Apparently, Michael Doudna, a criminal defense lawyer in California, heard that there was magic happening on the internet, and he wanted his piece.  All a lawyer needed was a dollar and a dream to hop on the internet train to wealth and success.  He was 52 years old and a lawyer since 1985.  He was no dumb kid scrambling to pretend he was a lawyer, but if there was business flocking to internet lawyers, he wanted some.

Michael Doudna ended up getting less, and more, than he bargained for. 

He hired an internet marketing named  Kenney and Associates in March, 2011, run by a woman named Harmony Kenney.  Whether there were any associates is unknown, but who cared, as long as they can get him on that runaway train filled with clients, the internet.  So Kenney nailed down a wordpress blog at DoudnaLaw. 

The blog went live on the internet in March 2011, at the internet address (URL) “doudnalaw.wordpress.com.” The blog contained information about the firm, including the types of cases Mr. Doudna handled (i.e, criminal defense and bankruptcies), and his contact information, namely his office address, telephone and fax numbers, email address, and URLs.

A “Criminal Law News” section was included in the blog. In order to provide interesting content for that section, I reviewed articles that were publically available online, such as those published by the ABA Journal (Online) of the American Bar Association.

By mid-April, 2011, I had not received any new business as result of the blog. I was, however, incurring fees by KA for maintaining the blog. Therefore, on or about April 14, 2011 I cancelled the KA’s services referable to the blog.

Nothing. Nada. Zip, zero, zilch. Certainly the posts were interesting, as they were merely rehashes of the ABA Journal, the motherload of whitebread fascination.  The blog contained all the salient information, so it’s not like the waiting throngs of clients didn’t know where to find Michael Doudna.  And yet, not a single new case came across the interwebz.

In fairness, it would appear that the blog was live for a grand total of six weeks at most by the time he decided to pull the plug.  While the whispers in the courthouse hallway said that he should be able to buy a new Mercedes by then, six weeks really isn’t a very long time to establish a blog.  He expected to see something, anything, come from the internet magic, and yet the phone didn’t ring at all. Not even once.

The problem was that the silence of the phone was exacerbated by the appearance of the bills for the services rendered.  No money coming in, but definitely money going out.  This is where the cheerleaders’ talk of the incalculability of an ROI for blogging hits a lawyer square in the face, as the warm and fuzzy feeling he gets from the vast array of benefits of blogging, none of which translate into a monetary value, doesn’t make the marketer’s bill any easier to pay.

And so Michael Doudna, having given it the best six weeks of his life, pulled the plug.

Heck, it was worth a try, right?  So he’s out a few bucks, but at least the internet train didn’t leave the station without him.  He rode it and learned it went nowhere, but there will be no shame when the guys chat over beers about how you have to give it the old law school try.

But this really isn’t a story about how California criminal defense lawyer Michael Doudna got sucked into blogging, or internet marketing, and threw some money into the toilet and flushed.  It’s not about the failure of the internet to be that magic bullet all the cheerleaders yell about.  It’s not about the lack of ROI in blogging,  It’s not about how marketers sell snake oil, or how marketing isn’t the answer.

Harmony Kenney’s internet marketing business folded right after Doudna pulled the plug.  But this isn’t a post about how internet marketers may sell themselves as winners, as the magicians who make the magic of the internet happen.  Whether Kenney and Associates had any other customers isn’t known, but losing Doudna certainly didn’t help Harmony.  But this post isn’t about Harmony.

It seems that Harmony Kenney, when glomming on the ABA Journal’s content to make Michael Doudna’s blog as interesting as possible, happened on a story on April 4, 2011.

On or about April 8, 2011, I drafted a synopsis of the ABA Journal article and posted it to Mr. Doudna ‘s blog, under the title: “D.C. ‘s Lawyer’s Inexperience Obvious; Judge Declares Mistrial” .

On May 18, 2011, Michael Doudna learned that he had been named as a defendant in Rakofsky v. Internet.  It seems like the magic bullet hit Doudna right between the eyes.  And that’s what this post is all about.

It makes enormous sense.  That it started with airports was obvious, as planes became missiles in the hands of terrorists.  But planes were also enclosed vessels where a group of people were trapped, making them a perfect target in themselves. 

We have to protect ourselves from these terrorists, because everything changed after 9/11.  This rationale is right up there with do it for the children.  It resonates.  It plays in Peoria.  It may not be sufficient for the handful of people on the internet who read blawgs by criminal defense lawyers, libertarians or the Tin Foil Hat Society, but it remains the mantra of many regular folk who would prefer not to be an uninvited guest to someone else’s martyrdom party.

And the TSA knows it.  Via Mother Jones :

Think you could avoid the TSA’s body scanners and pat-downs by taking Amtrak? Think again. Even your daily commute isn’t safe from TSA screenings. And because the TSA is working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol, you may have your immigration status examined along with your “junk“.

As part of the TSA’s request for FY 2012 funding, TSA Administrator John Pistole told Congress last week that the TSA conducts 8,000 unannounced security screenings every year. These screenings, conducted with local law enforcement agencies as well as immigration, can be as simple as checking out cargo at a busy seaport. But more and more, they seem to involve giving airport-style pat-downs and screenings of unsuspecting passengers at bus terminals, ferries, and even subways.

