The Unparodyables

Funniest thing today:

Some "real lawyers oh-so-busy practicing law" seem to have way too much time on their hands: http://tinyurl.com/3xfjcqt

That's New York social-media-for-lawyers yell leader Niki Black, this morning on Twitter. (Don't bother looking for the tweet, it was quickly deleted.)

The site to which the link points is a parody site, making fun of "third wave" lawyers and "legal rebels" (TWLs and LRs). Niki sees the hand of so-called real lawyers busy practicing law behind the obvious parody. Even the name on the site—"Dick Troll" is coarsely parodic.

Except . . . it's not. John Richard Troll, as a moment's investigation would have told Niki, is an Indianapolis lawyer, in practice for 25 years. The site is a sincere attempt to tout TWLs and LRs (who think they're new because they put a label on the things others have been quietly doing for fifteen years).

When followers of a rubric are themselves unable to distinguish earnest expressions of that rubric from parody, they probably shouldn't expect others to take them seriously.