What Avvo Answers Are Good For

I thought of a good use for Avvo’s questions today.

If you needed a regular source of ideas for blog posts, you could subscribe to Avvo’s questions in your field and answer them on the blog. Lots of the questions aren’t worth answering, but there are at least a couple a week that might make for interesting blog posts.

For example, here are today’s Texas criminal law questions from Avvo Answers:

• In Texas if someone steals and doesn’t get caught but someone wants to turn them in that saw what will happen?[Probably nothing.]
• I heard that the Minimum mandatory stay in Federal Prison was being reduced to 65%. Is that true, and when will that come in fo [No. It's a perennial myth.]
• When the prosecutor’s office receive new information that is exculpatory, what is their role? [To reveal it to the defense.]
• I need a pro bono criminal lawyer to handle a case for my 18 year old son, who is being set up. He is worried about not graduate[Good luck.]
• I took the blame for a friends theft of $230. Can I still get in trouble for ratting him out? [Probably.]

At least four out of those five questions might make for informative blog posts. No effort would be required to choose a topic for a post; all you would have to do is research and answer the question. Voilà, instant blog framework, leading to the production of on-subject content.

As a bonus, by answering on your own blog you don’t have to deal with the answhores.

I Think Barnum Underestimated

Kashonia spent AU$12,000 to travel from Australia to the U.S. to attend a workshop called Experience the Reality of Success. Then she got upset because of the presenter’s “total misrepresentation of his workshop. . . . In ‘reality’ we all experienced the reality of begging, not the promised reality of vibrational manifestation.“

Kashonia wants her money back. Because “whilst it’s true that we did start with nothing, what we did was to go out on the streets and beg for money. That was the way we were to “manifest” the money.  There is a BIG DIFFERENCE between vibrationally manifesting money and begging for money on the streets.” Yes, the rubes who had paid to go to this workshop were actually sent out onto the streets of Las Vegas to ask strangers for money.

Hmmm. You cause your vocal cords to vibrate and form the words, “please give me money”; a stranger gives you money. That sounds like vibrational manifestation of money to me.

But, hey, I live in the real world, where people work for a living. I’m not a mental health professional, so I can’t say for sure that she’s batshit insane/ Instead, I’ll just say that she is living in a different world. Kashonia’s long post reveals how clueless the greedy can be in their search for money for nothing. Her greed seems pretty benign—hapless rather than avaricious—but someone who spends 12 grand to learn how to “vibrationally manifest[] money”:

1. Is well-advised to always set off the word “reality” with doubt quotes;
2. Will always be an easy mark for a conman; and
3. Has no right to complain when someone else gets money from her for nothing.

Refuge for the Disbarred

See this exchange (very tall JPEG) between Miami bar defense lawyer Brian Tannebaum and real estate lawyer real estate law specialist Real Estate Law & Investment Specialist, Broker & Social Media Consultant; Deal Closer & innovator real-estate-law-investments-loss-mitigation-and-social-media-consulting something Kathleen A. Scanlon.

Brian’s target, it seems, pled guilty to mortgage fraud in state court in New York, and while awaiting sentencing and delinquent with the bar continued to “network” as a real estate lawyer on Twitter. When Brian inquired, she responded. There was some back-and-forth, and then she deleted her own replies to Brian and claimed not to have (“I don’t know why my replies are not showing up . . . what did I delete??? are you insane?” Then she changed her bio on Twitter—three times. (Tannebaum twitted, “I want to apologize to everyone for turning @kasesq94 into a “Social Media Consultant.”)

I sympathize with Scanlon, trying to make the best of the very bad situation she’s gotten herself into. She may well have a partner and employees (if you believe her website, she has a staff of beautiful people in expensive suits) who are depending on her to make a smooth transition to what she calls her “hiatus,” and a family depending on her to bring food home during that break.

I also understand the appeal of “Social Media Consultant.” It is a title that any idiot can give himself; it requires no sort of expertise whatsoever, and no equipment but a computer with an internet connection (which the former lawyer won’t be using to practice law). Barriers to entry in this specialty are very low. Scanlon will not be the first lawyer who, forced out of the practice of law, has redefined herself as a blog or other social media expert.

In fact, it follows from the basic premise of online marketing—that, as self-proclaimed expert Adrianos Facchetti writes, “You are what Google says you are”—that by merely marketing yourself online as an expert you become an expert qualified to take people’s money to tell them how to become experts by marketing themselves online as experts. It’s turtles all the way down.

