In 1993 The New Yorker published this now-classic cartoon with the caption, "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog." Initially created for a little chuckle, it's turned into a prophetic warning. Anyone could be lurking on the other side of that keyboard.

One example is now playing out at the websites of Scott Greenfield and Mark Bennett, who are being cyber-stalked, as you can read at the two links at the bottom. The stalker happens to be a convicted rapist, and Twitter is his tool.

And this is worth writing about as a lesson to newcomers to the blogosphere and those who think acquiring a jillion Twitter followers, or a bazillion Facebook friends, will magically lead your nascent law firm down the Yellow Brick Road to Oz. It doesn't work that way. And it could even be dangerous.

You would be foolish not heed the cautions of Greenfield and Bennett. Don't be so quick to add Twitter and Facebook buddies under the pretension that these networks give you a level of familiarity with others if that familiarity doesn't actually exist. If you don't know how to say no then you aren't an adult.

Just as social networks are used by the innocent, so too are they used by trolls, malcontents and criminals. You don't want to learn the hard way about the difference between a follower and a stalker. This is particularly true since, as Kevin O'Keefe points out, there is software that will help buy Twitter followers. He issues his own mea cupla on once touting the benefits of large numbers of followers.

I've never been a fan of Twitter and the blizzard of garbage it sends over the transom at the user. If you use the service (or any other) quality must take precedence over quantity.

As Sergeant Phil Esterhaus used to say on Hill Street Blues, "Hey, let's be careful out there."

• The Lessons of One Psycho on Twitter (Greenfield)

• The Worst Lawyer in Houston (Bennett)

Labels: Blogging, Twitter

I've been chosen by the ABA Journal for the second year in a row as part of its Blawg 100, the 100 best law blogs as decided by their editorial staff. That's nice. I'm deeply flattered to be in such company. They've placed me in the "Geo" category if you are inclined to vote in these types of things. And it would be nice if you were so inclined.

But two other things about the list are worth noting: Its metamorphosis over the course of its three-year run with respect to personal injury blogs, and the fact that inclusion (or exclusion) isn't something to brag about too much.

First, let's look at the changes from Year 1. In the 2007 inaugural issue there were no personal injury blogs -- none, nada, zippo -- a subject that I wrote about and caught the attention of others (ABA Blawg 100 Gets The Conversation Going). Many niches were excluded. At that time I noted several worthy personal injury blogs:

It's not a question of one blog being picked over another since this is, after all, just another vanity contest that small niche blogs don't have a shot of winning. No, the significant thing is that the vaunted American Bar Association simply doesn't think that this field of law is relevant. The decision to ignore a vast segment of the law speaks volumes about the organization.

In Year 2, 50 of the initial selections were replaced, and there were now two personal injury related blogs, this one and Drug and Device Law.  Nice to be included and nice to see that this substantial area of law was no longer being ignored by the ABA.

And now this year there are six, count 'em six, different law blogs that are related to the personal injury field. In addition to mine, the ABA has selected:

• Drug and Device Law

• The Poptort

• John Hochfelder's New York Injury Cases (and Hochfelder is still in his rookie year)

• Bill Marler's Marler Blog

• Evan Schaeffer's Beyond the Underground

Addendum: And if you include the Namby Pamby Attorney's comic rants, there are seven.

(If you go back and look at my 2007 post on the subject, by the way, you will see that D&D, Marler, and Schaeffer are all on my list of who should be included. The PopTort and Hochfelder blogs didn't yet exist.)

So six out of 100 is pretty fair representation. Well done, ABA Journal.

But...there were many notable blogs that aren't on the list. Just perusing my blog roll, for instance, Overlawyered and Lowering the Bar really jump out at me. What happened?

I have to assume that cutting the list to 100 is a pretty tough job -- they want both big and small, profs and practitioners, regional and national, quirky and serious -- and that part of the problem is trying to put blogs into categories. I'm in the "Geo" category, for instance, and that befits the name of this tiny corner of the web, despite the fact I go elsewhere often. I stretch that definition often to include attorney marketing, judiciary issues, ethics, and related subjects.

So here is what I think the ABA did to solve the problem. They narrowed the list of 2,000 - 3,000 law blogs down to about 150-200. Then they printed out the names of each one on a piece of paper, removed Above the Law and Volokh to make sure they made the cut, and chucked the rest at a staircase. Those that landed on the top stairs were stuffed into the ABA categories.

Now one last item, if I still have your attention. Voting. Its worth noting that when you go to vote in this beauty pageant, you can vote for all the PI blogs, even if we are in the same category. You get 10 votes, and you can spread them out any way you wish. So I say vote for all the PI blogs.

Last year I came in second in the regional category to the China Law Blog, which really isn't fair given the relative populations of New York and China. Also, Dan Harris over at China Law Blog was begging for votes like there was no tomorrow, and is doing the same thing today at his blog and repeatedly on Twitter.  I won't beg, the way he does. I'll just give you a picture of my chief supporter, Paris Hilton. Now really, is it any contest as to who you would vote for?

Labels: Blogging

The marketers and promoters love social media. They just don't talk about the hidden risk. They think every lawyer should be involved and that those not involved just don't get it.

All I ever seem to read is how great it is for connecting with others and drumming up business. But never a word about how it can kill business.

Yes, social media such as Twitter and Facebook can kill your business. And it's better to learn that lesson now than later. Lawyers can lose clients, or simply miss the opportunity to be retained.

I saw this today when I Googled myself. I did this after Scott Greenfield wrote a piece that created abundant commentary, centering on the fact that he types his posts up with exceptional speed, but never edits. Anyone that reads his Simple Justice can see this in many a post.

And I wondered, if a potential new client was given my name by another, and that person Googled me, what would they see?

Well, the first page of my results shows three separate social media sites: Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. They show up there despite the fact that I've not exactly been the biggest user of those sites over the last year. (My opinion that Twitter stinks remains unchanged, though I continue to drop links into it when I post something new here.)

So this is what the potential new client will see, even if you have an active presence on the web. Since I've written over 800 posts in this space since I started in November 2006, and received thousands of inbound links, I probably fit the definition of active presence. And yet, those three sites still manage to crowd out links from so many others.

