(we)bloggerCon 2

Enjoy the conference!    

• Commune and blossom, 
  
• Nurture our community.  
  
• Hug a skeptic. 
  
• put the “we” back into “blog”  

Leave a few problems for BC3 !

. . weary in Schenectady

HALT is pleased to bring its members and the general public Lifetimes: A Financial and Charitable Planning Guide. This newsletter, available on HALT’s Web site, is a free online resource that provides explanations, tips and recent news about planned giving topics such as charitable lead trusts, retirement income plans, tax benefits of giving real estate, appreciated property and much more. Here are some of the most recent additions to the Lifetimes newsletter:

• 
  
  
  

  Perhaps you are in a financial position to provide for HALT now but prefer to save the personal benefits from such a gift for a future time, when your own needs may change. Deferred gifts often provide a path to the future for you and for HALT. Find out how several options can work for you in the Lifetimes article “Deferred Gifts: Hurry Up and Wait!”


• 
  
  
  

  Also, the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 has proved to have an enormous impact on the lives of many people. In fact, it is possible the changing estate tax will play a role in your estate plans as well. Read “Estate Tax Changes Provide Additional Savings” to lessen any confusion.

In addition to these new articles, visit the Lifetimes eBrochures, which are available-as always-to read or download for free. Go to the article titled “Discover Valuable Assets With Our Free eBrochures” to find out more. You can also find out the many ways to give to HALT on our Give to HALT page

Here are some direct links to Lifetimes resource pages:

“Police said the suspect was one of Messer’s clients and met with Messer at 5:30 p.m., Monday. The two argued, and the suspect left Messer’s office at 1340 M St. S.E. He returned later and clubbed Messer to death, according to a police news release.”

. .

It’s great seeing the varied, thoughtful and lively responses to my request this week for opinions about “turnkey” and ghost-written weblogs. and about the marketing potential of lawyer weblogs.  Folllow this thread for the original posting, “Does Your Weblog Attract Clients?”, and for comments by hands-on webloggers Carolyn Elefant, Ken Lammers, Kevin O’Keefe, Evan Schaeffer, Bryan Gates, Steve Minor, Matt Hommann, Martin Schwimmer, and Denise Howell, with (naturally) some replies from myself (one of which became its own post, “Selling the Appearance of Expertise”). 

• 
  
  Special thanks to Denise for posting on this topic at Bag ‘n’ Baggage, to Carolyn for doing so at MyShingle, to Nancy at Stark County Law Library and Evan at Notes from the (Legal) Underground, and to Kevin Heller for highlighting the issue at Law Tech Advisor.
  
  
• 
  
  (04-16-04) Blawg.org weighed in today with a very positive blurb about LexBlog.
  
  
• 
  
  Update (04-16-04): Denise Howell and lexBlog‘s Kevin O’Keefe had an enlightening discussion yesterday evening in the comments section of Bag ‘n’ Baggage. 
  
  
  
  
  • 
    
    For example, Denise stated:  “ I do think there are differences between weblogs and conventional web sites, and that while one can use the software however one likes, it’s missing the point (the point being an easy and fast way to communicate the site owner’s actual expertise) to pretend someone else’s blog posts are one’s own.” 
    
    
  • 
    
    Kevin replied: “The content that is licensed to the lawyer will be marked by copyright so as to make clear that the lawyer did not write it and in some cases, if the lawyer agrees, we can say such content is provided courtesy of or on the sponsorship of the lawyer or firm.“
    
    
  • 
    
    Editor’s Note: Kevin’s point about making it clear “that the lawyer did not write” lexBlog-supplied content is important, and does not yet appear on the lexBlog website (after what I believe was a thorough search of everypage).

  Please add your perspective on these issues, which we believe are important to the integrity and health of weblogs (as an art, craft, community and business) and to their marketing. 

Update (04-22-04):  I’m pleased to report that Kevin O’Keefe has re-written the lexBlog premium services page, removing a quotation from author Rebecca Blood, which we have noted was taken out of context (leaving out the importance of hands-on weblogging for achieving expertise and authority status), and which seemed to suggest that Ms. Blood endorsed lexBlog’s services. 

  I’d really like to attend BloggerCon II this weekend, but my body is just not up to being behind the wheel from Schenectady to Cambridge (too darn much weblogging, again).  Is anyone going to be near Albany/ Schenectady on the New York Thruway heading to the Conference?  Maybe we could carpool (don’t worry, ethical Esq, haikuEsq, and Prof. Yabut only take up one collective seat).

Speaking of BG2, John Palfrey pointed tonight to a Christian Science Monitor article about the conference: “Blogs: here to stay — with changes,” by Gregory M. Lamb, 04-05-2004, which has some interesting observations on the weblog phenomenon.

Lamb talked to Rebecca Blood of rebecca’s pocket about building a reputation through one’s weblog:

Although making a living just blogging is nearly impossible, a blog can have a great deal of career value by demonstrating one’s expertise and writing skills, thus serving as a “reputation builder,” Blood says by phone from San Francisco. “You can quickly establish yourself as an expert in your field by becoming a kind of one-stop source for information.”  (emphasis added)

Earlier this week, of course, we mentioned Rebecca in two posts — quoting from her book and paraphrasing her, too — on the same topic.  I wonder what she thinks about turnkey services like lexBlog‘s as reputation-builders?   [Okay, I promise to stay off this topic for a few hours — unless I hear from Rebecca.]

