Does The North Carolina Bar Advocate Blogging About Accidents To Get Cases?

One of the tried (tired) and true marketing methods used by cheesy personal injury lawyers is to blog about horrific accidents in order to get the Google attention they want and hope that the grieving family finds them on the internet and retains them so they can get their 40%.

This is a disgusting practice that's been resoundingly trashed on the internet.

But not by the marketers:

Dale Tincher of consultwebs.com writes yesterday,

As you know, obtaining quick notice about local accidents and injuries will help your law firm in many ways. First, if you are aware of accidents early, you may have a chance of getting an inside track on a case. Additionally, if you post something on your website quickly, you may be found and have an opportunity to get a case. Posting information on your website, blog and social media will also help your rankings. Google rewards websites for frequent updates and activity.

Doesn't surprise me that as there's more and more desperate-to-make-money-lawyers out there that these pathetic tactics become more attractive. Why spend the time building a reputation when you can fake one on the internet?

But this is what interested me:

Dale is the project consultant for the North Carolina Bar Association’s endorsement of Consultwebs.com, Inc., as the only Web consulting firms endorsed by the North Carolina Bar Association’s Technology Assistance Program (TAP.)

Not a very well written sentence, but what I got from it is that the North Carolina Bar endorses this firm in some way.

I'd like to know why?

I'll be right here.

Anonymous comments are welcome as long as they say something relevant and half-way intelligent and arent a vehicle for a coward to attack someone. I trust you understand. Located in Miami, Florida, Brian Tannebaum practices Bar Admission and Discipline and Criminal Defense. He is the author of I Got A Bar Complaint.

An Open Letter To Legal Marketing Conference Organizers: Dear Morons,

It's getting pretty pathetic out there, and you, ALM, Lexis, and the other organizations serving the legal profession have been throwing together conferences for lawyers desperate to market themselves chocked full of a happy group of idiots as speakers.

Failed lawyers, lawyers who haven't seen a client in years, non-practicing lawyers whose ethics raise more questions than an episode of Jeopardy, losers.

Why are you putting these empty, unemployed, conference grasshoppers in front of lawyers? Why aren't you spending 5 minutes on Google checking these frauds out?

Do you actually sit in the room and listen to these people? Is it really worth an hour of some lawyer's time to hear that we used to ride horses to work and now we drive cars? Does that have anything to do with representing clients with legal problems? Does it matter to a practicing lawyer that the fax machine has been replaced by the scanner? Do we not know this? Is this earth shattering, worthy of a conference fee?

I know, I know, they'll speak for free, they seem to have important followings on twitter. They'll travel on their own dime. They begged to speak. It's cheap for you.

But do you ever wonder why an unemployed lawyer peddling social media or tech tips would fly a few hundred or even thousands of miles just to take a microphone for a panel discussion for an hour?

Are these the important "futurists" of the legal profession that you are happy to have your conference attendees pay good money to hear? Are you really OK having people spend a few hundred dollars, take a day or two off work, travel to another city, and all just to hear from a bunch of people who couldn't make it as practicing lawyers?

Do you have no shame?

This garbage should stop, and stop now.

I know the economy is in the crapper. I know you know that marketing conferences are all the rage and all you need is someone to say that social media is the future and that the iPad has replaced the stone and chisel. I know.

But wouldn't it be great to have one conference where none of these fakers were invited? Wouldn't it be awesome to have a conference where you could say "all our speakers actually represent clients and have real law practices and exist on a daily basis without praying to the Gods of Apple or social media?"

No?

Try it. Just once.

Anonymous comments are welcome as long as they say something relevant and half-way intelligent and arent a vehicle for a coward to attack someone. I trust you understand. Located in Miami, Florida, Brian Tannebaum practices Bar Admission and Discipline and Criminal Defense. He is the author of I Got A Bar Complaint.

The Tweet Heard 'Round The Social Media Marketing World

Before the unemployed marketers found a way to sell it for a living, and convince lawyers that clients were going to line up with every online "tweet" or "status update," no one thought of creating a fake persona for the purpose of lying to get business. No one thought of puffing qualifications, or, in legal terms, making shit up, in an effort to appear "experienced, aggressive," and here to fight for you 10 minutes out of law school.

When Facebook and twitter and other "social" media sites came online, the first thing people started doing, was talking to each other. When the marketers, unable to truly assist in "marketing" those that were qualified to be marketed started swarming, they made it a profession to help lawyers "create" an online image - true or not.