So if social media sites will be on the first page of what your potential client sees, then those sites must be appealing to the client. And by appealing, I don't mean that you have to strut your legal stuff. Rather, you have to make sure you don't turn off the client.

And that's the danger; turning off the potential client by prattling away with all types of trite tidbits that only the most devoted of significant others could care about. Is this what you want your new clients to see? Because if that is what you are typing, that is what they will see.

And not only will they see it, but they will see when you wrote it. Ten posts written during business hours will make a client think two things:

1. Why is the lawyer writing about this stuff during work hours? I want a lawyer that is busy with a good book of business. (Crowded restaurants are usually crowded for a good reason; empty ones usually empty for a good reason.)
2. Will the lawyer be Twittering instead of working on my case?

The same risks, of course, may exist for blogs. And it is one that I often think about when writing. (For the record, I generally write at night or in early morning, but can edit the time stamp. I've composed many a post in my head while going for early morning runs on taking the train to/from the city.)

While many lawyers write with the hopes that future clients will read their stuff, I often fear it, particularly when going off topic. It is that fear of clients reading my words that makes me kill many a story before it gets published. It may be one too many that goes off-topic or it tackles a subject in a way that just turns people off. Personal attacks on certain people, for instance, can easily lead to backlash.

But at least I know that if I write something dumb, it will be quickly buried on the blog and (hopefully) forgotten in two months time. That won't happen as easily with the big social media companies though. Those links, which likely contain "fluffier" stuff than a law blog would handle, will be right there on page 1 of your results. And you may lose the biggest case of your career because the client went elsewhere. And you never even knew.

And one last thing to think about, since someone somewhere will holler, "But there are privacy options that allow me to shield the public from seeing my Facebook page!"

Sure there are, but what will you do when a current client asks to friend you Facebook? Insult them by saying no?

It's often been said that you should never write anything that you are afraid to see on the front page of the local paper. The story of Flea made that clear.

But let's take that one step further: Never write anything that you don't want your clients to see. Because you may not get to keep them as clients.

Labels: Blogging

Overlawyered today celebrates its 10 year anniversary, making it the longest legally-themed blog around. It has also provided me with one of the biggest surprises that I've experienced, and invaluable lessons about how to blog.

Its proprietor, Walter Olson, uses the site to document the high cost of litigation. He has his conservative political views, which are often diametrically opposed to mine. In fact, if the proposals of the Manhattan Institute (where he is a fellow) were followed, the rights of many (if not all) of my clients would likely be eviscerated. That means we knock heads every so often, as I do with his co-blogger Ted Frank.

And despite this, while still in my rookie year blogging, he added me to the blog roll of his site. I wrote at that time, back in August 2007:

When pigs fly, I hear you say.

Would the oldest legal blog in America -- dedicated to documenting the high cost of our legal system and, perhaps, savoring some of the outrageousness that exists (Pants Pearson, anyone?) for the anecdotal benefits -- actually add a dyed-in-the-wool, 100% personal injury attorney to their blogroll? An individual that takes tort "reformers" to task every so often? One who is a guest contributor at Overlawyered's arch nemesis, TortDeform? Well, yes. They would.

And he didn't just add me to his blog roll, but he links to me with some frequency sending me a steady source of readers. And those links don't just come in where I agree with him about a suit that was stupidly brought -- and in a nation of 300 million that will happen with some frequency -- but more often when I disagree with him on an issue. He is telling his own readers: And for the opposing view, see this post from a PI guy.

Lesson learned. Don't ignore opposing views. Read them, consider them, and respond to them if you wish. It is the ideas that matter. Same as in the courtroom.

Another lesson is that he has never once made a personal attack, despite all my criticisms. Which is also something that every legal battle should embrace. Respond to the message, not the messenger. Judges hate personal attacks.

And another lesson: Admit mistakes when they happen. You can't be constantly writing in the blogosphere, often quickly and with little editing, and not make mistakes. At his sister site, Point of Law, he showed the way mistakes are rectified.

And so, a tip of the hat today to Walter Olson. Not just for figuring out this blogging thing faster than any one else, but for doing it with class and style.

Labels: Blogging

Over the last couple of months I've had a couple folks scrape all the content from my RSS feed and use it on their own "blogs." I use quotes because they looked like they had no other purpose than taking the content produced by others and surrounding it by ads for their own commercial benefit.

I made clear to them that simply because content is syndicated in an RSS feed doesn't give them the right to scrape it for their own.

Nevertheless, to prevent this in the future, I'm going to experiment with truncating the RSS feed. If folks find the lede interesting, they can then come to the site and read the rest. It isn't really the way I want to blog -- reading this stuff should be easy -- but I also don't like having stuff stolen.

While I'm at it I may also tinker with those little social networking buttons that I see elsewhere. Where will it lead? Beats me. But over the last year this little corner of cyberspace and turned up not only in national press, but also international (India and Great Britain).

And I'm open to suggestions and feedback from others as to whether or not the changes work well.

Labels: Blogging

As per the NY Times late this afternoon, New York's press shield law that protects news reporters from being forced to testify regarding sources would be extended to include bloggers under a new bill.

According to the Times, the bill under consideration would expand the scope of the law to include "journalist bloggers," with a blog defined as

"a Web site or Web page that contains an online journal containing news, comments and offers hyperlinks provided by the writer."

I don't usually use this space to re-post stories without additional commentary -- I save that for my Linkworthy posts -- but I thought this was sufficiently important. And the lack of time that I have right now prevents me from writing more.

Labels: Blogging

Two weeks ago I wrote about the folks at Drug and Device Law getting a lot of press as a result of Wyeth v. Levine., since they had written with authority on the issue of federal pre-emption in drug and devices cases for so long.