. .

It’s so sad that the crushing weight of taxes has kept America an economic peon and military pygmy, with an impoverished population that will never enjoy the benefits of consumerism.

If you surfed over here, looking for tirades about our tax burden and tears over Tax Freedom Day, you can just ride the tide away from these shores, and float over here, here, or there, instead.

. . no yabuts on this one!

For more on Tax-Whiners see our posting Scrooge was Surely a Tax-Whiner.

Afterglow (04-16-04): For some income tax humor, check out The Best of TaxLetter, a collection of the publication’s 31 funniest stories.. Also, for a new-agey perspective, see Cosmic Income Tax at the InnerSelf website.(thanks to Nancy at Stark County Law Library Blog for the pointers).

Kevin O’Keefe has replied to my qualms [e.g., here and there] over the “turnkey” weblog services offered by his new company lexBlog Inc.  My concerns, to be more precise, are that services like lexBlog may

• be overselling the ability of weblogs to generate clients for lawyers;
• be overstating a weblog’s ability to build the reputation of the editor/owner of the site, when initial and ongoing content will be provided by the service, not the lawyer; and
• create a false perception, among members of the public and the profession, of the expertise of a weblog’s lawyer-editor (who may simply be “publisher” rather than “editor” of the site)

Kevin’s first comment dealt mostly with the issue of attracting clients. In my response, I stated, inter alia, that I was concerned about a lawyer using services such as LexBlog to buy the content, commentary, and compassionate caring upon which his or her “reputation” will be built.  That prompted Kevin’s second Comment, on the “ghost-writer” issue that I call Absentee Weblogging or “reputation by proxy.”  Here’s his argument:

“Assume we offer content that is helpful to thousands of average Americans and lawyers complement that with their own contributions because they now have an easy to use site and better yet the lawyer begins to interact with ordinary people via the comment feature on their blog. What is bad about that? If a lawyer does not supplement the content and people still receive helpful info they are not getting now, is that bad? If we have violated the rules of the ‘blog police’ that only content written by the lawyer hosting a site because the site is being operated on blog software as opposed to a very expensive data base driven content management site, that most lawyers could never afford, I plead guilty. But I will be proud of my effort to provide lawyers an easy to use tool that helps people. – Kevin”

Kevin asks “what is bad about this?”  I say

1. It’s bad for the client or referring lawyer, if they are deceived about the level of expertise (or caring) of the weblog owner.
2. It’s bad for the lawyer paying for the content services, if he or she believes that spoonfed content will create the personal touch that has been the hallmark of successful weblogs.
3. And, it’s bad for the weblog community, if the personal voice and integrity that have nurtured the weblog phenomenon are diluted with ersatz personalities, ersatz caring and ersatz expertise.

LexBlog is selling the perception of expertise.  By analogy, it’s reasoning suggests that owning an Olympic Medal is just as significant when it was bought from a pawn shop as when earned in competition.  Kevin quotes Rebecca Blood from The Weblog Handbook, saying that weblogs really do build reputations quickly, but he leaves out the all-important basis given by Blood for that reputation: The individual editor demonstrates (and may actually acquire) his or her expertise and integrity through the process of searching the Web daily for information, news, and articles; then sifting through it, and choosing, summarizing, analyzing the material selected.  (see Blood’s quotation in our prior post)

• Evan Schaeffer says in his Comments to the original posting: “Am I troubled that a law firm might publish a blog that isn’t written by one of its lawyers? In my opinion, there should be a clear indication on the blog that someone other than a firm lawyer has provided the content.”

As ethicalEsq opined in February, “The notion of ghost-written weblogs scares me.  . . . [T]hey signal a new kind of weblogging devoid of the very spark of life that has put magic into this way of communicating and created a community.  Going from weblog as “the unedited voice of an individual” to weblog as the fabricated voice (and image) created for an individual lawyer will turn this fresh community into a stale commodity.  And it won’t work as a marketing tool, because what makes a weblog “good” and attracts repeat visitors is a strong personal voice, content that is interesting and well said, and rapid response time.  [“The Good, The Bad and the Blogly,” by Glenn Harlan Reynolds] Those are three elements very unlikely to come from Blogs-R-Us.

Kevin and LexBlog stress that the legal profession is one of the least reputed in American society, and says that “blogs can help” improve the lawyer’s public image.  The well-organized, informative weblog that demonstrates the knowledge and humanity of an individual lawyer or firm may indeed increase public trust.  But, I fail to see how letting lawyers purchase a “reputation as a trusted expert” will do so.

• lexBlog wants to piggy-back on the goodwill generated by the weblog phenomenon, without assuring its main ingredient — the personally-involved editor.  It reminds me of the time my Mother told me she never puts saffron in her paella.  “You ought to call it something else,” was my reply.  Maybe “lexSite” would be more palatable.

