My favorite marketing philosopher, Seth Godin, asks who judges your work.
We let anyone, just anyone, judge our work (and by extension, judge us.)
Sue, the airheaded but long-legged girl in Spanish class gets the right to judge our appearance.
Bill, the bitter former-poet English teacher gets the power to tell us if we’re good at writing.
And on and on.
An email arrived yesterday announcing a contest for the worst lawyer ads on the internet. Well, that seemed like a funny enough contest to pique my interest. There were a host of categories, from worst acting to most ethically challenged. And who was running this funny contest? A website I’d never heard of before called .
With reckless abandon, I clicked. “Helping Regular People and Businesses Choose and Manage Their Lawyers.”
From what I can tell, this is the brainchild of Nat Colley, a former marketer for Thomson Reuters, the folks who bring you Westlaw and Findlaw, who has created a website to find lawyers, for a fee, for those in need. His basic service provides the names of three lawyers for $250. His rationale for why someone should pay him is all over his site. It makes sense, though it leaves more questions open than it answers, most notably, “why him?” Ironic, since a person who can’t find a lawyer for lack of the ability to discern quality, would pay an unknown person to do it for him. Go figure.
Looking around the website, I was unable to find Nat Colley’s name anywhere. That’s a red flag to me, a sign that someone’s trying to hide something. It’s easy to hide on the internet. While providing his background as a former Thomson marketer, though without any details of worth, he doesn’t say who he is. Another disbarred lawyer, perhaps? A former lawyer, but it’s a blank from there. Maybe he’s great at what he does and provides a wonderful service. But there’s nothing to distinguish him from the mass of make-believe people online with something to sell. And what he sells is judging lawyers.
Scanning the blawgosphere, I saw a fascinating exchange over at Affirmative Links in the comments section of a post that riffed off the discussion here between Orin Kerr and me. It involved efforts to make one commenter, Andrew MacKie-Mason, agree with the idea that the exceptions to the Warrant Clause have swallowed the rule. The commenter wasn’t buying and wanted it proven to him. What made this remarkable is that anyone cared.
A few clicks and it appeared that Andrew MacKie-Mason is a law student of no particular account. To his credit, lawyers spent their time attempting to educate him, to no avail as it appears. The student has a blog of his own, where he expresses his opinions. It too is of no account. That doesn’t mean that Andrew doesn’t sincerely believe that his opinion matters, or that he is owed an explanation to his satisfaction upon demand. Every one of the 135,000 current law students believes, with all his heart and soul, that the world revolves around him or her, and that every lawyer in the country is obliged to indulge them.
Somebody unfollowed me on twitter yesterday, which in itself is nothing worth mentioning. But this person unfollowed me because I didn’t follow him back. I don’t know who he is, or why I would possibly want to follow him. For some reason, he thought that by following me, he made himself someone I would want to follow. I didn’t. I don’t.
Seth Godin’s post reminds us that the need for approval by people we don’t know, who frankly don’t exist, can be overwhelming. There are invisible people selling their judgment of us to people too foolish to consider why they’re invisible and what they have to hide. There are people who have done nothing in their lives to merit our attention, but who not only demand it, but receive it from people who inexplicably can’t bear the idea of someone not agreeing with them. There are people who think they are owed our attention just because they give us theirs.
Stop worrying about being loved, respected and admired by people who don’t exist. Just do whatever it is you do to the best of your ability and tell the rest of them to go jump in a lake. You will never achieve universal love and popularity, respect and admiration. There will always be some cheerleader who says you aren’t popular enough. Who cares.
Whether it’s Nat Colley, Andrew MacKie-Mason, @LawandBaseball, do they matter in your world? So why bother? On the other hand, the idea of giving people the names of three lawyers for $250 is very attractive.
Discover more from Simple Justice
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
For what it’s worth, Andrew MacKie-Mason is only a high school senior (disclosure: we’re related, but I’m just correcting the incorrect assumption that he’s a law student).
Really? Then he’s quite an impressive young man. It doesn’t change anything as far as the compulsion to persuade him, though if he had explained that the reason he lacks the underlying base of information is because he’s a high schooler, the explanations might have been better suited to his frame of reference. Another reason, by the way, for knowing who one’s talking to. The name alone, obviously, isn’t necessarily good enough.
Mr. Greenfield, I’m a little confused by your attitude towards me. What makes you say: “That doesn’t mean that Andrew doesn’t sincerely believe that his opinion matters, or that he is owed an explanation to his satisfaction upon demand.”
I do not write a blog because I think my opinion is particularly noteworthy or because I think everyone should pay attention to it. I write partially because I find it cathartic and partially because it prompts interesting conversations with readers. I do little to publicize it and rarely ask people to read it. Do you blog because you think your opinion is particularly important and others should pay attention to it?
I comment on other blogs not because I expect a response or think I deserve one. In my understanding, a blog post with an available comment section is an invitation to a conversation. If the author or others don’t want to continue the conversation, they are free to not respond. I don’t think I’ve said anything to suggest that I would take that personally or that I “deserve” a response. I am merely happy to discuss if others want to.