This week it is trial lawyer and jury consultant Anne Reed at Deliberations due to many recent stories on jurors using Twitter, iPhones for research, Facebook, etc. A sampling from Reed yesterday:

The New York Times has a front-page article today that has gotten a lot of attention, in part for the wise comments of Douglas Keene, president of the American Society of Trial Consultants. Meanwhile I've gotten to talk to reporters and columnists from the Associated Press, ABCNews.com, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Milwaukee Journal/Sentinel's law blog Proof and Hearsay, BBC Radio's The World Today and then their Newshour, and Southern California Public Radio's Patt Morrison Show (Doug Keene was on that one too, with Greenberg Traurig's Scott Bertzyk) -- all in the last two days, with two more interviews coming up.

That link, by the way, has a huge round-up of posts on the subject that she has been writing about for some time now.

Using a blog for solicitation is a losing proposition, as the blog is merely an ad, and therefore utterly uninteresting. But if you write about something you enjoy and care about, and write it well, the media may one day come calling. Whether that results in business is impossible to say, but it if raises your profile in the legal community, it certainly couldn't hurt.

Labels: Blogging, Marketing

The question frequently arises: Is blogging helpful for a lawyer's business for someone in BigLaw? And this question pops up because General Counsels at Fortune 500 companies won't exactly hire someone just because they have a blog.

But will being quoted in the paper as an expert put that lawyer's name in front of a General Counsel? Today -- in the wake of the Supreme Court in Wyeth v. Levine upholding the right of a claimant to bring a state court tort action for mislabeled drugs despite FDA policymakers trying to discourage it -- we take a peak at whether a blog will get the blogger in front of the media.

Mark Hermmann of Jones Day in Chicago and Jim Beck at Dechert in Philadelphia write the Drug and Device Law Blog, which has been pretty much all pre-emption all the time for the last two years. And the media did, indeed, turn to them for quotes. (Of course, both were already big shots in their field, with Beck having a drug and device law book on the subject, a copy of which sits on my shelf). But let's take a look:

From Adam Liptak at the New York Times (No Legal Shield in Drug Labeling, Justices Rule):

"This narrows the playing field," for implied pre-emption arguments, Mark Herrmann, a corporate defense lawyer in Chicago, said of the decision. "This does not eliminate the playing field."

From Bloomberg news (Wyeth, Drugmakers Lose as Top U.S. Court Allows Suits): "It's still leaves open some turf for industry, but it narrows the playing field," said Mark Herrmann, a Chicago product-liability lawyer who represents companies and co-writes a blog on drug and medical-device law.

From American Lawyer (Supreme Court Rules Against FDA Preemption; Let the Plaintiffs Rejoicing Begin!):

"It is a complete slap in the face to both the FDA and the Bush administration's position on preemption," said Dechert's James Beck (one of the bloggers at Drug and Device Law). The decision limits the preemption defense to cases where the FDA has made an "affirmative decision" on use of a particular drug, Beck told us. Dozens of cases that had been formally or informally frozen pending the Wyeth ruling, he said, will now move ahead at full steam.

And if you search their url in Google you will see the links to their blog and posts piling up fast in high profile joints like Above the Law, Volokh, Overlawyered, meaning they have succeeded in spreading to yet more people the fact that they are leaders in their field. You can bet there will be more stories, and more links.

In an article recently Hermmann wrote about the subject (Is blogging worth it?) noted:

[B]logging raises both your personal and your law firm's public profile. As a result of two years of blogging, I've appeared on television shows on CNBC, Bloomberg and C-SPAN. I've been interviewed by, and quoted in, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and countless regional papers. I've been invited to speak at academic symposia, continuing legal education programs and state Bar conventions. A major academic press has approached me about a book deal.
...
Blogging surely causes your name to cross the desks of potential clients, and that might cause clients to think of you when they're retaining counsel.

When blogs are used as a means of direct solicitation (call me, I know what I'm doing!) they fail badly. When blogs are used to demonstrate knowledge by discussing an interesting issue, they succeed.

As they teach you in trial lawyer school, "show, don't tell." And blogging isn't any different.

Updated: Beck/Herrmann are rounding up the coverage that they have received earned: Press Coverage of Levine

Previously at my site:

• Preemption v. Preemption v. Preemption (Wyeth v. Levine) 10/29/08
  

• Preemption Gone Wild (How Bush Pushed Immunity for Big Business) (10/15/08)
  

Labels: Blogging

I visited the LegalTech show in New York today, sponsored by IncisiveMedia. I was invited into their booth for an interview by Jill Windwer (Vice President, Law.com). The subject was yesterday's post on The Future of the Legal Blogosphere.

This is the video version:



Note: I am an advertising affiliate of IncisiveMedia, formerly ALM. I discussed this last July in A Personal Injury Blog Grows Up (Welcome ALM Readers)

Labels: Blogging

Having now trashed Twitter (Twitter and The Age of Information Overload) before using it and semi-trashed it again after using it (Twitter: A Review), and having concluded it is not the future, the question remains: What is the future of the legal blogosphere?

To figure out the future, you have to know what the present is, which is easier said than done in a fast-moving digital age. But the present information distribution seems to be dominated (for attorneys) by a few distinct forms (leaving aside static web sites):

• Listservs, which are set up generally based on either locality or practice area;
  
• Individual Blogs such as this one or group blogs such as Volokh or Concurring Opinions (both run by law professors); and
• Social networks such as Facebook, Linkedin, and increasingly Twitter.
  

This will change, and if you pull up a chair, I'll look into my crystal ball. For I see a future that blends and links together each of these three. No one has created the site yet, though someone surely will.

First, what is missing from the legal blogosphere is a group blog for practicing lawyers. While Volokh or Co-Op are possible templates for group blogs, I see something more akin to the splashier Huffington Post, except that it would be written by and for lawyers. The benefits of such a blog or webzine to the writers should be obvious: You can have 100+ contributors, who may not want to write something each week (or day) as is the custom with individual blogs. And the benefits to the reader should be equally obvious: An enormous amount of content under one roof from a wide variety of writers.

Now mix in the social element, whether this is for swapping tips and links or engaging in political discussion away from one's own practice area. It happens to some extent in comment areas, but this is limited. It also is happening in Twitter, but the format is anything but ideal. Twitter is a crude technology, as compared to what is already available, and will not have staying power for lawyers when a better site is created. A well-located and well-designed legal forum can be significantly superior to it.