Afterthought (04-14-04): lexBlog and similar marketing services offer to help the weblog owner with search engine optimization.  ethicalEsq is run by a guy with no patience for manipulating tags, templates and keywords (whatever that means).  Nontheless, we’re pleased to see that we just came in second on Google when searching “lexBlog +lawyers.”  We came in fourth when only searching “lexBlog,” just behind Lex Alexander’s Blog on the Run, and a lexblog on zogblaster (edited by an interesting, 20-something young woman in NYC).  We snuck in ahead of leXblog on skyblog, which is in French, and on April 6th posted a picture of the front and back of a $20 bill and a $50 bill.  Even the clueless can stumble into optimization.

• Update (04-22-04):  I’m pleased to report that Kevin O’Keefe has re-written the lexBlog premium services page, removing a quotation from author Rebecca Blood, which we discussed above (as well as here), noting it was taken out of context (leaving out the importance of hands-on weblogging for achieving expertise and authority status), and which seemed to suggest that Ms. Blood endorsed lexBlog’s services.
• post retirement follow-up (Feb. 1, 2010): The ever-vigilant Carolyn Elefant, Scott Greenfield, and Mark Bennett are still patrolling against ghost-written blawgs.  I’m glad they’re willing to stand up against this blight on our profession and the blawgisphere, but it sure is sad that this mangy dog wasn’t put down a long time ago.
  

“?Key”  With this post, I hope to attract Comments from lawyers with weblogs, to learn their experience with this issue; clients who have found and hired a lawyer because of his or her weblog are also invited to Comment. 

  Talking about the creation of lexBlog, Kevin wrote two weeks ago that “I’ve played with blogs long enough to know they work to establish one as an authority (assuming you know something about what you blog about) and work to bring in new clients.” (emphasis added)   Also, the very first line of content on lexBlog’s homepage proclaims “More effective than advertising,” while the first example of what you can “easily” do with your weblog is “cultivate new business ”  Inside the the site, on the page describing their services, the bold-print caption says:

A lawyer’s most powerful marketing tool.

The lexBlog solution for image building, promotion & PR. 

 

Realism About Weblawgs from a Born Optimist    

Most “buzz” starts with people with a financial or emotional stake in the “next new thing,” and is then amplified in their own echo chambers.   Those who believe the buzz very often get stung.   As I’ve been opining here, no amount of cyber-smoke or number-mumbo-jumbo can cover up the fact that the jury is just starting to deliberate (and has almost no evidence to consider) on whether lawyers can effectively use weblogs to increase clientele and profits.  There are a lot of other good reasons to start weblogs, but income generation is not a realistic near-term goal for the vast majority of webloggers.  Thankyou, Carolyn [Elefant], for your cautious approach.

Those Misleading Traffic Stats 

1. 
   
   [I]t’s foolhardy for anyone to gauge the marketing value of a weblog (or the professional qualities of its editor) by giving any significant credence to its “web traffic” figures, whether counted as “page hits” or “individual visitors”.  For weblog boosters to suggest otherwise seems — to me — to be very misleading. 
   
   
2. 
   
   We need to be far less effusive in “selling” the importance  of weblogs as a marketing tool — at least until we can gauge whether the “visitors” are human and the humans are doing any buying.

Ghosts Will Kill the Legal Weblog Community

1. 
   
   Despite my esteem for Jerry [Lawson] and Kevin, I must protest that the notion of creating content for weblogs — especially postings — threatens to turn weblogs into merely a marketing tool, as opposed to being a special, personal platform that is also a marketing tool. 
   
   
2. 
   
   One final consumer advocate question:  If the lawyers who are the market for vended weblogs don’t have enough time to produce the weblog themselves, just where are they going to find the time to give competent and diligent service to the expected flood of new clients?

O’Keefe & Giacalone on Marketing Weblawg Marketing  

1. 
   
   I’ve never said they can’t possibly work to bring in clients — I’ve said that merely spouting the buzz about all the added “traffic” is inherently misleading without a lot of caveats, not only because no one knows what the traffic number signify, but because no one can even point to anecdotal evidence of a significant number of weblawg success stories for bringing in clients (as opposed to ambiguous page-hits).” 
   
   
2. 
   
   As I suggested in my post about ghost-written weblogs, . . a weblawg that has most of the activities you prescribe done by someone other than the purported lawyer-author is in many ways misleading.

• Has Evan had any results from his Illinois Trial Practice Weblog or The Illinois Personal Injury Blog?  Did  BenefitsBlog benefit B. Janell Grenier yet?   What about George Wallace at Declarations & Exclusions?  ot Larry Sullivan in Delaware? 
  
• Has UnivAtty brought Chris Holmes any moonlighting gigs or job offers?  Have Matt Conigilaro, Steve Covell, Howard Bashman, or Denise Howell generated appellate clients? 
  
• Have BizLawTech, The 10B-5 Daily, Business Lawyer, or Unintended Consequences generated corporate law business for their editors?  Have Jeralyn Merritt or Ken Lammers been getting a lot of weblog-related criminal defendants?  How about client-generation at Lee Rosen’s N.C. divorce law weblog?
  
•  Have the employment weblogs attracted paying clients?  E.g., Ed Sill’s, Martin Censor‘s, Sam Heldman‘s?  How about First Amendments sites, like John Maltbie‘s, and Actual Malice?  Franchise law is pretty specific, so what about The Franchise Law Blog?  Immigration law, too? Same for Insurance Defense?
  
