A minor, but disturbing, meme is developing amongst some criminal defense lawyers on twitter. Each morning, they twit their “trench menu,” or what they purport to be doing that day in trenches. I believe this to be an invention of Norm Pattis when he was new to twitter and couldn’t quite figure out what he was supposed to do with it. But it’s spreading, metastasizing.
From my remove, this meme emits an unpleasant odor. On the one hand, going to work in the morning is what practicing lawyers do. Is this something to broadcast, that you’re not going to spend the day eating bon bons, to distinguish you from lawyers who spend the day hogging a table and free wi-fi at the local coffee shop? The latter has reason to feign business; Is there someone questioning what you do all day long?
By broadcasting your daily activities, what do you hope to achieve? Let your multitude of adoring fans know how busy you are, what important work you do, how wonderful it is to be you? I have no doubt that a few will be absolutely fascinated by lawyers who have the sexiest of cases, the most serious of challenges and the biggest issues of the day. Aren’t you special!!! Already, we’re awash in self-aggrandizing baloney about all the important people some lawyers know. More impressiveness.
Now all this would be fine, indeed expected, if your true purpose on twitter was self-promotion. After all, what better way to market oneself, while pretending to just be doing one’s job defending the downtrodden (with another murder trial every three days), quietly posting about one’s daily “drudgery”, a couple of shootings, a stabbing and a billionaire kiddie porn physician. All the little ones ooh and aah, as their daily aspiration of getting a stray DUI is dwarfed by your important work. Oh, how they want to be like you. Oh, how they aspire to be as important as you are when they grow up. And maybe, just maybe, a potential client sees how busy you are and thinks, “hey, this gal must be a great lawyer if she’s doing all these really important cases.”
In the meantime, you’re giving up information to anyone who bothers to read your twits. A prosecutor can announce that he’s ready for trial, knowing that you’ve got three other cases to cover in three other courthouses today, blowing a potential speedy trial dismissal so that you can broadcast your ego. Wonder how happy your defendant would be to know that you gave his motion away to be a big man on twitter?
And what if it’s all a lie anyway? It’s not like there’s anybody following you around to see whether you’re actually doing what you twit about. If one’s inclined to promote oneself, why suppose that they will be honest in the process? No reason I can think of.
Then comes the editorial commentary about the cases, where the phraseology suggests the guilty defendant, or the tainted witness, or the dead in the water defense. Did anybody authorize you to disclose client confidences on twitter? But of course, you don’t see it as giving anything away, until somebody nails you on a twit that comes back to bite you in the butt. Nothing is ever wrong until it’s wrong, you see.
As the meme develops, more lawyers want to play the game. Some just to be social. Others to be like the cool kids. Others still do so because they fear that their failure to toot their own horn means they have no horn to toot. We can’t have that. Nobody on the internet isn’t doing great. Any fool can twit “Trench Menu: Double homicide starting today. Can I win another NG in a row?” Regardless of original motivation, good or ill, it will quickly devolve into another ugly downward spiral of deception and self-promotion.
Twitting your “trench menu” every day isn’t a sign of how well you’re doing, or what a real trench lawyer you are. It’s covert marketing and twisted ethical priorities. It’s a charade played out for self-aggrandizement. No real lawyer feels the need to prove he or she is real by letting all his tweeps know his daily doings. If that’s all you can think of to say to your twitter friends, than you need to find something better to do with your spare time.
Stop the madness. Stop this horrible meme before it spreads. Stop the potential for harm that it causes, and its glaring revelation that whoever is twitting their “trench menu” is really broadcasting to the world that they are growing desperate and need to market themselves a whole lot harder to get some business. If this is what you need to do to make you feel like a real lawyer, or at least pretend to feel like one, then you aren’t.
Stop the “trench menu” meme. It reflects very poorly on anyone using it, and especially on real trench lawyers, who know better than to crow about the fact that they actually work every morning. Real trench lawyers just go to court and defend their clients.
Discover more from Simple Justice
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Like so much other online activity, this trench menu concept is something that doesn’t seem like a bad idea if done occasionally and discretely. Every so often, I do find it interesting to see what kinds of matters my colleagues are working on. Unfortunately, because too many people lack common sense or restraint, I can easily see the trench memo going in the dangerous direction you describe.
When it started, I didn’t care for it and saw the potential for problems, but it didn’t, as yet, present anything more than a personal choice. But when it begins to grow, and others begin to adopt it (and feel compelled to do so), then it becomes a problem. My hope is to stop this meme before it grows out of control.
You be doggin’ Norm again? I personally don’t like reading them. Makes a just starting over again lawyer feel lame. Maybe I’ll start making shit up.
The focus of your post, trench menu tweets, may be distasteful to some, but at least they (generally) don’t violate the professional rules of conduct.
Then there are the situations you refer to that reveal client confidences. Those never cease to amaze me.
