While there have been a few new entrants into the blawgosphere of late who have done a bang up job, solid thought and interesting content contributing to the vitality of this ongoing peer-reviewed discussion of the law and legal system, most have been barely concealed (if at all) attempts at playing the social media game, followed by a joyous rush to the bank..
But when I read Carolyn Elefant’s post about paying it forward to law students, who could really use a hand these days, something struck me:
If you’re a busy solo, as the year comes to a close you probably have a bunch of projects that you’d hoped to accomplish in 2010, but that still remain on the back burner…Well, why not give yourself a gift and get the work done, and help another lawyer besides by hiring a law student, an unemployed lawyer or even a new solo to do the work for you?
I’m not suggesting that you spend thousands of dollars. Rather, you could put together a scope of work and assign a fair price – maybe $50 for help with a blog post, or $250 for a fully researched article.
Should we be paying $50 to a law student for a blog post? Aside from the ghostwriter problem, which Carolyn says wasn’t what she had in mind, there’s the question of why anyone, any lawyer, would pay any other person for help with a blog post. There seems to be only one answer: Blog posts are part of a lawyer’s social media marketing campaign. It’s a money maker, a profit center, your new Yellow Pages ad.
So this is just another means of marketing? Then what the heck have I been doing here?
I responded to Carolyn’s post by saying that I would be happy to get $50 per post, given that I’ve been doing all this posting for all this time for free. I don’t charge anyone to read what I write, not that anyone would be interested in paying. As I’ve said before, I write for my own sake, not yours.
And yet how many hundreds of times have my posts been interpreted, and motives impugned, by those who have no comprehension how anyone could conceivably do this, write a blog, for any purpose other than to make money. I may not write for that purpose, but I’m awfully tired of feeling like an idiot for writing for the hell of it, and yet having to explain, ad nauseam, that the motives that drive the desperate and mercenary aren’t universal.
So $50 for some out of work kid to do your blog post? Will you make $50 per blog post? Will you make $100, so you can get a return on your investment? Except for very few, whether because they’re in a peculiar market or niche, the answer is nope. There’s nothing to be made here. Just keep walking.
A couple of years ago, I wrote posts for some other online publications, for which I was adequately compensated. But they were under my name, and reflected my editorial content. They weren’t blawgs, and I was happy enough to scribble off some paid content. I like to write. I like to write even better when someone pays me to do so.
While I realize Carolyn didn’t mean it this way, her inclusion of $50 for a blog posts reveals that she’s bought into the whole marketing scheme, that there’s a monetary value worth putting into social media because there’s an expectation that there’s money to make from it. If a person is writing a blog just to write, or to take part in a grand discussion, then the notion of paying somebody to do it for you makes no sense. Only if this is meant to be part of a money making enterprise would it make sense to pay someone.
Maybe it’s because I’m a dinosaur, that I reject both the image of lawyer as streetwalker as well as the reality of strutting my stuff in the hope that I can snag a case via the internet wilds where someone isn’t looking for a free lawyer. Maybe because my dream is that clients come to me because they’ve been told that I work hard, and give them everything I’ve got. Maybe it’s clients for whom I’ve won big. Maybe it’s clients for whom I haven’t, but appreciated that I told them the truth every inch of the way. But whatever it is, I don’t understand why we’re promoting the idea online that a blog and 52 posts will allow any fool to pretend to be a great lawyer, and that’s a good thing. For a mere $2,600, you too can be a huge success on the internet.
So if I don’t get it, then it must be my problem. In the meantime, if anybody wants to pay me $50 per post, I’m here. Up to now, nobody has paid me a dime to publish a post on SJ. Seriously, I could be the biggest idiot in the blawgosphere. It clearly appears that I’m doing something very, very wrong, because I now write for free.
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I’ll pay you fifty bucks to shut your mouth!?!
I will definitely stay off your lawn for $50.
I don’t know if I want to spend $50 to hire a law student to write one of my blog posts. They’re likely to substitute entitlement for snark. Plus, with the kids these days with their lingo and the hip-hop and thus-and-such, I’ll have to spend hours editing out all the lols and OMGs and so forth.
