Things happen all the time, and so posts move forward to the new, leaving the old behind to fester for posterity.  Even an old post, however, can come back to life when someone “discovers” it and decides that it’s worthy of their attention despite the length of time that’s past.  It happens here from time to time.  It happened again yesterday.

The first thing I saw was a comment by a Brooklyn lawyer named Marina Tylo.

I had a misfortune of reading your blog about me. I wish I would be an anorexic chain smoking middle age broad on cheap wine.

I am plump; I do have a cig here and there, I do have a glass of Chablis on Saturday.

What the hell is your problem???

What do you gain by besmirching my reputation? Have we ever crossed our path?

I do happen to be one of the nice guys.
Just let me know what the fluff is up.

Please, reply. My potential clients are reading this and it does hurt my business.

Just tell me what I did to piss you off this much.

I couldn’t remember who this person was.  It was much like the bizarre call from Texas lawyer and publicity hound, Mimi Coffey.  Then there was the message from Tylo on my voice mail, telling me to call her back so we can keep this “friendly”.

Her comment doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, unless she’s got some weird hang-up about being weight, smoking and cheap wine, but I fully get the point of the rest of it.  Why can’t she do something wrong, then something stupid, then be left alone?  Why should any lawyer suffer the consequences of her actions?

When the question comes long after something is posted, there’s a different sense about it then when first done.  At the time, their conduct is fresh and the need for transparency certain.  But later, the question arises whether they’ve “served their sentence.”  As the internet is forever, to the extent anything is forever anymore, it’s brand new whenever someone stumbles upon an old post about some incredibly stupid move, such as Tylo’s ridiculous $10 million suit  against Andy Bluestone for mentioning a malpractice case against her for her defective service of a summons.  But should this follow her forever?

Of course, the reason Tylo was immortalized online wasn’t because of her stupid, though relatively trivial, service of a defective summons, but her compounding the stupidity by suing a blawger for mentioning it.  This was a far more significant, and disturbing, act than her initial screw-up, and one that serves as a critical message to any lawyer who thinks they can sanitize their online reputation by threats or suits. 

Like so many lawyers whose grasp of the digital world is that it’s all about their right to market themselves without fear that their ugly side appear anywhere for potential clients to find, Tylo wants to know what she’s done to me personally to make me do something so harmful to her that I would harm her practice.  It’s all about her.  Why would I besmirch her reputation?

When a blawger is attacked by someone, even someone as empty as a Marina Tylo, it’s an attack on all of us.  This is important, even if her initial failing was relatively trivial.  The lesson is that suing to shut down a blawger will itself be the cause of negative consequences.  The message is necessary, and remains necessary.  Just ask Streisand.  Frivolous defamation suits are the bane of the blawgosphere, and the attempt to sanitize one’s oneline persona by threatening, or in fact suing, is an outrage and an attack on all of us.  It’s a message that needs to remain, and should be repeated as often as necessary to make sure the Marina Tylos of the world get slapped and remain slapped.

Maybe Marina Tylo will sue me too, since I’ve no plans to call her back and discuss anything with her to keep it friendly.  My bet is that if she doesn’t like her online reputation now, she’s going to really hate it if she compounds her stupidity by doing it again.  But every lawyer gets to make her own bed. 

There are consequences for such actions, and they will be online for as long as forever lasts these days.  The message is don’t do it.  It appears that Tylo still hasn’t gotten the message.