Blawg guru Denise Howell posts such consistently good material that you can start to take Bag and Baggage for granted. It’s time again to give her some props. She’s been in the zone lately with a long string of great posts.
Her recent post From the Mouths of Flacks is one of those not-to-be-missed gems that all lawyers will want to spend some time thinking about carefully.
Here’s my take on the post, but don’t rely on my interpretation – read Denise’s words.
The world of blogging (or Internet or other tech-affected areas) moves on at a rapid pace raising all kinds of legal and quasi-legal issues.
Lawyers, with a few exceptions, pretend that none of this is happening or that none of this really matters that much. Lawyers barely observe what is happening, let alone participate in blogging or the legal questions it raises.
In the meantime, some very smart people with great instincts and solid philosophical and practical approaches discuss and work together first to help others navigate this new world of legal issues and then to try to set some reasonable ground rules so bloggers (or others) can operate, evolve and advance this new world.
At some later point, lawyers take notice and, often disregarding the guidelines and standards developed by the culture, jump in to reassert their traditional role of setting legal guidelines and standards. Strains and difficulties ensue and the antipathies toward lawyerdom increase.
Denise’s post sounds a strong wake-up call for lawyers to participate in the discussion from the inception, especially because it affords lawyers the chance to work with the people who are making things happen.
She also notes that some bloggers in the field of PR and marketing, as one example, have had to move into the vacuum created by the absence of lawyer involvement and (I definitely agree with this assessment) are both offering solid, informed advice and taking the initiative on discussing these issues.
Here’s where Denise sets the pace for lawyers: She’s putting together an audio program (a/k/a podcast or “plawdcast”) for IT Converstations on the hot Google “AutoLink” issue that combines both leading bloggers, in this case, Cory Doctorow and Robert Scoble, and leading lawyer bloggers, in this case the brilliant Marty “The Trademark Blog” Schwimmer. This audio session will be a must-listen and offers a good example of the types of efforts lawyers should be making.
BTW, don’t neglect any of the great PR/Marketing blogs Denise links to in her post. Many, and now all, of them are regular reads for me and I highly recommend them too. In fact, I have a folder in FeedDemon just for Marketing and PR RSS feeds). There are a lot of great blogs in that category.
[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (https://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]