• Has a patent law weblog brought clients for Erik Heels or Kelly Talcott?  What about the personal injury expertise of webloggers Frank Pasternak or Monique Svenson?  And the tax law savvy of Stu Levine and Decnavda?  Did Martin Schwimmer‘s trademark weblog generate any clients?  What about Kevin Heller‘s techlaw weblog?
  
• Did Marcia hit paydirt with her Indiana Law Blog?  Has the KC Lawyer found riches in niches?  Did weblogging turn sw Virginia coal to diamonds for lawyer Steve Minor?  Attract a crowd to Brian Peterson‘s WV law office?  And, finally, what did weblawg celebrity status do for Ernie the Attorney‘s bottom line in Louisiana?
  
  
  
  •   Only limitations of body and time keep this list from growing.  We’d like to hear from any lawyer with a weblog (or without) who has an opinion on these topics — and from clients and all sorts of other human beings, too.  That means you, Scheherazade, plus Ms. Elefant, Mr. Homann, and the FederalLawyerGuy, too.  [Update: check out Carolyn Elefant’s thoughtful MyShingle post on this topic.]
    
  • The Editor here would greatly appreciate input from weblog early-adaptors like Tom Mighell, Jim Moore, Dave Winer, John Palfrey, Dennis Kennedy, Larry Bodine, and Glenn K. Garners — as well as insights from the LawMeme gang, the Blog.Book guys, the Volokh conspirators, and Professors Lessig and Bainbridge.
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    •  
    
    
  • Your thoughts on the Reputation by Proxy issue discussed above are particularly welcome.
    
  • Those who would rather not make public declarations are encouraged to send email, and their identities will be protected in any future summaries of this survey.

With this post, I hope to attract Comments from lawyers with weblogs, to learn their experience with this issue; clients who have found and hired a lawyer because of his or her weblog are also invited to Comment.

Talking about the creation of lexBlog, Kevin wrote two weeks ago that “I’ve played with blogs long enough to know they work to establish one as an authority (assuming you know something about what you blog about) and work to bring in new clients.” (emphasis added) Also, the very first line of content on lexBlog’s homepage proclaims “More effective than advertising,” while the first example of what you can “easily” do with your weblog is “cultivate new business ”  Inside the the site, on the page describing their services, the bold-print caption says:

A lawyer’s most powerful marketing tool.

The lexBlog solution for image building, promotion & PR.

[W]e get your specific legal content flowing. We’ll give you professionally written, edited and selected text for:

• An overview of law relating to your particular legal specialty. It’s targeted to consumers or businesses or both — or to the audience you identify.
• Regularly updated content by separate categories:
  • Updates on law relating to your firm’s specialty
  • News stories relating to your specialty
  • Commentary, analysis and suggested action from lawyers
  • Lawyer/firm activities

Solidify reputation as trusted expert

This is the plan that will utterly solidify your reputation as a trusted expert in your field and locale. With our Premium service, you’re launched to the forefront of your area of practice, perceived as a leading authority by the public, colleagues, the media and clients.

. . . We’ll constantly post news stories and legal updates relating to your area of expertise, and if relevant, your locale. We’ll complement that with posts on relevant topics we receive from your trade journals, email newsletters, listservs, bar section magazines, CLE materials, blogs and Web sites.

We’ll encourage you and show you how to easily complement our posts with your own insights and analysis — and infinitely valuable service to the public, media, colleagues and prospective clients.

One final excerpt from the lexBlog site:  Here’s a quote that is highlighted on the Premium service page; it’s by Rebecca Blood author of The Weblog Handbook, who is talking about weblogs in general (emphases added):

“Make no mistake this stuff works. I’ve seen businesses, especially individuals make names for themselves, going from unknown to ‘expert’ in a year by providing a hub of information about a specific profession. When a reader’s first impulse about wanting information about a given subject is to visit a topic-driven weblog, it is a small leap to hire its editor to speak, consult, or otherwise practice their craft when the need arises.“

[Follow-up (04-12-04): Here are the two sentences just prior to the above quote, in author Blood’s section about Reputation Building (at page 63) (emphasis added):

By maintaining a weblog that is tightly focused on a particular subject, these weblog editors educate themselves by searching the Web daily for news and information pertinent to their area of expertise, exercising judgment in weighing the relevance or importance of what they find, and articulating their thoughts on links that they decide to include, either by summarizing the article or by analyzing the material presented.   It is what experts do, and this practice will speed anyone’s progress to that end.]

Realism About Weblawgs from a Born Optimist

Most “buzz” starts with people with a financial or emotional stake in the “next new thing,” and is then amplified in their own echo chambers.   Those who believe the buzz very often get stung.   As I’ve been opining here, no amount of cyber-smoke or number-mumbo-jumbo can cover up the fact that the jury is just starting to deliberate (and has almost no evidence to consider) on whether lawyers can effectively use weblogs to increase clientele and profits.  There are a lot of other good reasons to start weblogs, but income generation is not a realistic near-term goal for the vast majority of webloggers.  Thankyou, Carolyn [Elefant], for your cautious approach.

Those Misleading Traffic Stats

1. [I]t’s foolhardy for anyone to gauge the marketing value of a weblog (or the professional qualities of its editor) by giving any significant credence to its “web traffic” figures, whether counted as “page hits” or “individual visitors”.  For weblog boosters to suggest otherwise seems — to me — to be very misleading.
2. We need to be far less effusive in “selling” the importance  of weblogs as a marketing tool — at least until we can gauge whether the “visitors” are human and the humans are doing any buying.

