Trolled By The Big Soapbox

My pal, Venkat Balasubramani, twitted me a link to an article that was on a subject that interested me, disruption and non-lawyer ownership of law firms.  It was written by Sarah Reed, who identifies herself as the general counsel of a venture capital firm, CRV, which would give it some superficial credibility.  But more importantly, it appeared in Techcrunch.

As one commenter said:

She is actually a lawyer…

Her post suffered from two fundamental flaws. First, it was a rehash of ideas that were fresh and vibrant five years ago. Second, the thrust of her article is that the only really disruptive notion in law is non-lawyer ownership, which just happens to align perfectly with the interests of CRV, thus allowing venture capital to grab a piece of the law market.  She neglected to mention any self-interest in her post.

But these are criticisms that are likely to elude Techcrunch readers.  After all, one can’t expect tech guys to either care deeply or stay atop legal issues, and the internet is a cesspool of concealed self-interest masquerading as novel thought to the unwary. You would think tech folks would be more attuned to the second problem.

At the end of Reed’s post is her call to action:

To my brethren at the bar, I ask, are we really going to let those prawn salad eaters make us look like Luddites? It’s time to dismantle the protective barriers we’ve erected and mount the barricades to the battle-cry of “disruptive innovation now!”

Reed isn’t speaking to her brethren at the bar, of course.  If she was, she wouldn’t be writing at Techcrunch.  Rather, she is playing the tech crowd’s ignorance of issues and problems with her pitch, none of which she mentions, as she demagogues the naïve to further her employer’s interests.

Is there anything wrong with that?  Well, not to the extent of serving one’s employer, although she does so in a disingenuous and deceptive way.  But the problem became apparent from some of the comments, by people like Carolyn Elefant, Preston Clark, with the obligatory happysphere handshake, even CALI’s John Mayer, pimping himself shamelessly.  Each knows far better than to get embroiled in such a substantively superficial discussion, but did so anyway. Why were they goaded into playing someone else’s game?

Techcrunch.  Reed’s post appeared on a big soapbox, a soapbox that will be read by those far outside the realm of the law, by people who are unlikely to have sufficient concern or understanding to recognize Reed’s post as self-serving and superficial. Reed was playing Techcrunch readership, and in one dopey post, doing immense damage. All because her post appeared on a soapbox that was far bigger than that upon which lawyers get to stand.

Much as the vast majority of lawyers still can’t be bothered to learn about the issues that affect their lives and careers, not to mention impact their clients going forward, because they don’t read blawgs or use the internet for any purpose other than to put on hotpants and strut the boulevard, a few are using it very well, very cunningly.

Clearly, Sarah Reed has, in her one article, accomplished far more than I, as she got her two cents in at Techcrunch while my ideas remain here.  While SJ may not be a bad soapbox as far as lawyer blogs go, it’s nothing compared to the Techcrunch. Or Slate. Or Huffington Post. where posts that are so utterly devoid of sophisticated thought about the law appear daily.

On the bright side, at least these non-lawyer soapboxes introduce non-lawyers to legal issues that will affect their lives.  On the dark side, the posts are usually shallow and unilluminating. One might hope that lawyers who write posts for the big soapboxes would do some legwork, make themselves aware of the important issues and arguments, so that they can produce posts of deeper thought, but, for whatever reason, that doesn’t appear to happen too often.

For example, Steve Brill recently wrote a post at Huff Post Crime about revenge porn laws, a highly controversial issue, that wasn’t exactly bad, except that it was utterly cursory.  It’s not like there wasn’t a ton of available information on the issue, but that Brill was unaware of any of it. And yet, there it was, his post on the big HuffPo soapbox, adding nothing remotely resembling thought to an important discussion. What a waste.

And so a post like Sarah Reed’s has to be twitted by Venkat lest lawyers be unaware that the Soapbox called Techcrunch is busy making its readers stupider.  Years ago, there was a debate about whether the internet made people smarter or stupider. The answer was “yes.”

For lawyers, critical aspects of our profession are being discussed far outside our earshot, playing to crowds that are unlikely to care about our ethical and efficacy concerns.  While our profession impacts almost every facet of life, we remain on our small soapboxes while others have much larger ones where they can spread their word with intention of undermining the law from the outside.  To borrow from Reed’s call to action,

It’s time to defend the protective ethical barriers we’ve erected and mount the barricades to silence the ignorant and self-serving battle-cry of “disruptive innovation now!”