@Ken:
I’m sure your predecessors were saying the same about you. I’m not a Gen Y or whatever they call it, but it’s funny to listen to baby boomers talk about them like the boomers themselves weren’t the scorn of their elders at the time they were that age.
But do you need a law degree to write a marketing blawg post? Let’s see now…
“If you are Arrested for DUI in Chicago or you are Arrested for DUI in Cook County or you are Arrested for DUI in Illinois, it’s a serious crime with serious consequences–including license suspension, license revocation, fines, and even jail–unless it is dismissed or you are acquitted. So it’s very important that you hire an Illinois DUI Attorney or a Cook County DUI Attorney or a Chicago DUI Attorney who is familiar with handling DUI cases in Chicago, DUI cases in Cook County, and DUI cases in Illinois if you want the case dismissed or you want an acquittal.”
Yeah, I could do this for $50 bucks a pop…
Nobody suggested that I be paid 50 pence to draft an announcement for the town crier. Also, I was able to detect sarcasm and irony.
Are blogs marketing? I have said that they can generate clients, and if marketing is the equivalent of client generation, then I suppose blogs are marketing. But, so too is speaking on a panel, teaching a class, writing a journal article or appearing in court and doing a bang up job in front of jurors are all “marketing” in the sense that they can lead to clients. A conference participant might seek to retain you, someone might call a law school for an expert witness and get your name since you teach there, a journal article can make you look more credible to a client considering your service, a juror might be impressed that you did a good job and contact you in 6 months. The fact that these actions result in clients does not retroactively convert them into marketing. I take you 100 percent at your word that SIMPLE JUSTICE IS NOT MARKETING. At the same time, I imagine that it has lead to opportunities – maybe clients (maybe not).
When I suggested that lawyers pay someone to help with a blog, I was actually thinking that the student might provide research to make the blog more educational and more valuable – not to attract clients, but simply to educate the public and other lawyers. For example, if someone has a blog on employment law and wants to write a lengthy article type post on social media in employment law, the law student could be dispatched to identify recent cases and generate some summaries. The blogger would write the post and link to the cases and provide a valuable resource. That is really what I had in mind. Whether that’s marketing or a way to stay up to date on cases or perform a public service, I don’t know and I’m not sure that it matters. What I do know is that I’d love for more blogs to provide that level of content on a regular basis.
The other reason that I wrote the post is because I am tired of seeing students being taken advantage of. While I agree with you that there are many slackoisie, many who feel entitled or lazy, there are also some real gems who have been lead to believe that the way to get ahead is to work for free for someone who makes money off of your work. There are many blogs, not so much in the legal industry, but across the board (including Huffington Post) that are built on this kind of crowd sourcing – you write for me, I’ll “reward” you with exposure. That’s bogus.
I know that you write for free, and I consider that a gift, a privilege for those of us who read your words. But at least other people are not getting rich off of your work while you are doing it free.
Well, that was a mouthful. I know you didn’t mean it the way I took it, but it’s in there all the same.
I am very familiar with all the explanations, emanations and penumbras of marketing. Not one. Not a single case. Thousands of calls, but 99% for freebies and 1% for cases I would never take. I’ve gotten a grand total of one case via Avvo, and not a single case because of SJ, my conference speeches, CLEs, other articles, newspaper quotes, anything. Plenty of handshakes and appreciation, but not a single case. Ever.
The rest, jurors, credibility, etc., are all nonquantifiable nonsense, the sort of palliative explanations used to fill the void. It’s a big empty hole with only rhetoric to fill it. If Adrian had ever practiced law, he would find out that all his silliness is sheer fantasy. He hasn’t a clue, which is why he pretends to be an SMG instead of a lawyer. The former may be a joke, but he has no chance at the latter.
There’s the reality. Not a single case. Now market away.
I agree that we shouldn’t take advantage of law students, but that has nothing to do with blog posts having a price tag.
When a man is in doubt about this or that in his writing, it will often guide him if he asks himself how it will tell a hundred years hence. ~Samuel Butler
You are a gifted blawger, analyst and storyteller; which means that your words are gifts to your audience, but are not otherwise up for sale to the lowest bidder. You will be remembered for your integrity long after the SMGs fade into obscurity…which is in about 15 minutes or so from now.