Well designed discussion boards such as those operated by The Motley Fool financial site, for example, have been enormously popular for over a decade, and the ability to write/read in threads and ignore users/threads is incredibly simple. There are no extra programs to download and no tools to learn.

Just as The Fool centers on stocks, the law forum would center on law. (Though, as testament to the power of community, you can see a vast array of other forums such as politics, and about 20 different boards related to sports at The Fool site.)

And each user of the site can have a profile page that would list, to the extent that people wanted it, contact information and links that allows for social networking and professional marketing.

This site -- be it called The Motley Post, Huffington Fool, or Turkewitz Times Version 3.0 (version 1.0 was 20 years ago and this blog is 2.0) -- would also have a reader base with some of the best advertising demographics in the nation. Advertising (cars, booze, travel, etc) would be an easy sell relative to other sites, as would law firm sponsorships.

Who will create this site? The logical candidates are:

• The ABA, which has shown through the ABA Journal that they have a serious commitment to the digital arena;
• Incisive Media, owners of Law.com, the New York Law Journal, American Lawyer, and a host of other publications;
• David Lat, creator of Above the Law and now managing editor of Breaking Media;
  
• Kevin O'Keefe of Lexblog, a lawyer-entrepreneur who knows an opportunity for digital space when he sees one; or
• The next Kevin O'Keefe, a small blogger or entrepreneur that comes out of nowhere and decides to implement an idea.

Thus, a savvy entrepreneur will one day blend the desires for blogging and the desires for a legal-social element into one web location, in an easy-to-use site.

I don't know when it will happen, but it will. And remember, you heard it here first.

(And yes, The Turkewitz Times is available for licensing. I'm just sayin'.)

Updated: I was interviewed at LegalTech New York regarding this post, and you can see the short interview here.

Labels: Blogging

The other day I trashed Twitter a bit (Twitter and The Age of Information Overload) because I already have so many sources for information and didn't really see why I needed another one, and didn't see how it was much of an improvement over existing technology. I wrote from the standpoint of someone who had not yet joined.

Well, now I have joined. My Thursday trial was adjourned, so I opened a Twitter account (@Turkewitz), downloaded Tweetdeck, and started noodling to see if my opinion would change. After two days I now consider myself expert enough to write on the subject.

There are two fundamental issues with Twitter that exist for any social networking site: Technology and Community.

Technology
I am certainly not impressed with Twitter technology and stand by the point I made the other day about listservs or other electronic forums being superior. And when I write about technology I don't mean the geek end; I mean the user end.

I first joined the online world with Prodigy back in '92 and have used one forum or another for online discussion since then. Twitter may be different than other current platforms, but is it better? The answer is clearly no.

Any good forum should have these critical components to allow for posting links and engaging in discussion:

• Multiple discussion boards so that those that want to talk baseball aren't in the same forum as those that want to talk knitting;
• The option to follow a discussion either in threaded fashion or chronologically, or simply to collapse the thread into the heading; and
  
• The option to ignore certain users because they want to talk about Mac and Cheese instead of the forum subject.

Twitter doesn't really do this well. It's a type of scattershot approach to social networking, but the discussion is strewn so far and it would be tough to follow any kind of conversation that might actually break out. And if you actually wanted to make a decent point in reply to an article or blog post, you would still be limited to 140 characters. (Though that might be a blessing in disguise for many.)

One of the best discussion forums I've seen is the one created by The Motley Fool financial site. If you look at this board for Apple, for example, you can see a neat, clean user interface. You can ignore people and threads with the click of a button. These boards have existed since the mid-90s.

A good law forum should work the same way, with the ease of dropping in links and creating bios and arguing with one another, because that's what so many like to do. If you want to get rid of the Mac and Cheese Poster or the chucklehead only concerned with self-promotion, then poof -- they're gone.

The Motley Fool boards blow the doors off anything Twitter has to offer.

Community
Great technology is useless without users. And even crappy technology is good if you have good users.

Twitter has succeeded in attracting the legal community, in lightening speed. How fast? An article by law technology guru Robert Ambrogi on August 8, 2008 in Law Technology News reviews various social networking sites for lawyers. Twitter isn't even mentioned.

And then there is an article in the January 2009 Trial Magazine (sub. only) about social networking for lawyers. It discusses Facebook and Linkedin and a couple others. But still no Twitter. Assuming the article was submitted a couple of months back, it gives you an idea as to how fast Twitter has taken off in the legal world.

So Twitter appears to be succeeding in the community development end. And that means it can be a valuable tool if you value finding articles and cases that may get swapped here and there, though they may be of limited use if (like me) you have a narrow geographic focus and practice area. I'll get far more value out of a forum with 25 local personal injury attorneys than I will out of a forum of 2,500 attorneys in different fields spread out over the nation. But I'm not everyone and your mileage may vary.

So Twitter is succeeding, and can be a decent tool for some things. I will continue to noodle with it and use it to see how it goes. Not because the technology is good, but because that is where people are congregating. Yes, I know, that is simply a self-fulfilling prophecy.

But I don't see it as a keeper. Twitter is not the future of the legal blogosphere. My next piece will be on what I think the future holds.

Labels: Blogging, Twitter

Several people have suggested I join Twitter, the microblogging service. With a 140 character "tweet" or "twit " you can send off a tiny little message to those that follow you. It's all the rage now with blogging lawyers, and there's 565 on this growing list. Heck even Barack Obama tweets (though the prior list somehow missed the First Lawyer).

But I've resisted. My brain is being swamped with information and my days seem to be getting shorter as I try to stay current:

• I have 150-200 blogs in my RSS feed;
• I have a local listserv that is, shall we say, exceptionally active in all things related to my practice;
• I've joined Facebook, which I rarely visit, and when I do, I find out what people had for breakfast;
• I've joined Linkedin, which I visit even less often.

I read hard copy magazines and newspapers. I write this blog. I've got a wife, two kids, a dog and a cat. I'm training to run another marathon, and organizing a 1/2 marathon trail race. And, oh yes, I have a law practice to run with clients to attend to.