Planes, trains and automobiles.

According to at least one news report out of Brownsville, Texas, TSA/VIPR has already conducted unannounced inspections of private passenger cars and trucks.

Once the barrier is broken and we step onto the slippery slope, the conceptual ledge is hard to find.  The next, and fairly obvious step, is the right authority to frisk people walking down the street.  We’ve long had frisks conducted at the entries to sporting arenas, another place where a large mass of people congregate and can be blown to bits by a suicide bomber.  Why would walking into a mall, or a store, or movie theater be less of a risk.  And you certainly don’t want to be blown up watching the final Harry Potter movies, do you?

Even if we return to the original rationale for airport screenings, that planes can be used a missiles, we find little comfort.  Cars can also be used as a delivery system.  Car bombings have long been a staple of attacks in the mideast.  So too are suicide bombers, wrapping themselves in explosives to deliver death.  There’s really no end to the possibilities.

Had the government decided to seize the authority to frisk grandma for walking down the street a decade ago, Americans wouldn’t have taken it too well.  Perhaps they would embrace it as feelings were raw, but it would have  touched too many people who knew that they posed no threat.  There was a significant potential for backlash, ruining a good thing by rushing it through before we were ready.

But ten years have gone by, and the government has seen Americans accept their intrusions.  We may not like it, but we haven’t refused it in sufficient numbers, or rejected it as a people.  We’ve become resigned to the fact that hands grope us, machines see through our clothing and the few who gripe are given “special treatment.”

My pal  Mark Bennett refuses to travel by plane anymore.  But what will he do when he can no longer drive his Porsche, or even walk down the street holding his children’s hands, without being subject to a pat down on demand?  Mark saw it coming.

In the past, I’ve advocated a variation on Nancy Reagan’s message, “just say no.”  Sure, it’s a risky proposition, since each of us alone, saying no, becomes an enemy of the state and an annoyance to the people behind us on line who just want to get on the plane and go to DisneyLand.  For many, whatever mischief happens at the hands of the TSA is well deserved.  You could just do what they ask and be done with it.  True, acquiescence is the easier route.  It always is, especially when facing people who have been given the authority to make your life miserable and, well, enjoy doing so.

But the path of least resistance leads to the road to perdition.

I’m no anarchist.  I’m hardly militant and definitely not a violent person.  The answer isn’t revolution, even though some who pay a great deal of attention to such matters grow to believe that there’s no other way.  Small exercises of conscience by regular people, grandmas and parents of young children, men of good standing in the community, simply informing the nice people in uniform that they do not believe they want to be touched without cause, and prepared to quietly and peacefully accept some consequences for their choices, will make a point. 

As Pastor Martin Niemöller  eloquently reminded us, we will all eventually be touched if we turn away and pretend this isn’t our problem.  At least not this time.  They’ll catch up with us, and those who argue that we should just go along with the government and not make waves may feel differently when it’s their turn to be stopped in the street for a quick grope.

First it was the airports.  Today, it’s cars in Brownsville, Texas.  See any trend?

In a very timely post, marketing philosopher  Seth Godin writes:

There are plenty of ways to rationalize false marketing claims (hey, at least they’ll use something…) but it’s pretty clear that marketers have done little to educate the public about what’s going on (did you know that 95% of the radiation that hits us is cancer-causing and skin-aging UVA, the kind that SPF has no relevance to?)

New regulations were recently announced, though it’s not surprising that many think the regs were watered down as a result of lobbying.

It turns out that in the US, sunscreens have been extraordinarily over-hyped, with variations being called ‘waterproof, ‘full spectrum’ and ‘effective’ without being any of these. You need to use a lot more, and a lot more often, than the labels currently indicate. Marketers would prefer a magic bullet, as it’s easier to sell, but sunscreen doesn’t work that way. It’s not easy to make an effective sunscreen, and so competitors with lesser products have hyped them with false or irrelevant claims. (SPF 120 anyone?)

So it’s not that sunscreens are worthless or useless, but just not what they’re marketed to be.  We use them in the vain belief that we’re doing the right thing, trying not to be one of the more than 80,000 who have died of skin cancer in the past decade. 

Ethics and integrity have been on my mind quite a bit lately, not so much because they are one of my scholarly concerns but because  I’m being told with  painful  regularity by  young lawyers that they can no longer afford the luxury of ethics, that the old niceties of a once proud profession no longer applies to their new paradigm.

If Maslow’s  Hierarchy of Needs focused solely on young lawyers, I imagine it would look something like this:

Level 1: Food, shelter, Cheetos
Level 2: Student loan repayment
Level 3: Booze, drugs, video games
Level 4: BMW
Level 5: Ethics

Forget self-actualization, as few new lawyers reach the point where they can manage a decent set of wheels.  This makes them sad, feeling as if the covenant has been broken.  They were promised that if they worked hard, made it through college and law school, there would be a good life waiting for them on the other side.  Well, they kept their part of the deal, and found out the pot of gold is empty.  And so they cry.

