The first thing I received was an email, with the subject line “Media Inquiry.” That’s the standard line when a reporter needs a quote for a story and wants to speak with you. It was on a very obscure detail, about which I had written, so I responded “sure, give me a call at my office tomorrow.”  He did, at about 6:30 p.m.  Office hours no longer mean what they used to mean.  I was gone.

But the next day, we finally hooked up, and his first question was, “tell me about yourself.” Another lonely reporter?

“I’m a criminal defense lawyer. That’s kinda why you emailed me in the first place, right?”

“No,” he explained. “Give me your elevator pitch.” I told him, “Sorry, but I don’t sell laundry detergent in elevators.” He then went through a litany of asinine questions, like whether I’m an “expert” in any specific type of cases, or whether I held some cool, official title, or was I ever a professor somewhere.

I had enough. “Here’s the deal,” I said.

“You want some cheap hook to give me attributed credibility because the simplistic morons who read your stuff need some worthless title to make me important enough that my quote is worthy of their belief. You called me. I didn’t call you. I don’t give a damn whether you quote me or not.

“I don’t give a damn whether I’m in your story or not. If my being a criminal defense lawyer doesn’t make my opinion worthy of your readers’ belief, then call someone else.  But I’m not your bitch, and I don’t puff my importance to make myself worthy of being in your fucking story.”

We then went on to talk about the subject matter. I have no clue whether he will use anything I said in the story. I don’t care. Being quoted never meant squat for me personally before, and it won’t this time either. To the extent I can offer any insight beyond the usual insipid crap, he’s got it. What he chooses to do with it is up to him. I can’t make him write a thoughtful story. I can only give him the thoughts with which to do so.

A couple of weeks ago, I received an email from a reporter with a link to a story in a magazine.  It took a few minutes to remember who he was, but it came back to me.  I was on my way out for an appointment when he called me, asking shallow questions about a case being prosecuted in Manhattan.  I didn’t have much time, and he was on a cellphone that went in and out, so I could barely make out what he was talking about. This didn’t concern him at all.

He had been referred to me after calling another lawyer, who told him that he had absolutely no background in the subject matter, so the writer would do better speaking with someone who might actually have a clue. I should have paid more attention to this than I did.  It was foreshadowing.

He asked me a question and I gave him a quick quote. It was not heavy lifting.

I clicked on the link in the email and read his story. There I was, and there was my quote. It was a throwaway line, nothing of value to anyone with a brain, but fit his narrative.  Then I saw another lawyer quoted. He was described as a well-regarded blogger and former Manhattan prosecutor turned criminal defense lawyer.

Who was this guy? I had never heard of him as a lawyer. Not in court. Not in any criminal bar association. Nothing. I found his blog, which was geographically named, and saw that it was a typical marketing blog, the sort that no lawyer would ever waste his time reading. I felt a twinge of embarrassment being the bookend to this “blogger.”

I emailed the writer back asking why. He told me he found him on Google, and since he was a blogger and former prosecutor, figured he was the right guy to quote. I explained that, by my rough estimate, about half of all criminal defense lawyers are former prosecutors. It’s not exactly a rare credential.  The writer shrugged it off. “So what? I just needed a former prosecutor, and that’s what he was.”

At the moment, my pal Brian Tannebaum is out in Las Vegas to speak to people attending a conference called #Lawyernomics, put on by Avvo for lawyers who want to learn how to market themselves to the people who go to Avvo for free legal advice because they are either too cheap or too poor to afford a lawyer.  If you do a high enough volume, you won’t starve from this work.

They don’t call the people who go to Avvo clients. They call them “leads” and “consumers of legal services.” The attendees ask questions about “lead generation” and want to know how they can get interviewed by reporters so they can put it on their websites and their Avvo profiles to make themselves look important.

Brian has a book to sell, and since the ABA won’t do anything to help him, he’s forced to travel the country hawking it himself. He was asked to write a book because he wrote some posts for Above The Law. He used to have two blogs of his own, but no one asked him to write a book then.  His blogs rarely mentioned naked lawyers or sexual mishaps.  If you write a book, you can say you’re a published author. It makes you sound important.

Last night, the Harris County Criminal Defense Lawyers Association gave Mark Bennett an award for being Lawyer of the Year.  The ABA didn’t ask him to write a book, so he has nothing to sell. He was never a prosecutor.  He has a blog, but it’s called Defending People, so anyone trying to find a well-regarded blogger in Houston might not find him on Google, and won’t quote him in their story.