The internet and the burgeoning social networks that it has spawned have made it possible to acquire information in ways that our parents never envisioned. Information now pours over the transom in an unprecedented deluge, being pushed and pulled in myriad ways.

But at some point I need to stem this tide. I'm not looking to retreat to a cabin in the woods, eating grubs to survive and working on an anti-technology manifesto, but I also don't feel a compelling need to open every valve of the technology river. There are only 24 hours in the day, and yes, I like to also use some of them to eat and sleep.

It is true that there are times I would like to make a very short post, but a once-a-week round-up of linkworthy items on this blog seems to be efficient enough for that purpose. And I have to think that those that would "follow" me on Twitter already follow me their RSS feed or by subscription, so little would seem to be gained by way of a growing readership.

Twitter really seems like an updated version of a listserv, which has served me quite well over the years. I've previously covered that subject (The Million Dollar Listserv), writing that "The listserv may be the single greatest tool the solo or small practice lawyer has," and if you don't belong to one in your practice area, you really should find or create one. You can read that post to see why. Twitter doesn't seem to improve on it in any meaningful way, and when you supplement the listserv with RSS feeds the ground is pretty well covered.

There are some that think Twitter's great for breaking new stories, but that's really nonsense. For example, some "credit" Janis Krums with using Twitter to "scoop" mainstream media with a first photo of the US Airways splash landing in the Hudson. Krums was on the first ferry to reach the plane. The WSJ wrote, "Notch another win for citizen journalism," and the Daily News called his 15 seconds of fame "well-deserved."

Why, on godsgreenearth anyone would think this is a "well-deserved" "win" of any kind and relevant to any serious issue of news reporting is beyond me. Why would it matter that someone twittered about a loaded airplane going down in full view of thousands of people on the edge of the biggest city in the country -- other than to the guy who took the picture and spent his time twittering it to friends? Did Twittering save lives? Of course not. Rescue was already in progress.

While Krums was being lauded as a celebrity, I wanted to know why the hell he was spending time on his iPhone instead of asking the crew what he could do to help, getting life vests ready to toss overboard, looking for survivors in the frigid waters, and looking around to see where, if at all, there might be lifeboats that he might need to assist with. Obsessiveness to technology can also mean the difference between life and death.

And then there is LexTweet -- a project of Kevin O'Keeffe's Lexblog business that builds sites for lawyers -- where the twittering is all about law. Or at least that may have been his thought when starting it. According to O'Keefe, "The community has already grown to over 1,500 members. But when I checked it out I found these pearls of twittering show up on his service:

• Is about ready to make some creamy broccoli cheese soup...yummy! (Melby_AZ)
  
• Have a serious craving for macaroni & cheese... might have to go to Garden of Eden. (Chickpea)
• OK, finally made it to library, rocking out to "Lavalounge" via live365.com, and reading Crim Law. Woot for law school (Littlefrogling)
  
• Our four year old has just admitted that she is being bullied at school. ipod is switched off... Kids are so cruel. (Accidentclaim)
  

Who wants to sort through this crap looking for substance? Thanks, but I have enough to do. Even if I knew these people I wouldn't want to read this dreck.

Now I don't blame O'Keefe for putting that content up, or even encouraging it. He's the platform builder, not the content creator. But it doesn't help to claim 1,500 twittering lawyers if these are among the ranks.

I'm not saying I will never Twitter. It certainly has its place as yet another method of information sharing. It's just that I don't see the need, given that I already can't read all the information that comes in. And it doesn't seem to be any improvement over a simple listserv or bulletin board with threaded subjects. And that type of technology was in wide use in the mid-90s.

Will Twitter help me acquire yet more information that I can't get to, or assist me in sharing information that I might have? I don't see how.

For more on twittering lawyers:

• Twitter users going to LegalTech New York : Here's a list (Kevin O'Keefe @ Lexblog),

  Here's a list of Twitter users [53 and counting] I know who are attending. If you're not on the list, leave a comment, or drop me a tweet at @kevinokeefe so we can get you on the list.

• they're all atwitter (we're not) (David Giacalone @ f/k/a)

  Everywhere you look, well-known members of the blawgisphere (lawyers who have weblogs) are all atwitter, chirping excitedly about Twitter ...At risk of being called a twit (or a throwback), the f/k/a Gang is pre-emptively opting out.

• Blawg Review #186: The Twitter Wars (at the Res Ipsa Blog)

  Twitter, a cross between "social networking, blogging, and texting," took center stage this week as legal bloggers debated the usefulness of the new networking platform. For a run down and the new technology and reasons why some attorneys are not embracing it [read the rest of the post with the links]

• Twitter for Lawyers (David Harlow @ HealthBlawg)

  I've been twittering for a couple of months now, and the consensus seems to be that I'm just one of those bleeding-edge geeks with too much free time. I bet I would've gotten the same reactions from fellow lawyers if I had installed a telephone in my office back in the 1870s.

• First Impression of The Lextweet Reflection (Greenfield @ Simple Justice)

  Kevin O'Keefe is always on the hunt for the next big thing, and what to do about it. His latest creation is Lextweet, billed as means to "follow legal community members who use Twitter to discuss the law and much more." ... But the biggest issue has nothing to do with Lextweet at all. The vast majority of twits are, how do I say this nicely, worthless to the general lawyer audience. Nothing personal, but intimate details of your personal hygiene don't interest me. I don't know your family (I don't even know you) so it's really of little concern what they're having for breakfast. But this is what people twit about, and what shows up on Lextweet whether it matters or not.

  
  
• How I Use Twitter -- Let me count the ways (Grant Griffiths @ Blog for Profit)

  Since I spend some of my time visiting with real-world friends and business contacts and individuals online about twitter, I thought it might be time to provide a post on "how I use twitter."

• Sixteen Reasons to Tweet on Twitter (Robert Abrogi @ Law Marketing Portal)

  1. Expand your network. With blogging, writing, speaking and various bar committees, I consider myself pretty well networked. So I was surprised upon joining Twitter at how many new contacts I made, how quickly I made them, and their potential value to me as a professional.