There are people like me, “fairy-tale ogres who drink only the tears of young children,”   Not only do I offer them no comfort, but no easy solution.  They want easy answers, and  they demand that I give them easy answers now.  They get angry with me when the answers don’t fit their paradigm.

And then there are people who want to make money off the tears of young children.  They tell them what they want to hear, stroke them and comfort them, and for a small fee, will provide the solutions that fit their paradigm.  They tell them the world is changing, and they are can be part of the new wave of success.  There will be a never ending supply of Cheetos in their future, if only they ride the wave.

The nature of ethics and integrity have become so watered down that even lawyers who believe themselves sufficiently ethical to pontificate on the subject see it merely as a matter of violating the Rakofsky Standard, where its so flagrant as to be unescapable.  Routine, banal puffery and deception have become so ingrained in the legal marketing ethos as to make no ripple.

And yet we feel emboldened to criticize police and judges for their faults and failures, their misconduct and impropriety, for their stupidity and error.  Who are we to challenge them while embracing lies about ourselves?  

Regular readers are no doubt bored to tears with my writing about these subjects.  Where’s the next outrageous story about a police beating or a judge throwing innocent people in prison?  Why can’t we focus on one great villain, making him responsible for all the evil in the system and castigating him at every turn?  It’s not that simple. 

Lawyers are as much a part of a troubled system as everyone else, and we continue to foul the system as they do.  And far too many lack the understanding that we’re even doing this, somehow wrapping themselves in the sanctity of necessity, but we need to earn a living, while denigrating all the other players for their failings.  All of our houses need to be in order before there will be any hope of improving the system.

And so mother’s rub sunscreen with an SPF of 120 on their beloved babies in the hope of saving them from the harmful effects of the sun.  And defendants retain lawyers in the hope of saving them from the harmful effects of the system.  And we’re find with calling bullshit on fraudulent sunscreen marketing claims, but reject the idea that lawyers, a profession whose very existence depends on our will to put clients ahead of self interest, should be subject to the same scrutiny.

Maybe one young lawyer will get the idea.  Maybe one older lawyer will join this curmudgeon to push ethics higher on the lawyer hierarchy of needs.  Maybe one client will be saved.  This is what lawyers do.  An angry commenter asked whether I really thought I was ‘god’s gift to ethics.”  I responded that lawyers should all be “god’s gift to ethics.”  No sunscreen will shield of from our ethical failings.

Venkat Balasubramani wondered whether we were twins separated at birth when he sent me a link to the Washington Post’s Gene Weingarten’s column.  While the resemblance is uncanny, there is no familial ties.  That said, he could be my brother.

Dear Leslie:

I am honored that you have chosen me as the subject of your journalism school graduate thesis. At the behest of your instructor, you e-mailed me to ask how I’ve “built my personal brand over the years.” I’m answering with this column.

The best way to build a brand is to take a three-foot length of malleable iron and get one end red-hot. Then, apply it vigorously to the buttocks of the instructor who gave you this question. You want a nice, meaty sizzle.

Heh. The old smack ’em with literalism. Nice start.

These are financially troubled times for our profession, Leslie — times that test our character — and it is disheartening to learn that journalism schools are responding to this challenge by urging their students to market themselves like Cheez Doodles.

This is a place where Weingarten and I part ways.  My references are  always to Cheetos rather than Cheez Doodles.  It’s not that I take issue with Cheez Doodles, but I prefer to use one word rather than two.  Weingarten tends to be a bit long winded on his cheesey snack foods.

We are slowly redefining our craft so it is no longer a calling but a commodity. From this execrable marketing trend arises the term you ask me about: “branding.”

Let’s step back a minute, Leslie, and let that expression marinate in its own fetid sauce. Let us contemplate its meaning and the devastating weight of its implications.

But he’s talking about journalism, not law.  OMG, you mean the Slackoisie have expanded their reach into other fields of endeavor!?!  Ruh roh.  Aside to Gene: “fetid sauce,: nice.

When I was a hungry young reporter in the 1970s, I thought of myself as a superman, an invincible crusader for truth and justice — even though, looking back at old pictures, I now see that I resembled an emaciated weasel in unattractive clothing. My goals, however, were unambiguous, and heroic: 1) Get great stories that improve the world. 2) Get famous. 3) Get doe-eyed young women to lean in close and whisper, “Take me.”

Note the order. First came the work.

Whoa.  Doe-eyed young women, lean in closer, whisper “take me?”  I hope this is a journalism thing, and it’s not that I missed that step.

Now, the first goal seems to be self-promotion — the fame part, the “brand.” That’s because we know that, in this frenetic fight for eyeballs at all costs, the attribute that is most rewarded is screeching ubiquity, not talent. It is why Snooki — who is quite possibly literally a moron — has a best-selling book. It is why the media superstars of today are no longer people such as Bob Woodward, who break big stories, but people like Bill O’Reilly, who yell about them.

I see we have a new applicant for the curmudgeon’s club.  And a damn fine application it is.