I clearly have not had the same degree of interaction with law students that you have had, and I don’t feel qualified to talk about every one of the 135,000 current law students. However, in my experience with students (undergraduate, graduate and professional) they do not believe “that the world revolves around him or her, and that every lawyer in the country is obliged to indulge them.” Instead, they are open minded and willing to learn from whomever is willing to teach. There is a large distinction between these two mindsets and I hope you realize that.
“though if he had explained that the reason he lacks the underlying base of information is because he’s a high schooler, the explanations might have been better suited to his frame of reference. Another reason, by the way, for knowing who one’s talking to. The name alone, obviously, isn’t necessarily good enough.”
It’s interesting how much emphasis you place on credentials. Critical thinking, a skill I thought was emphasized in law schools, involves evaluating an argument based on the argument itself, not simplistic clues like the identity of the speaker. If you don’t think an argument is worth responding to, don’t. But it seems lazy to make that judgment because of the speaker rather than because of the speech.
If you insist on knowing credentials, though, my opinions on this issue are based somewhat on my experience as an intern working with a felony lawyer at the local public defender’s office. There, I saw lawyers who were able to win exclusionary motions because of violations of the Fourth Amendment. I obviously don’t know how able you or others on Affirmative Links have found yourselves to win such motions, but I have seen it done.
Finally, to avoid any misconceptions, I do not expect or feel I deserve a response to this, but I would be pleased to receive one.
As I wrote to your relative, you are a very impressive young man. You write very well, and your analytical abilities are exceptionally good. But that isn’t all there is to life. We start with a basis of knowledge and experience, and without knowing more than your analytical abilities, we don’t know where to start to explain things to you. Something that’s apparent to an experienced lawyer will not be to you. Without knowing where your base of knowledge starts, it’s difficult, if not impossible, to know where to begin, or whether it’s worth the time to begin at all. Thus, my attitude is very different now that I know that you’re a high school senior. Before, you were just annoying. Now, you’re an impressive young man.
This isn’t said to demean you, but because it’s simply the way it is. Similarly, your blog is terrific for a young man. While it may be subject to criticism if it came from someone with different experiences, it reflects a very agile and interesting mind. Be careful, however, of being disingenuous. Your comments at Affirmative Links were clearly to elicit a response, though you neglected to mention that you lacked any foundation to understand what they were trying to tell you. That’s a bit dishonest, and given your obvious intelligence, I would bet that you intended it that way.
Best of luck, I look forward to hearing more from you. Feel free to comment here if you like, but note that it’s “comments”, not questions.
I find it interesting the extreme weight you put on credentials and life experience before you will consider an opinion. While it’s obvious that the more one knows about someone the easier it is to communicate with them, that doesn’t mean that all communication should be prefaced by a biography.
I’ve looked over my comments at Affirmative links again, and I don’t believe any of my comments implied or required a greater experiential foundation than the one I have, be it through general exposure when alive or through my time in the public defender’s office.
It’s representative of the worst insularity of the legal profession (or any field, really) to say that a non-lawyer lacks “any foundation to understand” a discussion about the law. With varying experiences come different perspectives, but no one set of experiences holds a monopoly on the ability to understand a certain topic, especially a relatively non-technical one. If you think that any of my comments pretended to a greater ability to understand than I actually have, I would be interested to know which ones so I don’t repeat the mistake.
I’m also troubled by your suggestion that any “comments…to elicit a response” imply that I think I am “owed an explanation to his satisfaction upon demand.” Yes, I intended to elicit a response, but by making a statement that people would *want* to respond to. I didn’t claim to be entitled to a response, and wouldn’t have criticized anyone for a failure to respond.
At what point (age, level of education, etc) do you think it’s acceptable for people to enter the public discourse with comments that are intended to elicit a response without them being egotists who believe they are entitled to a response?
And can you please elaborate on what you mean by your distinction between comments and questions? I often comment in the form of questions because it’s a more useful way to communicate than straight statements. I can try to refrain from that if you would prefer, communicate with you some other way, or just cease communicating with you. It’s your pleasure.
And thank you for your compliments, but I would prefer, if it’s all the same to you, that you treat me as you would any other person you disagree with. I’m not asking for any considerations because of my age.
I apologize for double posting, and if you want to add this to the previous post through moderation that’s fine by me.
I would just like to add a request that if you, in the future, have another post directly criticizing me (or anyone, for that matter) you do me the courtesy of a heads up to let me know it’s out there. Thank you!
I wasn’t criticizing you, but using you as an example. Now that I know you’re a high school student, it changes the equation completely. Sorry to say (and I very much appreciate that you prefer it not be this way), but the fact that I would think you were a law student, or young lawyer, when in fact you’re a high school student makes your comments very special. If every kid was capable of writing and thinking the way you do, we would have one amazing country.