Carolyn Elephant writes:
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[T]here are also some real gems who have been lead to believe that the way to get ahead is to work for free for someone who makes money off of your work.There are many blogs, not so much in the legal industry, but across the board (including Huffington Post) that are built on this kind of crowd sourcing – you write for me, I’ll “reward” you with exposure. That’s bogus.
*******
But isn’t that how the entire legal blogosphere works? I spend over 1,000 hours blogging per year, but it is a truly terrible economic investment. You can blog for fun, and you can blog for influence, but it’s an awful idea to try to blog for money.
I have to be a little ashamed that I read your blog for free and it has been invaluable to me, much better than any CLE I’ve ever been to.
Someday, I think, money will follow value on the internet, as it does in other venues, to at least to a limited degree. For the time being, this is the golden age of blogging, where there are blogs like this that anyone can read for free.
And now that I’m done blowing smoke up your butt, I will state quite frankly that I think you are a jerk.
You’re welcome, and frankly I think you are a jerk too.
As a lawprof, you’ve been largely insulated from the overwhelming pressure from social media gurus who sell hungry lawyers on the idea that by starting a blog and posting a few half-baked posts, clients will rush to their door and they will become fabulously successful and filthy rich. And lawyers, being lawyers, buy this crap.
This is the lie we’ve been fighting for years. And why blawgs appear and disappear regularly, as lawyer finally figure out that it’s an awful idea to try to blog for money. After they piss away money, time and the phone is still silent, they finally figure out that a dinosaur like me isn’t a complete moron.
I’m not so sure that any of us will be “remembered,” but since I’m only in it for the lulz, I have nothing to lose. Thanks, as always, for your kind words. I am constantly humbled by your erudition.
I don’t pay anyone to write my blog posts, but I do pay others to write comments to your blog posts on my behalf.
(It’s newfangled marketing, kind of like what options are to stocks.)
Aha! That explains the excellent quality of your comments, as well as their thorough use of keyword spamming.
Orin,
Of course we are all blogging for free. But I think that there is a difference between blogging for yourself for free, and blogging for free for a site that makes money off of your work. Like at Huffington Post where Arianna makes the money and for a long time, none of the bloggers who created the value for the site received any compensation. I am just not a fan of the business model where people create content for a site that generates revenue, and then the site does not pay them anything.
Didn’t you and WAC Dan meet through blogs?
Yes we did. After three years of online interactions, meetings in person, crossing paths in our professional engagements, we ultimately decided to connect our practices. I’ve also met hundreds of others in the blawgosphere, with whom thousands of hours have been spent and with whom I’ve neither done business nor formed a professional relationship. Is this the benefit of blogging that you’re talking about?
Carolyn, there is a fundamental distinction between for-profit blogging and not-for-profit blogging. The former is reserved for “content creators”, the latter remains the domain of “authors”. Put another way, one can blog to try to generate “revenue” or “get clients”, based upon the social media law marketing model, the validity of which remains suppositive (or, in my view, suppository). Alternatively, you can blog to share knowledge. The road to wisdom is not paved by profits, but on the backs of prophets.
I suspect Orin was comparing blogging for free with being paid to blog, but rather blogging with the expectation of making money as a product of blogging. The HuffPo contributors, for example, think that by providing free content, they will become more desireable bloggers and someone, somewhere, we be so overwhelmed with their brilliance that they will pay them to write. Whether this is a reasonable expectation is another matter, but that’s the motivation.
Lawyers using law students for free work simply because there are plenty of them willing to do it is another matter entirely.
For the record, in five years of blogging, I have gotten a referral. It wasn’t directly from the blog to my firm — I blog anonymously. But by writing about certain subjects I built up a relationship with a law-blogger who wrote about similar subjects and had similar views. We developed a friendly relationship and a mutual respect, and eventually, when he had a client who needed appropriate services in my neighborhood, he suggested that they talk to me, and I convinced them to take me.
But the blogging was just the opener to the relationship that generated the referral. Ultimately, I got the case the way we get most cases — by developing a relationship of trust and respect. Not because I write about how awesome I am.
So then there really isn’t any point to the post I was planning to write tomorrow about how awesome you are?
Well, it would establish you as a man of good judgment. I mean, temporarily.
You know, I like that a lot. Mind if I borrow it for my epitaph?