While I haven’t seem any tweets saying, “Client just confessed to _______,” a number of otherwise respectable criminal law blawgers think it is OK to tweet gripes (usually for comedic value) quoting clients (or prospective clients) who don’t hire them, fire them after they’ve been retained, or fail to show ample appreciation for the lawyer’s work.
I realize that it is exceptionally unlikely that the subjects of the tweets will ever be identified, let alone specifically harmed, but these attorneys
seem to think that the attorney-client privilege isn’t violated unless prejudice is likely to result.
Agreed. We should all go back to posting our horoscopes and quotations about success and life.
I’m going to go ahead and disagree with you.
Twitter, if used correctly – and as some, present company included, argue – as a personal networking service, not for the purpose of business, is entirely appropriate for such tweets.
I use Twitter to talk to friends and to generally fool around. Half the stuff I say is made up, especially about clients. But I’m also sharing my day with my friends and that includes what I’m doing that day.
In my opinion, the “trench menu” meme doesn’t reflect on anything at all. I hate the phrase “trench menu”, but that’s a nitpick.
Besides, most prosecutors I know wouldn’t know a twitter if a bird shat on them.
I never stopped reading Norm. As painful as it may be to read his overwrought prose, it doesn’t mean that I’m not interested in what he writes, even if I’m not interested in angst or sleepness nights.
More to the point, you (and apparently quite a few others) feel a bit of strain to do the “Trench Menu” meme, though you may not have much to say, or not care to say, or whatever, but feel the pressure to be like the cool kids. Therein lies a big part of the problem.
You’re certainly free to disagree and share your day with anyone you want (even though no one cares about your day at all). But I’ve heard from a number of people (cowards all, I might add) who thanked me for this because they are feeling enormous pressure to do this but really don’t want to. That’s the problem. Oddly, none of them are public defenders.
No. I did it once, yesterday wherein I said I was at home with the kids. It was supposed to be ironic. Sheesh. Do I have to explain all of my ironic/funny comments to you all the time?
And, please keep in mind that I AM the cool kid.
If you say so.
Wait! Stop! Hold it. Let me see if I get this – You’ve “heard from a number of people (cowards all, I might add) who thanked me for this because they are feeling enormous pressure to do this but really don’t want to?”
Seriously?
You’re kidding.
There are practicing lawyers out there who privately contacted you and said they are “feeling enormous pressure to do this?”
Please tell me you’re kidding.
What is the pressure they feel? That their trench menu would say “headed to Starbucks, again, hoping the big table in the back is empty so my clients aren’t cramped.” Hope that driver’s license case comes in, I’d sure like that $350. Hope the phone bill isn’t much this month, those payment plans aren’t working out too well.”
I am flabbergasted. Almost (but never) speechless.
Lawyers are “feeling enormous pressure” because Norm, and to a lesser extent Mark, and to a lesser extent, me, occasionally post our goings on in our practice?
Someone please stop my head from shaking.
I disagree that no one cares about my day. I have 800+ followers. I’m sure I could round up one or two who care about something I’m doing/have done.
And if lawyers are feeling pressure to do this, then isn’t the problem that they’re stupid enough to feel the pressure and not that there are two or three lawyers who do do this?
It sucks being a thought leader.
I was only kidding that no one cares about you. Geez, a bit sensitive?
As for lawyers doing stupid stuff on the internet, have you not been paying attention? This place is lousy with lawyers behaving foolishly, poorly, or stupidly for a wide variety of motivations. But then, aren’t you a big fan of lolcats?
Is there a prohibition against lawyers liking lolcats? Or liking lolcats in public? Is Twitter not a “social” medium? Or do I have to only tweet about professional, legal matters?
I was kidding too, about the “no one cares about me thing”.
I can’t believe I just wasted minutes on this.
you were?
I like reading about other lawyers and their days, whether in court getting a NFG, in the office doing research, or at home planning game day with their children. Lawyers reach high levels of depression and need to vent in order to press on. Twitter is a form of expressing the highs and the lows of what we do in the trenches to people who understand.
Nobody makes you read anything you don’t want to read. That said, what an asshole comment.
That’s entirely different, Jackie.
You were what? You should know that you need to reply to the correct post or no one will know what you are talking about. Those are the rules at SJ. Click reply properly or else.
There are different rules for Tannebaum, since nobody can figure out what he’s talking about most of the time.
Trench Menu:
I ain’t stopping. I want lawyers to talk about what they do in court.
Norm
I am so uncool. Mirriam gave me permission to use the phrase.
Always nice to have you stop by, Norm. It’s not about you wanting other lawyers to talk about what they do in court, but about you wanting to tell them what you do. Let’s be honest, Norm.
So the real problem is the ego inherent in the trench menu meme?
Because, ahem, I AM the cool kid. Thank you for confirming, Jeena.
All of which is why I don’t twit or tweet or whatever the hell it is.
Those were lawyers who contacted you, saying they were “feeling enormous pressure”?? What, were all the big-kid lawyers telling them its what they should do if they want to be cool too?? Wow…And I thought most lawyers had ‘balls of steel’. They all sound like a bunch of prissy little nit-wits. Tell them to put on their big girl panties and stop acting like they are in middle school.