So what’s wrong with that? If some naive lawyer, not having the first clue about online social media, wants to pay a convicted, disbarred, or otherwise disgraced ex-lawyer to show her the ropes, what harm is done?

None, if the naif knows what she is getting and the consultant doesn’t lead her to do anything untoward or deceptive. But when the disgraced lawyer is deliberately concealing the fact that he is a disgraced lawyer, these questions are raised: is the naif getting what she thinks she is getting (or is she trusting someone whom she would not trust if the truth were revealed); and will the consultant, for whom deception has worked, teach the naif to be open and honest (or will he teach her what worked for him: concealment and deception)?

I appreciate that it might be difficult for the social media expert to get hired if the world knows that he has been disbarred for raiding minors’ trust funds or convicted of mortgage fraud, and I believe strongly in redemption, but holding oneself out as something one is not seems to me an unlikely path to redemption.

So what did disgraced lawyers do before there was such a thing as a social media consultant?

The First Annual Bloggers’ Best Awards [Categories Added]

The ABA Journal’s popularity contest for the best law blogs in ten categories is a joke. It was a joke last year too, when my Defending People won “best” blog in the category of crime, and I treated it as such, tub-thumping for Scott Greenfield’s Simple Justice even as Scott electioneered for Defending People (that Defending People won is a testament to the power of Scott’s blog over mine).

In 2009, Simple Justice rightfully owns the category of “Criminal Justice.” Here, though, are the five latest posts from the frontrunner in that category, which is shamelessly begging for votes from its readers:

• Baucus Gave Girlfriend Raise:

At the least, a serious ethics investigation is in order.

• E For Effort:

Right now I am prepared to give the Democrats in Congress an E for Effort on their Health Insurance Premium Assistance Bill, but I still want a favor — forget the pipe dream of 60 votes in the Senate and figure out what you can pass through R for Reconciliation.

• The “Reform” In the Health Bill: If Only It Were So:

In the real world, one program HAS worked. Only one. Medicare.

• The World’s Worst “Greatest Deliberative Body”:

A couple of days ago, I asked Senator Spector about our dysfunctional Senate:

• Quote of the Day:

Wow. People should not care about issues because that might hurt someone’s electoral chances? Wow.

TalkLeft is not a bad blog; it is, I’m sure, the sort of thing I would enjoy if I enjoyed that sort of thing. It’s just not (despite its subtitle, “the politics of crime”) a criminal justice blog; it is, instead, a political blog (or, in the ABA’s taxonomy, maybe a News Blog). The problem with it being in the same category as Simple Justice is that as a news/politics blog TalkLeft has thousands of news/politics readers who know nothing, and care less, about criminal justice blogs. It would make as much sense to put Above The Law in some category other than News—it will kill in whatever category it’s in.

But the ABA Journal’s voting would be a joke even without its slaphappy categorization of blogs. The ABA Journal’s process is designed to determine nothing more than which blog has the most readers who are willing to register with the ABA Journal to vote for it.

Popularity is no indicator of quality. If you want to find the best law blogs, you don’t ask the masses. You ask the people who have given some thought to what makes a good blog: you ask bloggers.

So here’s the First Annual Social Media Tyro Best Law Blogs Contest.

If you blog regularly (at least once a week), even outside the field of law, you are entitled to vote. To vote, write a post listing what you think is the best blog in each of these categories:

• Best Personal Injury Law Blog:
• Best Business Law Blog:
• Best Criminal Law Blog:
• Best Family Law Blog:
• Best General Law Blog:
• Best Intellectual Property Law Blog
• Best Legal News or Politics Blog:
• Best Legal Humor Blog:
• Best Legal Criticism or Opinion Blog:
• Best Law Practice Management Blog:
• Best Legal Tech Blog:
• Best Courtwatching Blog:
• Best Law Prof Blog:
• Best Law Blog Based Outside the U.S.
• Best Law Blog in a Category SMT forgot:

Post before the end of this year, with a link to this post so I’ll be sure to see your post.

Each blog gets one ballot. If you don’t have an opinion in any category, feel free to leave it blank. Please don’t try to game the voting (koff koff Lexblog koff)—it will backfire.

On the first of the year I will collate and report the results.

Anonymous Commenting, 1872

People often seek to justify leaving anonymous comments on blogs by explaining that they are employed by governmental agencies or companies that would frown on them using their names in connection with their opinions.