Ghosts Will Kill the Legal Weblog Community

1. Despite my esteem for Jerry [Lawson] and Kevin, I must protest that the notion of creating content for weblogs — especially postings — threatens to turn weblogs into merely a marketing tool, as opposed to being a special, personal platform that is also a marketing tool.
2. One final consumer advocate question:  If the lawyers who are the market for vended weblogs don’t have enough time to produce the weblog themselves, just where are they going to find the time to give competent and diligent service to the expected flood of new clients?

O’Keefe & Giacalone on Marketing Weblawg Marketing

1. I’ve never said they can’t possibly work to bring in clients — I’ve said that merely spouting the buzz about all the added “traffic” is inherently misleading without a lot of caveats, not only because no one knows what the traffic number signify, but because no one can even point to anecdotal evidence of a significant number of weblawg success stories for bringing in clients (as opposed to ambiguous page-hits).”
2. As I suggested in my post about ghost-written weblogs, . . a weblawg that has most of the activities you prescribe done by someone other than the purported lawyer-author is in many ways misleading.

• Has Evan had any results from his Illinois Trial Practice Weblog or The Illinois Personal Injury Blog?  Did BenefitsBlog benefit B. Janell Grenier yet? What about George Wallace at Declarations & Exclusions?  ot Larry Sullivan in Delaware?
• Has UnivAtty brought Chris Holmes any moonlighting gigs or job offers?  Have Matt Conigilaro, Steve Covell, Howard Bashman, or Denise Howell generated appellate clients?
• Have BizLawTech, The 10B-5 Daily, Business Lawyer, or Unintended Consequences generated corporate law business for their editors?  Have Jeralyn Merritt or Ken Lammers been getting a lot of weblog-related criminal defendants?  How about client-generation at Lee Rosen’s N.C. divorce law weblog?
• Have the employment weblogs attracted paying clients?  E.g., Ed Sill’s, Martin Censor‘s, Sam Heldman‘s?  How about First Amendments sites, like John Maltbie‘s, and Actual Malice?  Franchise law is pretty specific, so what about The Franchise Law Blog?  Immigration law, too? Same for Insurance Defense?
• Has a patent law weblog brought clients for Erik Heels or Kelly Talcott?  What about the personal injury expertise of webloggers Frank Pasternak or Monique Svenson?  And the tax law savvy of Stu Levine and Decnavda?  Did Martin Schwimmer‘s trademark weblog generate any clients?  What about Kevin Heller‘s techlaw weblog?
• Did Marcia hit paydirt with her Indiana Law Blog?  Has the KC Lawyer found riches in niches?  Did weblogging turn sw Virginia coal to diamonds for lawyer Steve Minor?  Attract a crowd to Brian Peterson‘s WV law office?  And, finally, what did weblawg celebrity status do for Ernie the Attorney‘s bottom line in Louisiana?
  • Only limitations of body and time keep this list from growing.  We’d like to hear from any lawyer with a weblog (or without) who has an opinion on these topics — and from clients and all sorts of other human beings, too.  That means you, Scheherazade, plus Ms. Elefant, Mr. Homann, and the FederalLawyerGuy, too. [Update: check out Carolyn Elefant’s thoughtful MyShingle post on this topic.]
  • The Editor here would greatly appreciate input from weblog early-adaptors like Tom Mighell, Jim Moore, Dave Winer, John Palfrey, Dennis Kennedy, Larry Bodine, and Glenn K. Garners — as well as insights from the LawMeme gang, the Blog.Book guys, the Volokh conspirators, and Professors Lessig and Bainbridge.
    • • • • • • • • • • 
  • Your thoughts on the Reputation by Proxy issue discussed above are particularly welcome.
  • Those who would rather not make public declarations are encouraged to send email, and their identities will be protected in any future summaries of this survey.

  The La Plata, Maryland, law firm of Jenkins, Jenkins & Jenkins apparently decided last winter to use a connection with NASCAR motorsports as a branding and marketing tool.   The three-lawyer firm includes Louis P. Jenkins, Sr., who founded the firm in 1955, and his two sons, Frank and Louis, Jr..  Frank Jenkins is the moving force behind the motorsport connection.  In the A/P article, he explains:

“Anytime you are involved in a legal situation it’s pretty unsettling. People want a friend there.  They see we are involved in stock car racing as a sponsor and feel we have something in common — a love of racing. So they call to ask us to help.”

“We’re in motorsports to get our name out there, to receive brand recognition and to let NASCAR fans know we are as big a fan as they are.”

To make sure the link to auto racing won’t be missed, the firm’s website domain name is  racinglaw.com/ .  It’s doesn’t “do” Racing Law, of course.  Instead, the firm appears to favor personal injury law, and lists its practice areas as Automobile Accidents; Corporate; Criminal; DUI/DWI & Traffic; Divorce; Medical Malpractice; Personal Injury; Real Estate Settlements; and Wrongful Death.  

