All Your Law in One Convenient Package

Iowa Corporate attorney Rush Nigut is the brains behind the new Iowa Law Blog. Members of Rush's West Des Moines law firm Sullivan & Ward author posts on many areas of Iowa law, including:

* Utility law;
* Business Law;
* Trust and Estates;
* Trial and Mediation;
* Employment Law;
* Regulatory Compliance;
* Family Law; and
* Real Estate

Although the site looks great and is filled with fantastic content, I would advise everyone to boycott the blog. While the Iowa Law Blog indeed has a stable of great bloggers, including the award-winning blogger Rush Nigut, they are keeping one of their most skilled athletes on the bench. I am willing to bite the bullet, and deny myself access to this valuable content until Sullivan & Ward member Lawrence McLellan gets in the game and imparts some of his litigation prowess onto us in the form of at least one blog post. I invite you to do the same.

It is a gamble for sure, but knowing Larry, I am confident he will succumb to his adoring fans and grace us with a sheer stunner of a post. If, however, you feel you simply cannot wait, feel free to expedite the process by contacting Larry directly at lmclellan@sullivan-ward.com. Until then, we will just have to cross our collective fingers.

(Thanks for the photo Rush. BTW/Nice French Manicure)

Brett Trout

Keeping Your Blog Out of Court

This will be the topic of my speech at BlogWorld Expo in Vegas November 8. If you plan on attending, come hear me speak and/or look me up. The first five readers who do, will get a signed copy of my new CyberLaw book.

While we are on the topic of keeping your blog out of court, Rush Nigut and Kevin O'Keefe both wrote excellent posts on a Texas mother suing Verizon for using Flickr ads of her minor daughter in an advertising campaign. While the photographer gave consent to use the photo, the subject did not. Copyright and creative commons guru Lawrence Lessig notes that creative commons licenses are designed to deal with copyright and do not purport to address privacy issues. Lessig notes that without a "model release" issues of publicity and privacy remain a problem.

As an intellectual property attorney since 1992 and a blogger since 2003, I see basically two types of bloggers. The first type, comprising the majority, are not considering copyright issues, let alone privacy or publicity issues when they post images on their blogs. The second group work off a misguided hodgepodge of copyright urban legends they found on the internet.

In my experience, the second group is even more dangerous than the first. At least when the first group gets caught with its hand in the cookie jar, it repents and tries to make amends. They contact their intellectual property attorney immediately and usually avoid huge damages. The second group, however, is so steadfast in its misguided beliefs that it is often headlong into litigation before it realizes the errors of its ways.

I would be interested in finding out how the second group thinks it can determine the absence of any privacy violations with Flickr photos. Do they actually determine the names and addresses of every individual in each photo and get a signed model release from each one authorizing use of the photo?

If you are a Flickr-using blogger and think the Flickr creative commons license insulates you from liability for privacy violations, or even from copyright violations in the event the poster is not really the owner of the photographs, please jot down my name and address. You may be needing it in the near future.

Also, if you could do me one more favor and ignore the cease and desist letter you get from the copyright owner or subject of the photo. Its just that I make a lot more money trying cases than I do having my clients comport with the copyright and privacy laws in the first place. And my kid wants a new Jet Ski for Christmas.

Brett Trout

Flickr blogs photographs copyright privacy

Why Lawyers Should Not Blog.

In states like Iowa, which have very strict advertising rules, blogs are one of the only ways attorneys can openly provide information to the public. Blogging is one of the fastest and easiest ways for lawyers to get their message across. Given the low cost and high impact of lawyer blogging shouldn't all law firms be blogging?

No. The culture of some law firms is simply not conducive to blogging. Blogging simply emphasizes the firm culture. If the law firm is filled with quality attorneys, blogs will are beneficial, not only to the law firm, but to their clients as well.

If the firm has its share of overbilling, underqualified lawyers who would have difficulty practicing their way out of a wet paper bag, however, it is a different story. In a law firm which routinely oversells and underdelivers, a blog would simply make this apparent to prospective clients BEFORE they hired the law firm. It would also provide clients a forum to comment on the job they believe the law firm did for them.

As a general rule, a law firm should probably not blog if one or more of the following factors apply to the law firm:

Scared what the attorneys might say
Lots and lots of secrets
Right hand does not know what the left is doing
Figure the less clients know the better
The lawyers are bad writers
The firm lacks personality
The lawyers lack smarts, honesty, talent etc.
The lawyers at the top are control freaks
Firm does not work and play well with others
Lacks basic communication skills
Culturally neither open nor transparent
Not concerned about clients once they are in the door
Scared what past clients will say
Lots of disgruntled employees
The firm is pure evil ('cause you cannot fool the Blogosphere forever)

Is YOUR lawyer blogging?

If not, you might want to ask yourself if one of the forgeoging reasons is to blame.


Brett Trout

Other Related Topics:
Lawyer, Reasons not to blog, Lawyer Blog, Customer Service