The ABA Journal reports that hundreds of law firms have been taken in by email scams, such as the Chinese collections scam that’s made the rounds over the past few years.
Since 2007, the FBI has received hundreds of complaints from law firms claiming millions of dollars in losses in e-mail scams, according to Jason Boone, a research assistant at the nonprofit National White Collar Crime Center who spoke to the publication.
Two initial thoughts come to mind, that legal Darwinism is at play, destroying law firms and lawyers who probably should find a different line of work if they aren’t savvy enough to spot an obvious scam. The second notion is that these firms are desperate, willing to stumble blind into the cesspool of the internet in the hope of business.
A step back, however, and it’s similarly clear that lawyers have been bombarded with come-ons of online magic, with the complicity of such venerable sounding institutions as the ABA Journal itself, suggesting that the rest of the legal world is not merely surviving, but making money hand over fist by their early adapting, their online presence, their embrace of Web 2.0, The scam is just as much within as without, and it pushes the unwary to put on blinders, to believe in fairies and, despite misgivings, accept the word of the Social Media Gurus that technology will save them.
Yet, when someone tries to provide the counterpoint to the cheerleading, the siren’s call of the internet, they are attacked for telling the truth. Brian Tannebaum posted I Found You On The Internet, a drop of reality against a sea of deception, there was no applause. The comments received demonstrate that the message is lost. At best, it’s about minor tweaks to the internet marketing that will bring success, The pot of gold is always just around the corner.
For the most part, the lie is perpetuated by the Social Media Gurus and the Slackoisie, the former because their income is derived from the wealth of lawyers foolish enough to believe that the internet is their path to success. The latter because any other path would require real effort on their part, and that would interfere with their work/life balance and require them to trade their flip-flops for real shoes.
But as the ABA Journal report shows, there’s another group that has quietly been subsumed in the scam world of the internet, so utterly lacking in digital understanding that they are ripe for the picking by any scammer around, whether it’s the Chinese collections scam, the Nigerian lottery scam or the Social Media Guru scam.
A handful of lawyers have tried their best to buck the tide. They are unpopular with the scammers for calling them out, explaining that there is no magic bullet, and pressing the issue of hard work and competence over an online marketing presence based on lies and low rent pseudo-lawyering. The hundreds of law firms taken in by the collections scam are only the tip of the iceberg.
When Mark Herrmann at Drug & Device Law wrote that blawging didn’t bring in business, at least not the kind of business that anyone wanted, he was excoriated. How dare he challenge the budding Social Media business. Things have only gotten worse since, with every failed lawyer with a computer offering advice for a fee to law firms hungry for business.
Mark Bennett, who, like Tannebaum, has been one of the clear voices trying to save lawyers from themselves, made some changes to his contact page on his website reflecting online reality.
Please don’t call for a “price quote.” We don’t give price quotes over the phone. But how much do we charge? Probably more than anyone who quotes prices over the phone.
We represent people in serious trouble who are ready to take their trouble seriously. If a low-bid lawyer is good enough for you, please look elsewhere. Our clients deserve for us not to have to waste our valuable time with window-shoppers and lookie-loos.
For all the newcomers to blawgosphere, to twitter, to whatever social media flavor of the day is being tossed in your face as the greatest miracle ever, consider this. Bennett and Tannebaum have not merely been engaged in these media for a while, but have been wildly successful in gaining respect, readership, interest and recognition. They are the elite, what you aspire to be. And if they are telling you that their blawgs aren’t bringing in a tidal wave of great clients and new business, what makes you think that it’s going to be completely different for you?
Neither Tannebaum nor Bennett need to help you. Neither needs to endure the social media scammers and ignorance of the Slackoisie. They do it for your benefit, so you aren’t amongst the next group of hundreds of law firms taken in by online scams. How about a little appreciation? And for all those who have yet to achieve an iota of the success they have, whether in the blawgosphere or the courtroom, what makes you think you know better than they do?
Bennett and Tannebaum are real lawyers trying to help other real lawyers. It’s time for a little appreciation, because there aren’t many who will endure the crap they have to put up with to help you. Pay attention to what they are saying. They know what they’re talking about.
Discover more from Simple Justice
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Great post. Somewhat harsh to say that law firms who succumb to online scams deserve to be weeded out, but it is what it is.
I’m not so sure the slackoisie are solely responsible for peddling the lies. I probably missed the definitional memo (and still haven’t checked out this urban dictionary thingie) but I think many of the folks who vocally argue that social media will transform the legal profession and bring us all riches entered the profession in the nineties.
Since the post doesn’t say that the lawfirms who succumb to online scams deserve to be weeded out or that Slackoisie are solely responsible etc., the definitional memo won’t help you. But it’s nice of you to say it’s a great post anyway.
I know you too well to expect you to edit this post, but…
The next time you feel like saying MB and BT “have been wildly successful in gaining respect, readership, interest and recognition” please consider just calling them “thought leaders” instead. Remember, when using words to express an idea, the fewer the better.