• Attorneys Flocking to Twitter for Marketing (Larry Bodine @ Law Marketing Blog)

  From where I'm sitting, 2009 will be the year Twitter becomes the major business development trend. Why?

Labels: Blogging, Twitter

My Thanksgiving version of Blawg Review is bringing a temporary spike in readership, so I figured I would make this one short post to new visitors.

Why? Because the Blawg Review didn't discuss, at all, the subject of personal injury law. The words don't even appear in the post.

Now there are some who think blogs should be filled with appropriate buzz words to optimize search engines so that potential clients will find you. But that isn't the way I approach my tiny corner of cyberspace. I just want to write things that I find interesting about the area of law I know the most about. If writing isn't fun, it's work, and I have plenty of work at my workplace.

So for the new folks, here is a "best of" for this blog. that I created after doing my first Blawg Review, based on the NYC Marathon. It has posts which were either popular or that I simply liked, and I update it periodically. If you find the stuff interesting, feel free to add me to your RSS feed. If not, thanks for visiting and I hope you have another opportunity to return.

Labels: Blogging

I just read Franz Kafka's The Trial for the first time and learned something pretty startling: There were elements that resembled a blog.

I picked up the book on the way to vacation. (What does a Jewish lawyer from New York pick to read on a visit to Prague? A book by a Jewish lawyer from Prague.)

The startling part to me was not its well-known theme -- a man arrested and asked to defend himself against an unknown court with unknown charges -- but the fact that such a famous work was also very much unfinished. Much of Kafka's work, including this one, was published by a friend after Kafka's early death.

The start of The Trial is ominous enough:

"Someone must have slandered Josef K., for one morning, without having done anything wrong, he was arrested."

And from there K. descends into the hell of the all-powerful, all-knowing and unseen bureaucracy.

The recent translation I read -- and the reason this comes up in the context of blogging -- had explained in the forward that this version was published to be as true to the notes Kafka left as possible. That means errors in names (same name spelled differently), the timing of events, and descriptions of scenes remain as written. Unfinished chapter fragments are tacked on after the end. The actual order of chapters, in fact, is not entirely known. There were paragraphs that went on for a dozen pages, as if the notes had been written down for later editing.

Now blogs can be like that. Unfinished. Rough around the edges. Often with mistakes, which we hope are merely formalistic and not substantive. Because if the substance works, then (like Kafka) errors in the formalities of writing will (we hope) be overlooked.

And that, from this day forward, will be my excuse for written errors.

Labels: Blogging

The "I'm Sorry" letter from Dallas attorney Jeff Murphrey raced around the internet last week. It raced because he had very creatively skewered opposing counsel Dale Markland for not having the decency to adjourn a deposition while he suffered the ravages of Hurricane Ike (I'm Sorry You're A Jerk (Lawyering 101: Professionalism).

It seems that not only was property damaged, but so too was reputation. Markland, it may come as no surprise, was not pleased at being the butt of Murphrey's letter and its wide dissemination. If you were Googling "Dallas Attorney Dale Markland" you would find a number of unflattering stories on the now famous "I'm Sorry" letter. And that's bad if you happen to be Markland.

So how does a person you fight back and regain one's Google reputation? Dan Solove dealt with the subject of easily ruined reputations in the digital age in his terrific book, The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Internet, which I reviewed last year. He would no doubt be interested in the path Markland is now taking to battle back.

If you're playing a bit of catch-up here, this was some of the substance of the original letter from Murphrey after Markland demanded expenses and attorneys fees for a busted deposition:

I am sorry that a hurricane hit Houston.

I am sorry that I had no power or water at my house as a result of the hurricane.

I am sorry that I had to extend my stay out of state because of the hurricane.

I am sorry that CenterPoint energy did not bend more quickly to your desires and restore power to my home so that I could return to it sooner.

I am sorry that upon returning to my home on Monday, September 22, 2008, I discovered a roughly 50 ft. X 6 ft. swath of human excrement, used condoms and all the other niceties that come with a raw sewage leak in one's backyard which drains into one of the main bayous in Houston.

I am sorry that I had to threaten City of Houston officials with lawsuits and local news exposure in order to get them to even agree to meet with me about cleaning up the problem.

I am sorry that these city officials chose a date that interfered with our deposition and gave me no other option.

I am sorry that the Houston Public Works Department had to use a fire hose to blow human excrement out of my yard on the day our deposition was scheduled.

I am sorry that the city required my presence at the debacle noted immediately above...

I am sorry that you are the only lawyer in this case that consistently goes out of his way to be unaccommodating and unprofessional with the other lawyers. I am sorry you are from Dallas.

This stuff then appeared not only on my humble little blog, but in far more prominent spaces including Above the Law, the WSJ Law Blog, the Houston Press and elsewhere.

So Markland has now acted, not just escalating a battle between he and Murphrey, but for a far more important reason: to reclaim his name in the event that future potential client's Google him.

And so the Markland and Hanley website is now up, with the most prominent feature being Markland's response to "the Hurricane letter." In fact, this fledgling site only has those two pages (at the moment). Markland notes at one point some of the abuse he has been subjected to:

A telephone call from The Texas Lawyer asking me to respond to all of the scorn I was being subjected to on internet blogs and in emails circulating throughout the country. Not being a blogger, I was unaware of the scorn which had been directed at me by a segment of at least the lawyer populous. Directed to one particular blog site, I found bloggers, apparently some being lawyers, calling me a liar and a scoundrel.

The details of his end of the story are now up there, relying significantly on the assertion that he was unaware there even was a problem with the deposition until he was changing planes while traveling there. He writes at his site:

The hurricane in the Houston area occurred on September 12/13;

Mr. Murphrey cancelled the deposition on September 23 when I was already on my way to Fort Wayne, Indiana for the deposition;

I will offer up one bit of wholly unsolicited advice to Markland: The best way to reclaim your Google reputation is not only by creating that web site (and obviously expanding it to describe your firm and the actual lawyering that you do), but to start blogging. Why? Because by doing so you will be creating more content that will, over time, hopefully bury the hurricane story so that it is but a trifle. When people Google you in the future, you'd rather have that on page five than page one.