It’s a little hard to understand why this very-local law firm is seeking national attention and clients.  Unfortunately, the firm’s About Us page gives no information at all about the founder, and has only the picture and name of Louis, Jr.   However, Frank Jenkins is said to be a member of the Maryland Bar (since 1993).  Although Frank’s short bio gives us the names of his high school and college, we are merely told “Mr. Jenkins graduated from law school.” (Given the NASCAR image he is cultivating, I wonder if Frank is covering up graduation from a highly prestigious law school.)  

  I don’t know how much money it costs to become a major sponsor on the NASCAR circuit.  Clearly, very little of the firm’s marketing budget went into the content of its website.  Although we learn that “We are committed to providing aggressive representation for our clients” in personal injury cases, there is not one word of substantive information about any of the practice areas.  The Resources/Links page has two law-related sites — the ABA and the Maryland Bar Association.  It also includes a number of race driver fan websites, and a link to the law firm’s public relations firm.

• I’ve voiced my concerns over law firm branding before (see Brand LEX), but I finally read Branding the Law Firm by the marketing firm InterAct.  Frankly, I’m as skeptical as ever.
  
• Soon (I hope), Matt Homann will give us his explanation of value billing, to help assuage my concern over the use of branding and value pricing to achieve “premium pricing” of lawyer fees.  Matt suggested last month that I read The Firm of the Future: A Guide for Accountants, Lawyers, and Other Professional Services by Paul Dunn & Ronald J. Baker.  Matt said that the book “sets out their vision of value pricing and serves as much of the model for my new firm.”   I couldn’t find the book at my local Library (and won’t pay $40+ to buy one).  However, I did use the Amazon.com “Search in the Book” feature to check out “value pricing” or “value billing” and ethics.  The results were not the least bit calming for me on whether value billing will result in reasonable fees.  For example (at p. 217)
  

  
  

  
  

  
  
  1. The book asserts there is no ethical contradiction, quoting from an ABA report, which says an agreed upon price is fair subject to market realities and the attorney’s professional obligations.  Of course, that begs the question: the whole issue is what the lawyer’s obligations are when reaching the fee agreement (such as to disclose the amount of time needed to perform the work; or to limit profit to a reasonable level). and
     
  2. The book also says value pricing is ethically okay because businesses do it all the time — using airlines charging different fliers different prices for the same seat, movie theatres’ price for popcorn, and premium ice cream makers, as examples.  My reaction:  None of those sellers have fiducial duties; none promises to put the customers’ interests first (except when that will incease profits); none sell a product whose qualities the buyer is unable to judge.  As I wrote back to Matt, “If movie theater popcorn is the touchstone for the ethics of value billing, I rest my case.”
     
  3. Update: For more on this topic see our posts LexThink about higher fees (er, value billing), Value Billing or Venal Bilking? and chronomentrophobia.

  Recent press about a NASCAR-sponsoring law firm has once again left me puzzled as to just how the client benefits from the branding efforts of lawyers. (E.g., AP/ESPN, Firm sponsors Cup, Busch, Truck teams; Larry Bodine’s Law Marketing Blog; and here)

The La Plata, Maryland, law firm of Jenkins, Jenkins & Jenkins apparently decided last winter to use a connection with NASCAR motorsports as a branding and marketing tool. The three-lawyer firm includes Louis P. Jenkins, Sr., who founded the firm in 1955, and his two sons, Frank and Louis, Jr.. Frank Jenkins is the moving force behind the motorsport connection. In the A/P article, he explains:

“Anytime you are involved in a legal situation it’s pretty unsettling. People want a friend there. They see we are involved in stock car racing as a sponsor and feel we have something in common — a love of racing. So they call to ask us to help.”

“We’re in motorsports to get our name out there, to receive brand recognition and to let NASCAR fans know we are as big a fan as they are.”

To make sure the link to auto racing won’t be missed, the firm’s website domain name is racinglaw.com/ . It’s doesn’t “do” Racing Law, of course. Instead, the firm appears to favor personal injury law, and lists its practice areas as Automobile Accidents; Corporate; Criminal; DUI/DWI & Traffic; Divorce; Medical Malpractice; Personal Injury; Real Estate Settlements; and Wrongful Death.

It’s a little hard to understand why this very-local law firm is seeking national attention and clients. Unfortunately, the firm’s About Us page gives no information at all about the founder, and has only the picture and name of Louis, Jr. However, Frank Jenkins is said to be a member of the Maryland Bar (since 1993). Although Frank’s short bio gives us the names of his high school and college, we are merely told “Mr. Jenkins graduated from law school.” (Given the NASCAR image he is cultivating, I wonder if Frank is covering up graduation from a highly prestigious law school.)

I don’t know how much money it costs to become a major sponsor on the NASCAR circuit. Clearly, very little of the firm’s marketing budget went into the content of its website. Although we learn that “We are committed to providing aggressive representation for our clients” in personal injury cases, there is not one word of substantive information about any of the practice areas. The Resources/Links page has two law-related sites — the ABA and the Maryland Bar Association. It also includes a number of race driver fan websites, and a link to the law firm’s public relations firm.

How does the law client benefit from this expensive branding campaign? Is getting “a friend” who shares your love of motor-racing advantageous to the “upset” personal injury client? The DUI defendant?

