How And Why Lawyers Are Killing Our Profession (Update)

I stumbled across a post by Dan Jaffe at LawLytics, a lawyer marketing company, that every lawyer needs to read.  Ironic for a legal marketer, Jaffe explains, in a very lengthy, but deeply substantive and nuanced fashion, how we are diminishing ourselves for a buck, and why that buck is going to others rather than us. Much as I occasionally touch on pieces of this problem, Jaffe lays it all out, chapter and verse.

The post is titled “How much is that lawyer in the window? The secret commoditization of the legal profession,” and he means it.  And he explains it.  Just to whet your whistle,  consider:

The internet has created a culture of instant gratification in consumers. The best lawyers know that if they aren’t available when a potential client wants to talk, a lesser lawyer will be there to take the call, and that many potential clients will not wait. To many potential clients the internet makes it impossible to tell the difference between excellence and mediocrity. And the more legal fees that flow to the mediocre lawyers, the more money they have to reinvest in marketing, and the dumbing down of the bar continues in a twisted mutant evolution that serves neither lawyers nor clients.

Given the length of Jaffe’s post, and your need to take the time to read it (rather than this), I’m cutting this short.  And for any of you bar association “listservs are cool tech” types, post a link on your listserv and tell the ten other goofballs to read it as well. Just do it.

Update:  Dan Jaffe responds by noting, after a generic thanks, that what I wrote about him “stuck in his craw.”

However, in reading his post, something he said stuck in my craw.  He referred to me as a “legal marketer.” While labels, especially objectively true ones, don’t generally concern me because I know who I am, I noticed that the context of Mr. Greenfield’s reference to me as a “legal marketer” did.

I completely understand, Dan, and would feel at least the same if someone called me a legal marketer.  And yet, what choice did I have?

One thought on “How And Why Lawyers Are Killing Our Profession (Update)

  1. John Barleycorn

    ~~_Companies are finding new and innovative ways to play both ends of the equation, that is, to make money from both attorneys and consumers of legal services, as well as ways to insert themselves further into the attorney-client relationship._~~

    If I thought I was even close to roulette odds certain you might consider it, I am inserting 1970’s hairy as birth porn here with stomachs so softly enhancing curves that birth itself might be Genesis.

    I should have never sold my last Oakland porn series as there is no question the “client” who is the “consumer” could have added another film or two to that series. The complexity of that alone gives me a hard on. O, if I could only explain that ‘joke’.

    ~~brilliant business moves–

    Replacing one of the inmates on your banner with a blended naked female form might get you more trolls. Besides who will notice anyway?

    The introductory post of the slippery series and you are cutting it short?!!!

    Too few of your guild-ed readers can slope their reading and read to read.

    I assume you booked the flight and are buying the first round even if you are sleeping on the couch.

    ~~As a lawyer I see the practices that I’ll describe as an erosion of the power and prestige of lawyers in general.~~

    Hey now, hand jobs are not illegal under the bleachers if there is a jacket.

    Book the plane ticket and WTF, why not write books?

    I like books.

    P.S. ~~There are real consequences. For that reason, the ethical rules governing lawyers’ conduct (the breaking of which can result in the lawyer being punished, including losing his/her license to practice law) all law firms must maintain a system to check for conflicts of interest before accepting a case.~~~

    I am seriously bummed out “call Avvo” isn’t running abstract name recognition and reinforcement commercials yet.

    I am not lost and more cynical than ever. WTF, did you heady fools think would happen if you figured it was someone else’s responsibility to knock heads within your guild?

    You might think CDL’s were capable of absorbing at least some of the skills of some of their clients?

    I have no advice that is appropriate.

    I recommend the read. And tripple hats off to its author Mr. Jaffe. (Please excuse me for not showing you how to lay on a grenade in your your back pages Dan. I would but it is damn near dawn. Fucking cheers knock um over the head. Your guild needs GUILD)

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