.  Martindale-Hubbell appears be in the lead in this regard, and it’s the only lead they hold.   Steve Matthews calls it a “Cheezy Non-Blog.” which may well result in protests from various drippy forms of camembert everywhere.  This pseudo-blog is just pathetic.

As the discussion about useless blogging continues, a little something to bear in mind for all you erst-while blawgers out there.  A good blog may well bring you fame and fortune (although it’s done neither for me, though that may be the message), but a bad blog will make you the butt of ridicule throughout the blawgosphere.

As for the future of the Martindale-Hubbell blog, there may be no better evidence of M-H’s lost relevance in the future of the legal profession than this.  And I’m not paying you a dime so that people can see my AV rating.