practicehacker

I’m not easy on lawyers when it comes to our use of, appreciation  for, or attitude towards technology. We are not open-minded or fair when it comes to new ideas: most of us either have too much to hide or are flat-out scared.

And even money says that 100% of lawyers over 40 (including judges, legislators, and influential practitioners) see the Internet as a cross between the Yellow Pages and a virtual red-light district.

So I can’t imagine what possessed the American Bar Association to field legallyminded – a do-it-all combo site consisting of wikis, blogs, articles, social-networking, and … who knows what’s next? So much about this site is uncharacteristic of the legal profession and it’s flagship professional organization that I hardly know where to start. But I’ll tell you this – I’m impressed.

That’s right: this isn’t sarcasm. I’m serious: this site is a great attempt to pull our profession into the  next iteration of the Internet and the universe of new communication world of new media and rapid communication. How it fairs remains to be seen, but even trying earns the ABA my respect. Check out legallyminded here.

Ever feel like your online marketing time and money is going straight out the window? I’ve spent thousands on web-based marketing over the years, only to come to a few basic but inescapable conslucions. So why make the same mistakes I did? In this feature for TechnoLawyer I tell you how to get the biggest bang for your buck and compare the big 4 online marketing tools for lawyers to separate hype from fact

• directories
• search engines
• match-makers
• blogs

Which of these marketing staples is worth the effort and which one is a wast of precious dollars? Read this excerpt then download the article to find out.  Of course if you think I’m all wet let me know. Hey, I’ve been wrong before …

The mere mention of online marketing makes solo and small firm practitioners cringe — and you can’t blame them. Besides being famously overworked, over-regulated, and underpaid, small firm and sole practitioners are easy picking for marketing “consultants” that promise more than they deliver. It’s no surprise that most of them think of online marketing the way they do Yellow Pages ads, but see the risks as much higher. Oh, and did I mention the breathtaking inconsistency in state rules about advertising? Good luck getting any guidance on that point. But don’t take my word for it. Let’s take real-life examples from a mid-sized firm and the a group of solos at the bar association.

Read the rest of the piece here, or download your PDF copy.

Happy reading!

Author’s Note: This year I got to blog the ABA Technology Show once again as I did last year in this pair of posts here and here. In addition, this year I was given the opportunity to publish my work in the prestigious publication TechnoLawyer. And on a related (and equally important) note, this was the second year in a row that I was sponsored by the august DuPage County Bar Association, thanks to the hard work of directrix and champion of technology, Glenda Sharp. To Glenda and this year’s bar President, Fred Spitzzeri, a great big Thank You! Here’s to doing it again next year …

I Attended ABA TECHSHOW 2008 and All I Got Was This Lousy Blog Post

Eliminating the Paper Chase: From Boxes to Bytes (Paperless Office Track)

A Real World EDD Motion Hearing (Litigation Track)

The Mobile Office: Take Your Desktop in Your Pocket (Mobile Technology Track)

Outlook Tips and Tricks (Roundtables Track)

So You Want to Be an ABA Author? (Special Session)

Beating the Startup Blues: A Tech Survival Guide (Solo/Small Firm II Track)

Grand Finale: 60 Sites In 60 Minutes

Crazy Mazy’s Best of Show: SQ Global Solutions

Crazy Mazy’s Best of Show: Legal Bar by BEC Legal Systems

Crazy Mazy’s Best of Show: Electronic Discovery

Crazy Mazy’s Best of Show: Adobe Acrobat Professional

A Report from the Exhibit Hall and Suggestions for TechShow 2009

SEATTLE, WA–(Marketwire – December 18, 2007) – In this opinion the U.S. District Court in Seattle, WA dismissed the class action complaint filed in June 2007 against nascent attorney-portal and rating site Avvo with prejudice. This blog has been following Avvo, and the Brown lawsuit, since its inception. Ironically, the suit probably drew more attention to Avvo than the site would have otherwise attracted. Take that Counselor.

In its motion to dismiss Avvo argued that its publication of attorney disciplinary information and the opinions of clients and colleagues, as well as its own numerical rating, constituted protected speech. The Court agreed, stating that all of the foregoing “are absolutely protected by the First Amendment and cannot serve as the basis for liability under state law.” In short, lawyers now have to take it as well as they give it out.

Avvo CEO Mark Britton, a lawyer himself, says Attorneys in the jurisdictions in which Avvo operates (currently Arizona, California, District of Columbia, Georgia, Illinois, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Washington) had “better not pout, better not cry, better not shout I’m telling you why – Avvo-Clause is coming to  town … to eat your lunch if you don’t come clean with clients.” Ed. Note. That quote may not have actually been from Mark Britton.

See other Avvo articles on the pm blog

I’ve noticed a few interesting trends that seem to point to a future in which our experiences on the Web might be tailored to our personal preferences without our ever having to spell them out. Welcome to the practical application of the Attention Economy.

Revenge of the Attention Economy: If you’re not familiar with the ‘attention economy’ concept check out my post here. Seems that information used to be expensive and hard to come by, but with so much of it available instantly for little or nothing it’s our attention that’s selling at a premium nowadays.

Necessity is a Mother: Advertisers are already hard at work getting our attention; but the need to surmount the ‘noise’ in our daily lives in order to make their point is more important than ever. Enter attention protocol markup language (APML). By building APML into the fabric of websites visited by tens of millions every day like Yahoo, MSN, LinkedIn, Facebook, and others, it will be easier than ever to measure, track, and predict their behavior. Voila – better ads, and maybe a more relevant browsing experience? Or a master manipulator’s dream?

I Want My MTV Back: Among professional critics on the ‘Net, the hot ticket is privacy and data ownership. In other words, assume that you leave a trail of virtual breadcrumbs behind you every time you get online; do you own that trail or can the information be used by your ISP, your software vendor, or others to shape your next browing experience (or sell you more of their product)? One blogger reviewed the actual policies of popular websites like Facebook, Yahoo, MSN, LinkedIn, and MySpace, and published his findings here. The results were not encouraging.

From Jason Nazar, founder of docstoc, the sharing site for professional documents, comes this message

This is Jason from docstoc. Since we launched a few short weeks ago we’ve had thousands of documents of all descriptions being uploaded to the site. To all of you who’ve helped us to make it this far we want to extend a big “Thanks” for being part of our community of forward-thinking professionals.

Thanks again for coming by and trying docstoc – the premier professional document sharing community on the web.