You've been introduced to blogging the hard way, but having now been forced into that sphere, you may want to make the best of it. Though you'll have to do it well.

========================================
After posting this, others have weighed in:

• The Stars At Night; Are Big And Bright ... (Above the Law)

  We're sorry Mr. Markland, but Murphrey's original letter was funny. Beyond that, it seems like you and Murphrey need to sit down and work things out. Maybe you can even use a "telephone" and talk thing through. But if you insist on using forms of communication that can reach a wider and unintended audience, we'll continue to do our part.

• Lawyers duke it out over post-Hurricane Ike depo (Texas Lawyer)

  The upside to the situation, Markland says, is that he's now in a better position to understand -- and to advise clients on -- the dangers of the Internet age.

Labels: Blogging, Law Practice

I had the pleasure Tuesday night of joining a panel of speakers on blogging at the New York City Bar Association. Our host was blogging guru Kevin O'Keefe (Real Lawyers Have Blogs), and also sitting on the panel were Scott Greenfield (Simple Justice) and Dan Clement (New York Divorce Report). Each has a summary of the event at the above links.

The evening was a pleasure, and not just because these are really easy CLE credits for me. While I can't contribute the way Kevin can on the technical aspects of blogging -- I had a web guy set up this template for me and do all the technical heavy lifting -- I was able to contribute what I know on the subject of creating content. In that regard, my post on 12 tips to better blogging served as a summary of what I think works, and doesn't work, in this medium.

But the one thing that jumped out at me above all else were the technical questions on getting started and the use of RSS feeds. Kevin spent a long time on this, which is ironic since just five minutes of playing with a feed reader will teach you more than listening to an hour of talk. RSS is one of those things that are best taught by actually doing it. All one needs is some basic guidance on where to find a feed reeder, and then a kid's desire to play and have a little fun.

And it is that same fun factor, I might add, that makes for good blogging. Because without the desire to do it, the blog will fall flat. This space, for example, as been relatively quiet in recent months because I've been busy elsewhere, and I refuse to post something just for the sake of posting. I would rather the space be silent than fill it with nonsense. Because that would take the fun out of it.

Labels: Blogging

I've been tagged in an Internet meme by David Harlow at HealthBlawg. The objective here is to name five non-law blogs that I find interesting, then tag five other lawyers to do the same.

It probably comes as no surprise that many of the non-law blogs I read tend toward the medical, since much of my practice over the last 20 years has dealt with medical malpractice issues.

So here goes:

Kevin, M.D. - Dr. Kevin Pho is king of the medical blogosphere aggegators. He is to medicine what Howard Bashman's How Appealing is to law;

Pharmalot - All things pharmaceutical, by Ed Silverman;

Capitol Confidential - Political blog of the Albany Times Union, keeping you up to date on event's in this state's capitol, which is no small detail where law and medicine intersect;

Respectful Insolence: The miscellaneous ramblings of a surgeon/scientist on medicine,
quackery, science, pseudoscience, history, and pseudohistory (and anything else that interests him);

Musings of a Highly Trained Monkey - You won't find this emergency room nurse's blog on the list of too many lawyers, but when she gets on a roll, she can quickly earn the laugh, or the teary eye, depending on the day;

So who is being tagged to come up with five of their own?

• Quizlaw: Who will probably hate me for this tag;

• TortDeform: Who will probably find a way to have a good time;

• Drug and Device Law - Just to see if I can throw them off-topic (all preemption, all the time) for a day;

• My Shingle: Carolyn Elefant always has something new and interesting;

• Simple Justice: Scott Greenfield may well be the most prolific writer in the blawgosphere, churning out long posts in the time it takes me to brush my teeth. He claimed he couldn't do it the other day when tagged by Anne Reed at Deliberations. But I think he's full of it. So he's tagged again.
  

Labels: Blogging

This little blog on personal injury law that I started in November 2006 undergoes a change today. I've become an advertising affiliate of American Lawyer Media's (ALM) Law.com Blog Network.

Yes, I see a raised hand out there in the back...

Q: What the hell?
A: Agreed.

Q: No, I mean really, what the hell? Why are you doing this?
A: Well, first because they asked. I'm a sucker for flattery you know.

Q: So if someone asked you to jump off the Brookl--
A: Jumping off bridges has nothing to do with law. ALM, on the other hand, publishes the New York Law Journal (my hometown paper of record), American Lawyer, National Law Journal and a slew of other legal products.

Q: But aren't most ALM products geared toward BigLaw stuff?
A: A healthy percentage. In fact, up until now there weren't any personal injury blogs in their affiliate network of 30 blogs.

Q: So you said yes because you could claim to be the first PI blog in the country to be in their network?
A: I told you I was a sucker for flattery. I've got an ego like everyone else. Weren't you listening?

Q: Listening won't help. This isn't a podcast.
A: Go get your own blog if you want to be snarky.

Q: I'm thinking of starting the Noo Yawk Personal Injury Law Blog to compete with you.
A: OK, you can stay. Just play nice.

Q: I see that ad in the side bar. And also a box with the Law.com news feed. So they get to advertise their stuff on your blog that you slaved over?
A: Well, the ad is new. But I was running their news feed here from the start, just as I do on my web site. I ran it because it's good. Same content now, just in a fancy looking box.

Q: Do they now own you?
A: No. I write what I want. They don't own any part of the blog. This is an advertising affiliation agreement. I create content in the personal injury field that they hopefully like and promote in some way. They expand their reach a tad by (hopefully) reaching my existing readership, and I expand mine by (hopefully) reaching theirs. Maybe they'll stumble on the greatest hits post and think this is worthy enough to add to their RSS feed.

Q: Why your blog?
A: Good question. One theory is that I threw money, booze and a Las Vegas junket their way. Another theory is that my little corner of the web was able to stand out a bit because many other personal injury blogs have a primary focus on self-promotion, and are quite a bit thin in the actual blogging department. If you have a third theory, I'm game to hear it.