Is there a value meal trench menu?
I agree with you, and think that they should have the balls to say whatever they have to say here rather than send me private emails. But most lawyers don’t have “balls of steel,” young or old. Most are risk averse chickens who go with the flow or their pocketbook.
This is a perpetual problem, both with disclosing too much personal information in general and, as lawyers, disclosing client information which, in the wrong hands, discloses confidences. People severely underestimate what they’re giving away, and as much as they will deny it to their dying breath, they do it to be part of the gang and tell tales just like all the other cool lawyers.
You see it. I see it. They think we’re nuts.
You’re either the most important lawyer in the world, or the biggest douche. So what really important thing did you msis wasting your time reading?
It’s not ego, Jackie.
That leaves super-ego or id, right?
I can’t believe you just took even MORE of your “precious time” to write that comment. You’re mad about wasted time, yet you “waste” even more of your time to voice your mundane complaint… Wow, you’re a smart one.
I don’t think Norm’s prose is overwrought. To me, it flows really well, but these things are largely matters of taste.
“Overwrought” might apply more to Mark Bennett.
It doesn’t apply to you, of course. You’ve got that terse, NYC pugnacious thing going.
You’re smarter than everybody, Jeff.
This is what it was all about, Scott?
I haven’t seen one yet, so I’m neutral. Sounds harmless and worthless though, like most things that happen in 140 characters.
I mention when I’m starting a case on FB, mainly so other lawyers in that courthouse might come say hi or bum me a smoke during a tense break. Sometimes I brag, but then I’m an ass like that and do it mainly to taunt the few DAs I’m FBfriends with.
Jeff, if you don’t twit or tweet, how do you ever find these great legal blogs to read? I read five or six of them almost every day, but I wouldn’t know how to find them other than finding the lawyer/author responsible for each of them on Twitter. I admit to being slow when it comes to technology. There’s probably an easy way to do it. If you get on “the Twitter,” there are a number of social media experts who will counsel you, for a fee, in the ways of using Twitter to maximize your exposure and gain a large following.
Finding the blogs is easy. I just read the ones on the SJ blogroll.
Greenfield is MY social media guru.
Social media ninja. Please see sidebar.
best comment yet.
Mea culpa; mea maximum culpa.
There are only two questions the twittering lawyer should ask before sending the note:
What will my clients think of this?
What will the jurors think of this?
Based upon much of what I read, these are no longer concerns for many. Or no longer of sufficient concern to impair the far more important concerns of being social and networking.
Is this so wrong? – “headed to Starbucks, again, hoping the big table in the back is empty so my clients aren’t cramped.”
Don’t you like coffee?
What do starting solos do otherwise?
This comment is from a biglaw drone romanticizing sbux law, who would happily tweet it.
It’s maximA: gender and number have to agree in Latin.
Don’t want to be a pedant but that might bite you in the ass some other (more important) time.
Love your blog, BTW.
Stercus accidit.
It’s an effing typo. (I’m trying to be restrained and appropriate by avoiding use of “fuck” since we’re talking about Latin here. Oops, I blew it.)
I don’t mostly proofread my blog. You think I’m going to proof my comments on SJ?
And thank you for the kind words.
Please try to watch your language. There are women and children reading.
I think it’s more that it’s better if you do like lolcats than if you give away potentially helpful information about your work to other people.
The idea of following an opposing lawyer on twitter to work out what their schedule was had never occurred to me. It’s a really good idea.
Will Norm answer a question about that tweet that was removed, about the sex cases? Isn’t it true that a news reporter, client, judge or opposing attorney could have looked up your docket in a few minutes online and deciphered who those clients were, with the information provided in the tweet?
I expect you won’t answer that. The answer is yes, if indeed those were legitimate cases that were on that day’s docket and if you didn’t have more than three sex cases on the docket that day and so on, considering very few variables.
And you declare you will keep doing it.
I applaud you only, only, because the arrogance and danger it poses I believe is going to gain more attention than it has so far in the blawgosphere and is going to prompt talk in the rules committees eventually.
I don’t believe in the end Free Speech is going to defend a guy who trashes his clients and passes out road maps that allows the public to ID them in a few minutes, which is what you apparently advocate.
What if the lawyer doesn’t CARE what his or her client thinks of it? It has to begin to sink in that this really doesn’t concern some lawyers. Worse than that, for some, that lack of concern is a special point of pride.
Shocking? Yeah, and bizarre, but I swear to you, you are about to realize that.
[Ed. Note: This is the last comment I’ll allow without a valid email address. You’ve contributed to the discussion, but it’s time to play by the same rules as everyone else. No valid email. No comment.]
I think that’s why it was so useful to point out that it works as a vector for giving your competition information about your work. Losing a chance to settle a case on favourable terms because your opposite number knows you need to be somewhere else in 5 minutes isn’t a point of pride for anyone.
Trench Menu: Leaving courthouse wondering what just happened.