It is true that having a regular job with a paycheck and benefits can have some costs; one of these costs can be that your employer might punish you for saying the wrong thing in public.

But it has always been thus. So I wondered to myself, “what did these people do before the internet when they wanted to express their opinions but were afraid it would harm them at work?”

Then I realized:

(Ku Klux Klan, Mississippi, 1872, in the public domain from Harper’s Weekly via Wikimedia.)

How to Recognize a Non-Expert

Craig Agranoff, in What Is a Social Media Expert (via @KevinOKeefe):

Evan Sneider, who does public relations for a Miami-based website, told me, “Usually, if someone says they’re an ‘expert’ at anything, they aren’t. Most ‘experts’ have no idea that they’re exceptionally good at whatever it is they’re doing.”

There are experts in social media—people for whom the media are not the end, people who actually use social media to help, educate, and entertain others (example: Wichita reporter Ron Sylvester, who works in Twitter, text, and video). They don’t claim to be experts. Claimed expertise in social media is a pretty good indicator that one is not an expert.

This is more true in the area of social media than in other disciplines. To those who have been soaking in social media, using it to make a difference rather than trying to sell their ability to use it, the phrase “social media expert” is a term of derision. The self-descriptive use of a term that is widely ridiculed in the area of supposed expertise is a pretty good indicator that the “expert” is ignorant of how social media really work.

It’s kind of like a “writer” with spelling errors in his CV, or a “therapist” who talks incessantly about herself, or a “spy” who brags about being a spy. It’s a dead giveaway.

Not everyone who doesn’t claim to be an expert in social media is one. Nobody who does is.

Born to Fail, But on Life Support

Kevin O’Keefe (Lexblog) and Scott Greenfield (Simple Justice) are having a discussion, prompted by Mark Herrmann’s (Drug and Device Law) observation that the ABA Journal’s list of the top 100 legal blogs contains only two blogs associated with biglaw firms, about whether and why biglaw blogs suck and whether social Darwinism will eventually eliminate those blogs that do suck.

Sometimes we know a law blog is doomed to fail. We know it because its title is keyword-rich, or because the titles of most of its posts are keyword-rich, or because it has calls to action at the bottom of posts (incidentally, I would argue that a call to action at the bottom of a blog post renders that post an advertisement, which in most states must be approved by the State Bar)—all signs that the author is looking for commercial return on his blogging investment. We know it because it refers to its author in the third person, or because the writing is stilted and lacking in passion.

We know it because it is boring.

A blog doesn’t have to be funny, but if it doesn’t either educate or entertain, it’s boring. The best legal blogs do both.

What is failure? It’s not having fewer readers than someone else—a blog may be a success with an audience of one. It’s not making less money than someone else—most blogs have no dream of making a buck. It’s not even getting linked to less than the next blog—while incoming links may be a metric of success, a blog may succeed without ever being cited.

Failure is stopping. Not writing any more. Giving up.

Failure is quitting.

Boring law bloggers will quit because it’s no fun being boring. And some nonboring law bloggers will quit because . . . well, because other things take higher priority.

So we see a boring law blog, and we don’t subscribe to it or blogroll it or link to it. And eventually the blogger will find that he’s talking to himself, shouting his boring commercial thoughts out into a vacuum. And eventually he’ll quit.

Many LexBlog blogs don’t suck (Vickie Pynchon, Jamie Spencer); maybe most LexBlog blogs don’t suck—there’s a huge well of writing talent in the legal community. But Kevin is selling blogs to lawyers as a marketing scheme—blog to get business—and some of Kevin’s customers wouldn’t be blogging if they didn’t think they could make a buck, so it’s not hard to find blogs in Kevin’s blogroll that do suck. Kevin says, “Most of our clients tell us their blogging is a lot of fun.” I’m willing to bet that there is a high inverse correlation between fun and suckiness.

Like a good kindergarten teacher, Kevin’s job is to encourage the slow kids and leave the smart kids alone. LexBlog props up its blogs with an in-house blogroll so that even those that suck get links from those blogs that don’t, and whose authors really should know better. So even those bloggers who are not having fun, and whose blogs therefore suck, get a little bit of traffic to keep them going.

I’m going to be the mean kindergarten teacher, and direct my comments to the law bloggers who don’t think blogging is a lot of fun: it’s not a lot of fun because your blog sucks. I’m sure there is something you’re good at, but it’s not blogging. You’re wasting your time. If you don’t enjoy writing it, nobody wants to read it.