After all, if lawyers sit idly by as posts on these big non-lawyer soapboxes raise important issues, but enlighten no one, then we have no cause to complain when we find ourselves being sold like laundry detergent or directed to sell-out our clients because our non-lawyer boss deemed zealous representation unprofitable.

14 thoughts on “Trolled By The Big Soapbox

    1. SHG Post author

      Yeah, that is the question. I think I have a partial answer, in that I’ve been asked to write for a variety of other websites with bigger soapboxes, but for free. They invite me to elevate my social media profile. and contemporaneously provide content so they can make money by selling advertising, and I decline.

      But then, there are plenty of people who write for bigger soapboxes, get paid for it, and still make people stupider (some are substantively excellent, but some are not). I have never been asked to be one of them, so perhaps I’m the schmuck in all this while everyone else is busy figuring out ways to get rich and famous on the interwebz while I am mired in my unpleasantness and unhappy commentary.

      1. Rick Horowitz

        Don’t we lawyers have an obligation to do a certain amount of pro bono work? Not saying a full-on daily column, but maybe an occasional guest post if asked?

        1. SHG Post author

          A duty? No. Especially not working for free so the publisher can make money off it. We have a duty to educate the public, though an occasional guest post does not equal educating anyone if it’s self-serving or vapid.

          1. Rick Horowitz

            That was said partly tongue-in-cheek.

            I don’t want to write for free, either. But sometimes I wonder if it wouldn’t be a worthwhile sacrifice, if it could help counter the crap.

            1. SHG Post author

              One-off posts might do some good, but not enough to counter the deluge of crap that appears at the big soapbox websites. It would require regular posts. But the big soapbox websites aren’t concerned with substance, but eyeballs. They sell ads, not ideas. As long as they have fresh content, no matter how idiotic, they make money.

  1. UltravioletAdmin

    Sigh. Non-lawyers never understand the ethical pressures and why its very bad to have people not ruled by bar ethics rules. I have a friend whose a young and eager attorney who would of had her first jury trial today. She’s interviewing for a job next week where having a jury trial would of been really helpful. Ended up settling right before going into court because it was the clients best interest. She would of made more money and had a feather in her cap with a jury trial.

    Some lawyers, even under bar ethical rules, would of been tempted to ignore the client’s interest. When you have the money guys on top, they’re going to insist in such cases to get their money’s worth out of the client. Plea mills are already problem enough…

    1. SHG Post author

      There are a ton of issues wrapped up in non-lawyer ownership that its advocates ignore and elude non-lawyers. GCs tend not to give a damn, but for individuals, it would be an unmitigated disaster to breach the wall of non-lawyer ownership. Of course, they won’t truly appreciate the meaning of conflict of interest until it’s too late and they’re screwed.

  2. Charlesmorrison

    Okay, I read the article and am still unsure why non lawyers need to be able to have an equity interest in the firm in order to achieve the only concrete description of the “disruption.” Unless I missed something, at the end of the article she envisions the creation of a law equivalent to the nurse practitioner, assisting clients with “minimal supervision” by lawyers. Why would such a system, which you already noted is not a new idea, require the supervising attorneys to answer to non-attorney bosses/owners/BOD? Me confused.

    Anyway, thanks for sharing… That is the first and probably the last time I read a tech-oriented blog/magazine, which was the more poignant takeaway: issues affecting my chosen profession are being discussed in forums I have no clue even exist.

    1. SHG Post author

      Why? Because that’s how VCs would make money off law firms. And as for tech-oriented websites like Techcrunch, this is the drivel they read, “by a real lawyer!!!”, informing them of the issue. So now they know all about it, because a real lawyer told them.

  3. Venkat

    totally agree .. this was a flimsy article, surprised to see people not say as much (actually I’m not, we’re in the age of twitter)

    1. SHG Post author

      Surprised? The comments to Reed’s post scare me. People who should know better trying to coddle up to her because this mindless mutt of a post appears on Techcrunch. Oh, to be near to greatness, and never to break faith with the culture of niceness. So when something as crappy as this finds its way onto the big soapbox, the lawyers flock around it, trying to influence it slightly without being at all offensive by calling it out.

      This is what lawyers have become. This is what the internet has become. Whoever has the biggest soapbox, no matter how foolish, wins.

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