Online Law

If Lawyer Advertising Embraced Tactics from the Oldest Profession

January 31st 2010

I don’t need to tell you, its a tough time to be a young lawyer. This dark send-up of lawyer advertising suggests that the economy may bring our best and brightest to promote themselves using desperate measures.  This sketch is from Almost Live a local comedy show based in Seattle. As you can imagine, Aurora […]

Clorox Gets a Social Media Attorney: AdAge Gets Misty

January 26th 2010

AdAge proclaimed Clorox’s move to hire a social media attorney as “Testament to the Importance of Twitter and Facebook“.  Like much of traditional ad media, AdAge is rushing to show it gets social media and is relevant. This made quite a forward-looking headline, but the joke is on AdAge. Clorox scored some free ink, while […]

Legal Marketing via Social Media: 7 Real World Examples

January 25th 2010

Legal Marketing articles describe marketing with social media in vague terms. “Start a blog”, “listen”, “create good content”. This isn’t new stuff, heck, over the weekend even the Pope told Priests to Blog.  Its time to get real about social media and law firm marketing. So here are seven meaty examples of one law firm, […]

Privacy in Moderation: Behaviorial Targeting May Be an Online Value

January 23rd 2010

My still germinating collection of 2010 predictions will have to include one of this blogs repeated themes, the impending rise of regulation of digital marketing. (See my post “Regulation is Headed Toward Digital Marketing, Do Something.“) Now that the FTC has staked out a requirement for bloggers to prevent the false appearance of independence if […]

Communist Chic Banned: My Marketo Shirt’s Illegal in Poland

January 20th 2010

A few years ago I showed my wife a t-shirt from Marketo, the San Mateo-based lead generation company. They were revolutionary, and to underscore that they had a manifesto, and their shirt featured an image of Che Guevara. My wife is a marketer who has lived in Central America; she immediately noted the use of […]

WikiLeaks Draws Congressional Ire: Is Repeating Leaks Part of Free Speech?

January 13th 2010

Back in 2007, I suggested that snitching was one of the killer apps of Web 2.0. Since then, WikiLeaks.org, the site for snitching secrets about governments and corporations, has been a success. How do you measure success? Perhaps by the zeal with which legislators seek to investigate the website. Of course, judges have quickly raised […]

China Prevents All Individuals from Registering “.cn” Domain Names: Yikes!

December 28th 2009

What will they know of China, who only “.cn” know? The Associated Press reports that China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has posted requirements that all “.cn” china domains be issued only to registered businesses. AP’s coverage also says that any sites that have not registered with the ministry will be “taken off the […]

Under Pressure, Law Firm Pulls Down Disgusting Legal Advertising

December 4th 2009

Congratulations, and thanks to you, Lindeman, Alvarado, & Frye, the law firm several hundred of you have helped hector, has pulled down the images we called the worst advertising ever. It was amazing to see some of you commenting them on their site with Google Sidewiki, and advocating in social media for what amounts to […]

Free Book Download: Dr. Margaret Hagen’s Whores of the Court

December 1st 2009

Back in the day when I was studying Lay Epistemology, a theory in social psych, Margaret Hagen held a lot of the cool in Boston University’s psychology department. She is the type of researcher who is rigorous, sarcastic, and unafraid to bite the hand that feeds her. Which means she’s fun and a smart read. […]

Law Firm Ads Court Pedophiles, Rapists, and Child Beaters with Ugly Tactics

November 29th 2009

In the Court of Bad Advertising, Can You Plead Insanity? Likely the worst legal advertising ever, along with a taste of the web’s swift response.