Lawyers are sheep. Proof? The most scammed segment of society as a result of "Nigerian" email solicitations and other "may I deposit millions of dollars in your account," jokes, are lawyers.

Want to make money? Convince a lawyer you can make them money. They will give you money. Doesn't matter whether you know how to make money. As a marketer told me recently in response to my wonderment how certain morons were given money by lawyers to give marketing advice - he said "no one asks about qualifications, no one."

So tonight, in the middle of watching the resident hucksters try and peddle their wares, I saw this from a social media marketer:

Separate Social Media From Marketing - Anthony J. Bradley and Mark P. McDonald - Harvard Business Review

Harvard Business Review. He he.

... we need to break out social media and talk about more than marketing and technology. Instead, we need to talk about what social media enables: the ability to collaborate in new ways — which is particularly important for business leaders interested in creating more collaborative, innovative, and engaging organizations.

Huh?

An executive may boast, "We have Twitter and SharePoint, and we're on Facebook." But if you were to ask the executive how social media is positively impacting business results, you may raise a significant issue. When social media is applied to marketing, it creates activity — and in marketing, activity is a good thing. But activity alone does not create business results.

Now wait just a minute?

You can't just type things on social media sites and things will happen?

...just because you've opened the door doesn't mean you've crossed the threshold into a new way of working, managing, and leading. To achieve those ends — we've described these as attributes of a "social organization" — it takes more than setting loose the technology and praying that something good will happen.

So wait, there has to be something behind your online fakery that is actually true?

We need to move beyond social media as a technology tool.

Now this article is basically saying that if the organization behind all the social media lights and sirens is not "social," then it doesn't matter.

Taken a step further, if your law firm, solo practice, reputation, credentials, don't comport with the crap you are spewing on the internet, then all you are doing is using a marketing tool to project something that doesn't exist.

And for some, that's OK.

If it's not, then maybe it's time to think about whether you should be spending more time working on who you truly are, then who you are on social media.












Anonymous comments are welcome as long as they say something relevant and half-way intelligent and arent a vehicle for a coward to attack someone. I trust you understand. Located in Miami, Florida, Brian Tannebaum practices Bar Admission and Discipline and Criminal Defense. He is the author of I Got A Bar Complaint.

How To Make Money As A Lawyer - Forget Law School

A couple years ago my electrician showed up to my house in a BMW. A few days later he showed up in a Porsche. I asked who's Porsche it was, and he said "mine, the BMW is in the shop."

Recently, there's been some discussion about this country developing an economy of lawyers, doctors, and accountants. No one wants to be a plumber, electrician, or other trades person. It's demeaning. Mom and Dad won't be proud, and all the money to be made is in lawyering.

Yeah, right.

I will tell you this: If I graduated plumbing school 17 years ago, I'd be making as much or more than I am now. I'd have 10 trucks, ads running around the clock, and my name plastered everywhere around town - from bus benches, billboards, airplanes over stadiums, and charity events. No fancy office, no Bar regulations, no judges wanting me in court NOW, no sleepless nights wondering if Mr. Jones hot water is working.

With all the discussion about "the future of lawyers," I haven't seen one post about "the future of plumbers."

Will there be a time where people no longer stop up a toilet? Will sinks no longer need to be installed? Will giant condominiums be built in 2023 without bathrooms and kitchens?

Will we be taking a shit on our iPads?

From the ABA Journal:

Hedge fund manager Daniel Ades of Kawa Capital Management tells the Wall Street Journal that students should seek an education that pays the highest salaries relative to the cost of education. According to that analysis, technical colleges are the best. "We're in a skills based economy and what we need is more computer programmers, more [nurses]," he tells the newspaper. "It's less glamorous but it's what we need."

The article is geared towards the discussion of loans, and why it's more cost effective to pay for a trade school education in terms of making money in a career than it is to pay for law school.

So there's the answer, forget law school. If money is the goal, go to trade school. it costs less, you don't need to wear a suit, you can use all your shiny toys for business, and you don't have to worry about social media for lawyers.

Let me know if you do it. I'll hire you to fix my toilet, and bitch about how much it costs as you drive away in your Porsche.

Anonymous comments are welcome as long as they say something relevant and half-way intelligent and aren't a vehicle for a coward to attack someone. I trust you understand.

Located in Miami, Florida, Brian Tannebaum practices Bar Admission and Discipline and Criminal Defense. He is the author of I Got A Bar Complaint.