• I’ve voiced my concerns over law firm branding before (see Brand LEX), but I finally read Branding the Law Firm by the marketing firm InterAct. Frankly, I’m as skeptical as ever.
• Soon (I hope), Matt Homann will give us his explanation of value billing, to help assuage my concern over the use of branding and value pricing to achieve “premium pricing” of lawyer fees. Matt suggested last month that I read The Firm of the Future: A Guide for Accountants, Lawyers, and Other Professional Services by Paul Dunn & Ronald J. Baker. Matt said that the book “sets out their vision of value pricing and serves as much of the model for my new firm.” I couldn’t find the book at my local Library (and won’t pay $40+ to buy one). However, I did use the Amazon.com “Search in the Book” feature to check out “value pricing” or “value billing” and ethics. The results were not the least bit calming for me on whether value billing will result in reasonable fees. For example (at p. 217)
  

  1. The book asserts there is no ethical contradiction, quoting from an ABA report, which says an agreed upon price is fair subject to market realities and the attorney’s professional obligations. Of course, that begs the question: the whole issue is what the lawyer’s obligations are when reaching the fee agreement (such as to disclose the amount of time needed to perform the work; or to limit profit to a reasonable level). and
  2. The book also says value pricing is ethically okay because businesses do it all the time — using airlines charging different fliers different prices for the same seat, movie theatres’ price for popcorn, and premium ice cream makers, as examples. My reaction: None of those sellers have fiducial duties; none promises to put the customers’ interests first (except when that will incease profits); none sell a product whose qualities the buyer is unable to judge. As I wrote back to Matt, “If movie theater popcorn is the touchstone for the ethics of value billing, I rest my case.”
  3. Update: For more on this topic see our posts LexThink about higher fees (er, value billing), Value Billing or Venal Bilking? and chronomentrophobia.

  . . ??

Indeed, it was UCL who “inspired” Scheherazade’s post, which argues against the use of “em” (or any epicene pronoun) to mask the gender of the subject person.  My summary of Sherry’s position is “if gender isn’t important to the story, just pick one; don’t make up an annoying pronoun.”  UCL thinks there are times when you owe it to the subject to make sure her or his identity can’t be determined from reading the piece; UCL also thinks just picking or switching genders is “lying” to your audience.  If it matters, I agree stylistically with Sherry.   On a practical level, it also seems that masking the gender may not solve UCL‘s problem of keeping the subject’s identity secret.  If readers would know who the person is when his or her gender is specified, masking the gender probably offers little protection.

 

  “This is one of those topics upon which you will never please everyone, but . . . on my site, I try to use the plural ‘they’ whenever possible, but often this isn’t possible. In those cases, I use ‘he.’ I’ve always felt this was the language that was handed down to us, etc. Well, lately I started changing my mind somewhat, and began substituting ‘she’ every now and then. My wife, who serves an my editor from time to time, said this was absurb. I should stick with “he,” she told me. She’s always taken the non-specific ‘he’ to mean ‘he or she.’ So I’ve got to go with my wife — ‘he’ it is.”

• 
  
  For example, after a couple of decades, even the convention of “he/she” and “his/her” still grates on many when seen in print — and it is way too clumsy when speaking.
  
  
• 
  
  Similarly, the “they/their” controversy still rages, with traditionalists still insisting that they are plural forms that should never be used with singular antecedents.  Proponents, on the other hand, insist there is a long and glorious history of using the terms, and they want the grammar police to lighten up.  I’m not fond of the singular use of they or their, and am tickled by its etymology: “Middle English, from Old Norse their, masculine pl. demonstrative and personal pron.”

“delete key neg” . .

1. 
   
   As with “he/his/him” and “she/hers/her”, there must be subject, possessive and object forms of the pronoun.
   
   
2. 
   
   Each pronoun form should be reasonably attractive to look at, say and hear — and its pronunciation and spelling should be apparent to the vast majority of readers and listeners.
   
   
3. 
   
   The pronoun forms should also correspond as much as possible with the forms used in he/his/him and she/hers/her: (a) like he and she, the subjective form should start with a consonant and have the “long e” vowel sound; (b) like his and hers, the possessive form should end with an “s”; and (c) the objective form should either end in a consonant other than the “m” in him or the “r” in her, or should blend the two into “-rm.”
   
   
4. 
   
   If possible, the new words should not have homonyms, connotations, or foreign translations, that detract from their acceptance, seriousness, or clarity.

• 
  
  “em” is already a word and it means the letter “m”  —  in our language, “M” is regularly used to designate “male”. 
  
  
• 
  
  the acronym “EM” has lots of meanings, including:
  
  
  
  
  • 
    
    EM: enlisted man (A male member of the armed forces who ranks below a commissioned officer or warrant officer.)
    
    
  • 
    
    EM: (law) A brand or stigma, having the shape of an M, formerly impressed on one convicted of manslaughter and admitted to the benefit of clergy.
  
  
• 
  
  because it is used for subject and object, and has no possessive form, “em” is inadequate as a substitute for forms of he and she — in fact, it’s more like a lowercase nickname or subsitute name for the person (who you might just as well call “X”, which is the custom in our language);

  If we rule out “em”, and follow the suggested criteria above, the most appropriate options for the subject form of a gender-neutral pronoun appear to be: de, ve and ze.   [Click here, if you are dying to know why other options seem unsuitable to me.]  Of these three, my preference is “de” (pronounced “dee”).  Granted, the word de might be confused with the State of Delaware, or derided as Brooklynese for “the,” but it seems far less exotic than ze (which has a French accent, don’t you think?), or than ve.

