Law And More

Law and More ranked selected by Online Universities for "50 Great Blogs For and By Law Professors"

We did it.  Thank you contributors, tipsters, readers, and especially critics.  Regarding the latter, negative feedback represents a gold mine of insight. 

Online Universities.com selected Law and More for the "50 Great Blogs For and By Law Professors."  

That means we're right up there with:

• The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation
• CrimProf Blog
• E-Commerce Law
• Sentencing Law and Policy, and the wildly popular
• Above the Law.

There are, of course, commercial implications of this honor.  The demand for social media experts with a track record is exploding.  That call for provocative, SEO-oriented strategy and content is finally also coming from large and midsized law firms.

Thank you Online Universities. Incidentally, the markeplace for contract work has turned hot.  Forget looking for traditional full-time employment with benefits.  I have to wonder if they even exist any more or if they show up in help-wanted to create the illusion that the employer is successful or embarked on a comeback.

"Jones v Minkin" - Coverage by Establishment Media Vs. Blogosphere

Today, the Establishment Media - THE NATIONAL LAW JOURNAL - is just reporting on the plaintiff's withdrawal of complaint "Jones v Minkin."

That withdrawal was done on Wednesday.  Abovethelaw.com, whose parent Breaking Media was one of the defendants, announced that on its blog a little after 2:00 P.M. that day.  The blogosphere, which had doubled-up on steroids when news of the lawsuit hit the media Monday night, tripled the steroids in passing along the good news.  The lawsuit had originally been filed a few days before the story broke in the media.

Can The Establishment exist as a source of news, influence, and power in these days of citizen journalism?  I think not.  I am adding this detail to my case study of "Jones v Minkin" and the seeming impact of social media.

"Jones v Minkin" - Day after dismissal

Now, I think I know what the Dream Team must have felt after "OJ" criminal acquittal and the Rhode Island Lead Paint 3 after the Supreme Court tossed the litigation: Stunned and Exhausted.  First we in the blogosphere pulled out all stops battling the absurdity of "Jones v Minkin."  Then within about 24 hours the plaintiff Professor Donald Jones dropped the complaint.  The announcement of that was around 2 P.M. East Coast time yesterday.

That neck-snapping experience undid me.  I couldn't sleep.  Today the adrenalin has all leaked out.  It's hard to make a mashup of a provocative thought presented in an edgy way.  Maybe lawyers and we communications folk who cover them can only absorb just so many "Jones v Minkin" experiences.  After that, we give off the vibes of Depleted and are either not taken seriously or, more likely, tormented.  

Plaintiff drops "Jones v Minkin" - It's the Google Juice, stupid

Professor Donald Jones dropped his multi-million-dollar lawsuit "Jones v Minkin" against the parent of Abovethelaw.com et al. 

That was less than 24 hours after the blosophere, especially the front-lines of legal digital media, went on steroids with this story.  This viral messaging weighed in negatively against Jones.  The arguments ranged from First Amendment rights to the stupidity of trying to allegedly reset search engines carrying the October 2007 ATL coverage by a lawsuit which would bring only more high-ranking posts on the search engines.  It's obvious that ATL and its merry band of linkers have the Google Juice.

So, the evidence tends to favor the hypothesis: This was a major victory for the influence and power of the blogosphere.  It will go down in case studies in books and articles on social media as the late 2009 example of how non-establishment citizen journalists can and did stop a lawsuit in its tracks. This dethrones that oft-cited classic example of tweets making J&J cave on Motrin ads.

God bless legal bloggers, each and every one. And, have a nice Thanksgiving, Professor Jones.

Blog Sued: Abovethelaw.com not above the law

This is the kind of story bloggers dream about covering.  Some bloggers may fear such a story ever being about them and their sites.  Others bloggers may well see the inherent value of the controversy and wish it had been about them.  

The story is: The popular tabloid Abovethelaw.com has been sued regarding alleged portrayal in an article of an academic in a false light, alleged invasion of privacy, and alleged infringement of copyright.  The latter concerns the blog's alleged illegal publication of a photo from a website. 

The plaintiff, a University of Miami School of Law professor, wants $22 million in damages and for ATL to also remove all posts from 2007 which refer to him.  That plaintiff is Donald Marvin Jones, an African-American, whose law suit has been filed pro se.  Yes, pro se.  It was filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida on October 27th, 2009, reports Karen Sloan on THE NATIONAL LAW JOURNAL. The defendants are:

• David Lat, ATL Managing Editor
• David Minkin, ATL Publisher
• Breaking Media, ATL parent company which had once been called Dead Horse Media.

The facts, explains Sloan, are that Jones had been arrested by Miami police on August 22, 2007 for allegedly trying to solicit an undercover officer for sex for $20.  The charges were later dropped and the record expunged.  Before that, ATL published three pieces, including a collage of photos submitted by a person claiming to be a University of Miami law student.  Sloan points out

"On the site, Lat referred to the collage as 'irreverent, crass, and politically incorrect humor.' The same post contained the disclaimer: 'We acknowledge that he merely stands accused of wrongdoing; he hasn't been convicted of anything.'"