…legal Darwinism is at play, destroying law firms and lawyers who probably should find a different line of work if they aren’t savvy enough to spot an obvious scam…
…lawfirms who succumb to online scams deserve to be weeded out…
IMHO, most folks would read those as fairly close to synonymous. The theory of Natural Selection says nothing about who deserves to stick around or fade away, so “probably should find a different line of work” vs. “deserve to be weeded out” – is that the difference?
Never. “Thought leader” is a BS marketing term. While fewer words are better than more, Marketing phraseology is not a substitute.
Not 100% sure what to say, maybe…
“Gotcha!”
Good point – it’s early and hadn’t had the coffee.
I probably should put more care into reading the blog posts which I read!
Read more than the predicate phrase and you’ll figure it out eventually. Maybe not. Okay, so here’s the explanation. The notion in the first paragraph isn’t an opinion for or against, but merely an observation, borne of comments in the original ABA Journal article. It doesn’t reflect my opinion, but is certainly a thought that would reasonably arise from the facts.
I realize that this involves more complex thinking and paying attention to all the words, but I’m here to help.
Sometimes my prose is so dazzling that it does that when you haven’t had coffee yet. It tends to tarnish some after the second cup.
Indeed, Mark and Brian deserve the thanks of every lawyer who has chosen to slow down and pay attention to their message. Similarly, you are to be thanked for your message. An advanced degree does not necessarily protect one from oneself. Some lawyers, like any other professionals, need to hear the message over and over. Thank you.
Venkat has done the wise thing and capitulated. I must be in the mood to argue, so I stubbornly continue down the wrong path. Why? I honestly don’t know. Feel compelled to, oddly.
I actually did read the post the first time, but did so once again at your direction. I ingested the phrase “two initial thoughts come to mind…” and realized that it modified the portions previously quoted as well as foreshadowed more thoughts to come.
Having hopelessly bungled my interpretation of the first few paragraphs, I shan’t attempt to even characterize the primary point of the post, but I dare say it starts with “lawyers have been bombarded with come-ons of online magic,” a recurring (and valuable) theme on your blog.
I also noticed the predicate phrase in that particular sentence “A step back, however, and it’s similarly clear that lawyers have been bombarded…” suggests that the two initial thoughts are receiving an implicit endorsement: that the two initial thoughts are as clear(and true?) as the rest of the post.
N.B. I’m not telling you what you thought when you wrote the words. Just a simple explanation of how I came to misinterpret them.
Don’t feel badly. It was understandable, and on a quick read, I might have assumed the same, since it’s inclusion suggests it’s there for a reason.
Ironically, it’s actually the opposite of what I believe to be the case. I think there’s a ton of pressure for lawyers who aren’t ready for the pitfalls of digitalis to become embroiled in the internet. They may be world-weary warriors in the courtroom, but they’re babes in the internet woods, and easy pray for the well-oiled scam machines.
The point of the post is to praise Mark and Brian for their efforts to help the n00bs navigate through all the bullshit, and help these same lawyers and firms to be able to discern the truth from the fiction. I don’t blame the n00bs, though I would suggest they spend far more time learning about life online before diving into an empty pool, but I admire Mark and Brian putting up with the aggravation to try to save them from the scammers.
Thank you, for your comment as well as all the help you’ve given me editing my slap-dash posts.
I agree that the fewer words used to properly express an idea, the better. But “thought leader”? That expresses a rather different idea to me, and it’s not an idea that has much to do with respect.
I do find this little news item shocking, though. Not just that lawyers are getting scammed (though knowing this happens these days I clearly won’t be emulating Hunter S. Thompson and carting around someone to tell me, “As your attorney, I advise you to…”). But this: who the hell hires a lawyer through Facebook?!
I always figured a “thought leader” was the head guy in a cult.
Now that’s eerily correct.
Seems ammusing that 1) lawyers can be taken in (maybe the ones who are taken are putting their bad judgment on display- not a good trait for a lawyer), and 2) that there is even a debate going on whether the Internet works or doesn’t work for something.
The Internet is what it is. Just like a cell phone or office are what they are. It’s what you make of them as a lawyer that matter. Just because you have cell phone to talk with prospective clients and a fancy car to go meet with clients doesn’t mean you can circumvent the work it takes to be a good lawyer. A lawyer who is capable of representing people on their most personal and most important affairs.
The Internet ought to the best way to weed out the bad lawyers by getting their incompetetence out on display and getting people to talk about the crummy job a lawyer did for them. However, I fear that the Internet, like the Yellow Pages and TV ads before it, is used by many lawyers to get new clients the lawyer is ill equiped to represent. It’s tantamount to fraud and the legal marketers who know not what it takes to be a good lawyer in the first place merely perpetuate this fraud on the public by enabling ill equiped lawyers.
I’m not clear on why “[t]he Internet ought to [be] the best way to weed out the bad lawyers.” As has been pointed out before in this blog, getting together a flock of malicious people to say bad things about someone on-line is not difficult. The opposite can be done as well. Even when you know this, if only one side has done good SEO it can be hard to find the sources that are more reliable.
As for “tantmount to fraud”: perhaps. But this sort of “fraud” has been with us for much longer than the Internet. (I don’t know how extensive it was before mass-advertising really started growing.) We still have no reasonable solution, beyond finding and verifying the claims of others who’ve used a service one is contemplating.