• 
  
  And, “de” has an appropriate linguistic history:  In Dutch, it is (1) used to refer to a particular person or thing, or group of people or things, already mentioned, implied or known; or (2) used before a singular noun: denoting all the members of a group or class.

  So, advocates for having and using a gender-neutral pronoun need to unite on a single set of pronouns and inform the English-speaking world of their goal.  If anyone disagrees with the choice of de/darms/darm, de should leave darms opinion in our Comment box.  I thank darm in advance.  For those who don’t feel an urgent need for gender-neutral pronouns, I suggest adopting a position of bemusement rather than annoyance — it cuts down on the agita.

  . . ??

Indeed, it was UCL who “inspired” Scheherazade’s post, which argues against the use of “em” (or any epicene pronoun) to mask the gender of the subject person.  My summary of Sherry’s position is “if gender isn’t important to the story, just pick one; don’t make up an annoying pronoun.”  UCL thinks there are times when you owe it to the subject to make sure her or his identity can’t be determined from reading the piece; UCL also thinks just picking or switching genders is “lying” to your audience.  If it matters, I agree stylistically with Sherry.   On a practical level, it also seems that masking the gender may not solve UCL‘s problem of keeping the subject’s identity secret.  If readers would know who the person is when his or her gender is specified, masking the gender probably offers little protection.

 

  “This is one of those topics upon which you will never please everyone, but . . . on my site, I try to use the plural ‘they’ whenever possible, but often this isn’t possible. In those cases, I use ‘he.’ I’ve always felt this was the language that was handed down to us, etc. Well, lately I started changing my mind somewhat, and began substituting ‘she’ every now and then. My wife, who serves an my editor from time to time, said this was absurb. I should stick with “he,” she told me. She’s always taken the non-specific ‘he’ to mean ‘he or she.’ So I’ve got to go with my wife — ‘he’ it is.”

• 
  
  For example, after a couple of decades, even the convention of “he/she” and “his/her” still grates on many when seen in print — and it is way too clumsy when speaking.
  
  
• 
  
  Similarly, the “they/their” controversy still rages, with traditionalists still insisting that they are plural forms that should never be used with singular antecedents.  Proponents, on the other hand, insist there is a long and glorious history of using the terms, and they want the grammar police to lighten up.  I’m not fond of the singular use of they or their, and am tickled by its etymology: “Middle English, from Old Norse their, masculine pl. demonstrative and personal pron.”

“delete key neg” . .

1. 
   
   As with “he/his/him” and “she/hers/her”, there must be subject, possessive and object forms of the pronoun.
   
   
2. 
   
   Each pronoun form should be reasonably attractive to look at, say and hear — and its pronunciation and spelling should be apparent to the vast majority of readers and listeners.
   
   
3. 
   
   The pronoun forms should also correspond as much as possible with the forms used in he/his/him and she/hers/her: (a) like he and she, the subjective form should start with a consonant and have the “long e” vowel sound; (b) like his and hers, the possessive form should end with an “s”; and (c) the objective form should either end in a consonant other than the “m” in him or the “r” in her, or should blend the two into “-rm.”
   
   
4. 
   
   If possible, the new words should not have homonyms, connotations, or foreign translations, that detract from their acceptance, seriousness, or clarity.

• 
  
  “em” is already a word and it means the letter “m”  —  in our language, “M” is regularly used to designate “male”. 
  
  
• 
  
  the acronym “EM” has lots of meanings, including:
  
  
  
  
  • 
    
    EM: enlisted man (A male member of the armed forces who ranks below a commissioned officer or warrant officer.)
    
    
  • 
    
    EM: (law) A brand or stigma, having the shape of an M, formerly impressed on one convicted of manslaughter and admitted to the benefit of clergy.
  
  
• 
  
  because it is used for subject and object, and has no possessive form, “em” is inadequate as a substitute for forms of he and she — in fact, it’s more like a lowercase nickname or subsitute name for the person (who you might just as well call “X”, which is the custom in our language);

  If we rule out “em”, and follow the suggested criteria above, the most appropriate options for the subject form of a gender-neutral pronoun appear to be: de, ve and ze.   [Click here, if you are dying to know why other options seem unsuitable to me.]  Of these three, my preference is “de” (pronounced “dee”).  Granted, the word de might be confused with the State of Delaware, or derided as Brooklynese for “the,” but it seems far less exotic than ze (which has a French accent, don’t you think?), or than ve.

• 
  
  And, “de” has an appropriate linguistic history:  In Dutch, it is (1) used to refer to a particular person or thing, or group of people or things, already mentioned, implied or known; or (2) used before a singular noun: denoting all the members of a group or class.

  So, advocates for having and using a gender-neutral pronoun need to unite on a single set of pronouns and inform the English-speaking world of their goal.  If anyone disagrees with the choice of de/darms/darm, de should leave darms opinion in our Comment box.  I thank darm in advance.  For those who don’t feel an urgent need for gender-neutral pronouns, I suggest adopting a position of bemusement rather than annoyance — it cuts down on the agita.