A post at Mashable by a non-lawyer, Matt Silverman, told how real lawyers were getting “real results” by blogging.  It hit the right notes, naming names and explaining how those bold enough to make use of the vast resources now available online were paying off for those lawyers savvy enougn, gutsy enough, to get into the game. 

I was ready to jump on the bandwagon, but for the fact that I’m already here.  And that I know the people referred to in the post, the ones telling lawyers about “real results.”  Silverman never actually tells what these real results are, but hints that they are great, fabulous, wonderful.  It made Connecticut employment lawyer Dan Schwartz the “go to” guy by “expanding his reputation nationally.”  It “reignited” Niki Black’s legal career.  They must be raking in the dough, with clients banging down their doors, right?  Adrian Dayton says so:

Just look at attorney Roy Ginsburg and his blog Quirky Employment Questions. After three years of blogging weekly, last month his blog hit over 10,000 unique visitors. Thanks to his blog he has landed a six-figure client, and has won the Author of the Year award from Lexology. His blog is working for him, and the firm is benefiting. It may not be the firm’s message, but it is a message that is resonating.”

Now it’s not my purpose to say whether this is great news, bad news or no news.  If Roy Ginsburg is happy, then I’m happy for him.  But if we parse this into hard terms, landing one “6-figure client” isn’t going to make a law practice, and 10,000 visitors over three years isn’t exactly what most bloggers have in mind.  In a month, or a day, sure, that would be a fine number fo reach.  After all, there are millions upon millions of people online, and they’re all supposed to find your blog, settle in, be dazzled by your billiance and send in a check. 

Today, I will be honored to sit next to Houston criminal defense lawyer Mark Bennett on a dais in Orlando to speak to social media, blogging, twitting and such.  Yesterday, Mark Britton, CEO of Avvo, gave his presentation.  He gives a great talk about social media, and it’s a very soft sell about Avvo mixed in. He knows that you have to get lawyers online before you can sell them anything.  Make it warm, fuzzy and transparent.  Mark’s talk is very informative and, for the most part, accurate.  Only when he referred to the two bloggers in the audience who were getting clients online did Mark, Brian and I wince.

But there’s another side to this game, and it’s important that people understand what they’re getting into.  There are good reasons to be online, to blog, twit, whatever. There are also things that can destroy a reputation in minutes, suck up time and money that a lawyer may not have to waste, and produce negligible, if any, results.  There aren’t too many folks interested in tempering the euphoria of the great, wild internet. 

We’re not killjoys.  We’re not antagonists to Mark Britton’s (or Matt Silverman’s) happy face.  They’ve got lawyers feeding along the bottom of the Avvo ocean, answering questions in unfamiliar practices in the hope of getting any case from any one, anywhere.  They aren’t too picky about stuff like competence or reputation, unless it impairs their ability to score the next client.  Yet there are a bunch of lawyers out there who do care about such things, and care deeply. 

Bennett and I would like to be happy and smiling as we talk fo the lawyers of the Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.  We certainly plan to.  But our message won’t be all sunshine and rainbows.  It’s a warning, because people can and will be hurt, maybe even devastated, in the rush to blog.  We don’t want to see that happen.  We’re going to try to let them know that it can happen and how to avoid it. It’s a lot to do in a short presentation, as it’s taken us years to learn about the many pitfalls.

Maybe we can help a couple of lawyers from making the mistakes we’ve made, we’ve seen others make.  Neither Mark Bennett nor I have anything to sell anyone in Orlando.  We’re just trying to help.  Whether anyone wants help, wants to hear the hidden problems with Mark Britton’s and Matt Silverman’s transparency has yet to be known.  We can only let them know.  What happens after that is up to them.