Lat is a lawyer.  The issue in this case might turn out to not be so much about the medium of blogging but about the parameters of humor.  What is the line between taking a hilarious angle on an event and between misleading coverage.  Could this become another Lenny Bruce type litigation?  I doubt it, based on the strange development that Jones filed the suit pro se.  We all know that adage:  The man who defends himself has a fool for a client.  To me it's irrelevant that the man is himself a law professor.

CT GOP Caught Dirty Tweeting

It's never too late to get into the tweeting game.  But it's never a good idea to leverage dirty tricks doing it.  Twitter.com is too closely watched for anyone to get away for too long manipulating the microblog.

In THE NEW HAVEN ADVOCATE, a free weekly tabloid, Gregory B. Hladky reports, "Twitter shuts down 33 fake accounts created by state Republicans in an attempt to lambast Dems."  Hladky goes on to explain, "The Republican scheme was to send out posts under the Democrats' names mocking the liberal tax-and-spend bastards."

The Tweet That Changed Everything

Liz Taylor is in the hospital for a heart operation to repair a leaky valve.  No, it's not open-heart surgery.  We know all that because Taylor tweeted it.  No the information was not released by an announcement from her publicist.  And Taylor is a giant star.  Everyone is talking about this because this tweet changes everything.

The publicist job is over.  And just about every other middleman job, organization, process will be also.  Think how the technology of Kindle is killing off the book middleman of agents, publishers, booksellers, promoters, and reviewers.  Oh, none of us believe that Taylor has been tweeting from her bed.  The point is that the publicist or even ghostwriter is out of the loop.  Taylor is connecting with her fans, friends, and enemies directly.

Would the U.S. Chamber of Commerce be more in touch and more connected to its members as well as issues such as green if every Chamber leader tweeted?  Recently, Apple joined Nike et al. in defecting from the Chamber because of its anti-green stance. 

Post-Taylor Tweet, the world expects direct communication.  Damn time constraints, old-line caution, hypomanic tweeting ahead.

Jane Genova, New-Media Strategy, Content [including ghostwriting Tweets].  Emergencies embraced with passion.  Fees custom-made for your budget.  Mgenova981@aol.com.

Lawyers not tweeting in pain, unlike the GOP

Does it take hitting bottom to tweet, that is, post on twitter.com?  Maybe. 

On Politico.com, Kenneth P. Vogel reports that the GOP, which has been ousted from Eden, has twice the number of twitter accounts as Democrats.  According to a study by the Congressional Research Service, in a two week period last summer, Congressional Republicans posted 932 messages vs. the Congressional Democrats posts of 255.  My hunch is that Joe Wilson aka The Scream did not and does not have a twitter account.  Otherwise, he could have communicated his despair in a more productive manner. 

Unlike the out-of-power GOP, unemployed, underemployed, and worried employed attorneys have not been stampeding to twitter.com as a career-development tool. Those who do use it contend that it works magic in new-business development.  However, no hard numbers are in on that yet.

What I have discovered from compulsive tweeting [http://twitter.com/gggggg1] is that I can get on the radar of just about any organization or person by citing them in a post.  Those have ranged from Ann Taylor to trade associations, e.g. for medical tourism.  In addition, influentials follow me.  There's more.  I get to try out tone and overall approach to content by tracking if my number of followers is increasing or in a downward trajectory.

Lawyers tend to learn through print.  Two books they might check are:

• "Twitter for Dummies"
• "Twitter: Tips, Tricks, and Tweets."

Law: Is it stuck in long-form communicating?

On LEGAL BLOG WATCH, Carolyn Elefant opens Pandora's Box.  The subject is tweeting.  She cites the finding of Larry Bodine that only 6% of lawyers use twitter.com.  That leaves us with myriad issues:

• Are lawyers stuck in long-form communications vs. the 140-character format of Twitter.com?  If so, they better get with the program in this ADD era.  Jurors's mindsets are being reset by Twitter.

• What do lawyers perceive as the more effective ways of marketing?  Incidentally, here in New England, Carter Mario, a cult figure right up there with Bob from Bob's Discount Furniture, is doing terrific with his repetitive television commercials.

• Are the lion's share of the non-tweeters defense lawyers?  The plaintiff bar has always been ahead of the defense bar in leverage low-cost, high-reach digital tools.  One day, I have a hunch, defense attorneys will wake up and find themselves unemployed, replaced by plaintiff attorneys reset as defense ones.

Attorneys stuck in the long-form may be Father McKenzie writing the words of the sermon no one will hear.

"Sweet Jesus, Jane, will you stil blog!" Answer: Of course

There was a panic in the blogosphere.  "Sweet Jesus, Jane, will you still blog?"  That's what folks around the globe rushed online and on the phone to ask me.  Answer:  Of course, I will continue to blog, more than ever, and more tilted toward the plaintiff bar and kindred spirits like Bill Marler [here is his blog.]

The only change is this:  I cannot and will not keep supporting and giving space to the Crusties [Upper Crust] in the lead-paint loop who could have given me writing assignments or referrals to writing assignments.  Instead they played with me, e.g. alleged bait and switch schemes. Like, talk about the death of common sense, that is, mine. 

Former Providence, Rhode Island mayor Buddy Cianci had it right on the money when he carried that gigantic chip on his shoulder about not being born "into the lucky sperm club."  I've re-found my chip.  It will earn me a bundle.  Come visit it here, soon.