I’ve lurked on a conversation between two of my favorite young lawyers,  Fishtown’s Jordan Rushie and Tempe’s Matt Brown. Watching them develop and evolve has been fascinating, both because of the selfish memories of my earlier days and because they provide me with insight into the changes wrought by the economy and technology. They tell me they learn from me, but they don’t realize I learn from them as well.

Jordan started the ball rolling with a post that business is good, and from there about the various technological means which are in vogue to build a practice, and why he either won’t use them or they don’t work. 

So yeah, you’ve read that right. We have a free website, no SEO optimization, no Twitter presence, no billboards, I don’t know how to use LinkedIn, and we’ve paid about $100 this year for advertising. I refuse to spam the internet with crap like “Do you need a lawyer?” And business is decent.

Within his post, Jordan mentions free ads on CraigsList:

Do you really think we would put up a free Craigslist ad? That’s for losers, and it will never ever happen. Period. Why? Because it’s undignified, that’s why. And yes, you are a total loser if you’re putting up free classified ads for legal services on Craigslist. I don’t care if it resulted in a client or two. It’s where people go to find hookers and meet people with weird fetishes. Do you really want to advertise professional services there? [Update] When I first started practicing law, I was told by an older attorney to troll Craigslist. I will admit, I got two great clients from it. In both cases, I decided to respond to an “I need help desperately ad.” That disclosure out of the way, we’re not a firm that finds clients on Craigslist.

Matt remembers his early adventures with CraigsList:

The year was 2007. I had no money, so I was working one weekend and thought I would put up a post on craigslist. Within minutes of publishing my little ad, I got a call. The guy needed help with a case set for Monday and wanted a free consultation right away. I agreed and met with him after hours. He was an hour late. I let him do a payment plan with very little money down. I put myself in the worst situation imaginable for a criminal defense attorney, but bizarrely, the guy turned out to be a great client. He was so happy with the representation that he showed up one afternoon a few weeks later and gave me a hug along with a check for the balance due months before he actually had to pay it.

Yet Matt, after relating how he blew his last $5 in a casino, and won a jackpot, concludes:

Strangely, every other year or so, the mood strikes and I saddle on up to a video poker machine. I’ve never put another ad on craigslist. It’s mostly because I’d rather not be the kind of lawyer who posts between an old guy seeking a topless female roommate and a stewardess hoping to fornicate with a golden shepherd in front of her husband, but it’s also because I know the odds of a good outcome are terrible and I stand to lose a lot more than five dollars.

Both Jordan and Matt, hungry for the opportunity to be lawyers and, coincidentally, make some money, tried CraigsList and, well, came away with positive experiences. They both got gigs, got paid, and were appreciated.  This is good, so why do both firmly reject the idea going forward? 

In a comment to Matt’s post, Jordan explains how efforts to bottom feed come back to haunt a lawyer, prompting Matt to reply:

We thought we were really cutting edge when we used free internet listings starting out, and we probably told a lot of other people to do it. Few things change perspective as effectively as time.

This is where lawyers who weren’t born to the internet have something to learn.  As much as we may have years of experience behind us in the trenches, we’re the babes in the digital woods. Good cases are hard to find these days. Good cases with clients capable of paying for counsel are harder still. They must be around somewhere, but your phone is silent. What to do?

The never-ending deluge of emails offering internet services strikes home. If all these people are making a business out of getting you business, there must be something to it.  The onslaught of people far more knowledgeable about the web telling you that this is where the action is, where the clients are, where the lawyers who are making money are getting their clients, grabs you by the neck and shakes you to your core. You, old lawyer, are missing the gravy train. You, who can barely use email, are sitting there in the solitude of your office while great cases from paying clients are making the lawyers who use the internet fabulously rich. 

Let these young lawyers be your guide.  They may not have your hours in the trenches, but they have a lifetime in that foreign land called the internet speaking a language in which you will never be fluent.  Anything you are considering has already been tried.  Anything you are first hearing about has already been done.  They tried it. They did it. And they are telling you that it doesn’t work.

But you’re hungry, and business is lousy, and what would it hurt if you gave it a go?  After all, didn’t both these young lawyers get cases off Craigslist that made them some money?

As Matt said, “few things change perspective as effectively as time.”

The cases that excited them as brand new lawyers aren’t quite what interests them a couple of years later. Even so, hitting a small win on the slot machine doesn’t mean that life as a casino gambler guarantees rewards.  Indeed, the odds are much better that you get burned, whether by the clients or by your reputation as a bottom feeder that precludes your ever getting a good case again. 

The part of the story that my protagonists don’t mention is that the culture of free advice, cheap lawyers, the stench of desperation and the availability of the internet as new tool for clients, sadly referred to as “legal consumers” these days, is one of the foremost reasons you sit there wondering why your phone doesn’t ring. Clients are warned to interview a dozen lawyers before acting. Clients are told that they can hire you for a song, if that much, because lawyers give their services free on the internet in the hope of scoring the occasional paying client.  Clients are told to demand guarantees.  If a client makes your phone ring, he believes he’s doing you a favor, even though he has no interest in hiring you or paying you. That he’s broken the silence is good enough.

This isn’t an accident, but the result of what the internet has wrought. These young lawyers know it. You old lawyers have yet to learn it, but would rather listen to hucksters than lawyers whose experience on the internet dwarfs yours. Just as they don’t have your experience in the trenches, you don’t have their experience on the web. Pay attention to them before you screw things up so badly that you never get another case again.