Q:How much do you get out of this advertising deal?
A: Not sure. Maybe enough to buy an occasional six pack of Magic Hat. Mostly, I hope to get more readers. If I'm going to write, having readers is kinda nice. We're back to that ego thing.

Q: Last year, in your Better Blogging:12 Tips piece, you said that a blogger shouldn't "uglify" a blog with ads. Are you a hypocrite?
A: I see you're a long time reader.

Q: You didn't answer the question.
A: I see you're a lawyer.

Q: Are you going to answer it?
A: Yes. The vast majority of ads I've seen do, in fact, uglify a blog. And that is because most are those wretched little Google ads that sit in the middle of the blog where the actual content is supposed to be. I don't have a real problem with ads for law books, legal support services, etc., in an appropriate header or sidebar. But those won't bring in readers and, with few exceptions, the money isn't enough to push aside content or links. With ALM, however, I am hopeful that new readers will be brought in, and the ads themselves are directly on point. I figure that if it's good enough for Howard Bashman or Blawg Review, it's good enough for me. So I'm giving it a try.

Q: That's it? More readers?
A: And a bit more. On my first year anniversary I wrote that I wanted to do more original pieces, as opposed to commentary on existing stories. So in addition to more readers, being known as part of the ALM Blog Network might give me a smidgen more legitimacy as a media outlet if I'm looking for original content. It can't hurt.

Q: What next?
A: Regarding what?

Q: The blog.
A: Beats me. Hopefully a good personal injury story will drop into my lap and I'll get to write about it.

Q: You have a story in mind?
A: No, but if you do, would you please email it to: blog [at] TurkewitzLaw.com

Q: I like the way you did that.
A: Did what?

Q: Ended this rambling fake interview with a request for tips.
A: Hey, I'm in the big leagues now. I need stories. Guest blogs are welcome too.

Labels: Blogging

Personal injury blogs have once again been ignored. This time it comes from the new web directory, Alltop. Constructed by web impresario Guy Kawaskaki, it's law page is chock full of great law blogs, some mainstream and some in small niches. My quick count shows 105 of them, and it has the potential to be a great resource for people to see who is writing about what in a single glance.

But not a single blog deals with personal injury law as its main subject. Now you would think that with all the yelling and screaming about tort "reform," jury verdicts, federal preemption, punitive damages and related subjects, that one or two blogs that devote themselves to the subject would be on the list. But they aren't.

Have we seen this before? Yup. (See: Vote For Me In Blawg 100!! (Oh Wait, You Can't))

So, in the event that the Alltop law page gets updated, here's a tip to Guy for a few blogs on the subject to consider:

• Bill Childs (TortsProf)
• John Day (Day on Torts)
• Beck/Herrmann on defending BigDrug and BigDevice (Drug and Device Law)
• Bill Marler on food poisoning (Marler Blog)
• Byron Stier and Howard Erichson (Mass Tort Litigation Blog)
• Perlmutter & Schuelke, publishing weekly personal injury round-ups chock full of links to good personal injury blogs
• TortDeform on civil justice defense
  

For goodness sakes, pick one or two from the list, or use some of the many other fine ones that I haven't mentioned. But ignoring an entire field of the law seems to be a mistake if the intent is to aggregate law blogs.

See also:

• Blawgs Get Kawasakied (Blawg Review)
• Blawg Stuff, How To Keep Up (Simple Justice)
• Finding Good Blogs (Deliberations)
• Law Alltop Launches (The Inspired Solo)
  

Labels: Blogging

Who'd a thunk it? It was just five months ago that I let loose against the ABA for leaving all personal injury blogs out of their ABAJournal Blawg 100 (see: Vote For Me In Blawg 100!! (Oh Wait, You Can't)). And today I learn that my blog has popped up as their Blawg of the Week.

When the ABAJournal re-invented its web site last July, I welcomed their redesign with "terrific news feeds" and "a great new compendium of blawgs." It was clear they had done their homework. (See: Welcome New and Improved ABA Journal)

This being the ABA though, I was a bit concerned that its focus would be waaay too much on BigLaw, and not enough on the small and solo firms that make up the vast majority of America's law firms and that do much of the grunt work. I even wrote last summer:

The new ABAJournal also has a featured blawg each week. Let's hope they don't just focus on the big name A-listers from the ivory towers and appellate world, and present the occasional up-and-comers from the "Practical Blawgosphere" that are out there in the courthouses on a day-to-day basis.

So while I was disappointed that the entire personal injury bar, both plaintiffs and defendants, was left in the dust of its vaunted 100, it's obviously refreshing to see that, perhaps, things can change.

And yes, I did make sure to copy the page, under the theory that this was just a screw-up or practical joke and it disappears tomorrow.

A final note for new visitors: If you'd like to see some of the greatest hits of the blog, click that link. And feel free to add it to your RSS feed. No extra charge.

Labels: Blogging

It happened, ironically, with an April Fool's Day post. I passed the one million mark in page views.

I'm not quite sure what to make of it, since I've never really been able to figure out from the stats what represents human eyes and what represents spider eyes. And I know that many stumble in here simply because they are doing image searches or have used the images in various forums and blogs. Another stat, "visitors" passed the 500,000 mark and "unique visitors" is approaching 300,000.

If I had to decide what the most important metrics were, however, I would say:

• The number of comments, because that means folks are reading the content, and they often add new dimensions to the original post. I've never calculated them, though I can see there has been a marked increase in the last two months. Seeing 5-10 comments on a posting is no longer unusual, and some have generated over 20.
  
• The number of favorable comments, which of course, isn't quite the same as overall comments. I'm shocked, shocked I tell you , that some folks seem to have a knee-jerk reaction to personal injury attorneys, no matter what is written.
  
• The incoming links, because that also means people are reading and finding it useful to point others here. Technorati counts those for me, and I see 1,600+ incoming links. Of course that also includes spam blogs and double links coming in from some places.

But for whoever it is out there that has stopped by my tiny corner of cyberspace these past 17 months, I thank you. I've very much enjoyed doing this, and hope to continue as time permits.

Labels: Blogging