Quit now.

The Spammer’s Lament

Here’s Chicago lawyer Alan Brinkmeier in response to my Defending People post calling him out for spamming Avvo Answers:

Anyway, even though you disagree that my free online participation is a positive thing, isn’t it a lot more civil to have a dialogue such as this as opposed to your name calling blog [avvo-answhores.html]. One of the things I teach in ethics and professional responsibility to young lawyers is that civility assists lawyers to make a point more rationally, peacefully, and powerfully than name calling.

And here’s Bennett Michaels (Brilliant Business Borrowing! Adoptions! Suspension Lift Kits! Rifle Scopes! Spam Spammity Spam!), on Popehat in response to the calling-out of Seattle Lawyer Spammer Bradley Johnson:

Patrick you are a real a-hole. Why not grow up a little and just not approve the comment like the rest of the world?

Why, when they discover spam, don’t blogs like (list via Eric Turkewitz):

• Eric Turkewitz’s New York Personal Injury Law Blog;
• Scott Greenfield’s Simple Justice;
• Popehat;
• Ronald Miller’s Maryland Injury Lawyer Blog (re: Denver Motorcycle Lawyer Comment—Scott Sullivan);
• Mike’s Crime and Federalism (re: Bradley Johnson, Seattle Spam Lawyer);
• South Florida Lawyers (Let’s Meet Jason Diamond, Ticket Attorney!); and
• Roy Mura’s Coverage Counsel (Outing Blog Content Spammers, Starting with All States Public Adjusters)

just send a quiet email to the spammers? Wouldn’t that be much more . . . civil? In other words, “Why can’t we just have a quiet little talk about this, ending in me promising never to do it again, instead of you outing me and my clients as spammers to the whole world?”

It’s a fair question. The answer: If the problem were simply one lawyer causing one blog to be spammed, then a quiet little talk would probably suffice, but it’s not all about you, Alan Brinkmeier, or Bradley Johnson, or Jason Diamond, or Scott Sullivan, or All States Public Adjusters.

Nobody ever spams just once. When Scott Sullivan’s agent spammed Ronald Miller’s Maryland Injury Lawyer Blog, he also spammed honolulu.injuryboard.com, washingtoninjuryattorneyblog.com, michiganautolaw.com, and probably many others. That’s the point of spam—trying to make worthless or unwanted content valuable by distributing it widely. If Ronald had had a quiet word with Scott Sullivan about his comment spam (which doesn’t work, by the way), it would have stopped the comment spam to Ronald’s blog. But it wouldn’t have kept that particular spammer from spamming everyone else. Bradley Johnson is a case in point: even after promising to stop leaving comment spam, he continued.

It also wouldn’t have made an impression on any other potential spammer. But calling these spammers out publicly might not only get them to change their ways, but also discourage other people from following in their path. A reaslawyer, reading about Scott Sullivan and Bradley Johnson, and Jason Diamond, would be extra-careful who he hires to do his marketing for him (outsource your marketing, outsource your reputation).

Why does that matter? I can’t speak for Turkewitz, Greenfield, Hat, Miller, Mike, SFL, and Mura, but for me it’s mostly a matter of aesthetics. I don’t see the internet as a place to turn a quick buck—a flea market—but as a place to educate and entertain, and to be educated and entertained. Spammers and marketers and everyone else trying to make a quick buck clutter up the internet with their bullshit, obscuring the work of those who actually apply talent and effort to educate and entertain.

It is also a matter (though this is secondary to me) of ethics. The Bradley Johnsons, Jason Diamonds, and Scott Sullivans of the world are trying to commercialize the creative work of others. Rather than try to earn attention by producing interesting and informative content (which they may well be incapable of, as are most people), they are trying to coopt a little of the authority that others have earned.

Even if I don’t write for money, I can fairly object to others trying to make money off my writing. While there is no law on the internet, that doesn’t mean there can be no order. And if those bloggers with some authority (by dint of their readership, which comes because of their talent) want to step up and impose order on their little corner of the internet, then order there will be.

Don’t Be Bradley Johnson

Even a social media tyro like me knows: if you get caught spamming blogs (like Seattle lawyer Bradley Johnson did) and you apologize and promise never to do it again (like Bradley Johnson did) . . .

Don’t do it again (like—you guessed it—Bradley Johnson did).