This is his blog. It is appropriately titled “Joe Blogs”. It is hosted for free by google. Joe uses the most generic blogger template available. If all one did was create a blogger account and click through your blog would look like “Joe Blogs” without any effort. It took him all of 5 minutes to create and costs him nothing to operate.

I have no idea what kind of traffic his site attracts. But I’m willing to wager it’s more than any legal blog not called “Above The Law“.

Joe doesn’t seem to do any kind of search engine optimization. His most recent posts are titled “Terrible Time Outs” “Lamposts” and “My Mother’s Basement”.

The next time someone tries to sell you a blog with all sorts of fancy bells and whistles remember “Joe Blogs“.

His blog is authentic.  He writes from the heart. He writes about things he loves. Above all, content is king.  So if you have something to say about law – I hope you say it online. And don’t fret about where you’re saying it.

Joe Posnanski has no need for a social media guru. He has something they can’t sell – insight.

Palden Gyastso

Frankly, I’m a little more colorful on twitter than I am on this site and I’m not sure why. Here are the tweets that I fired off:

Hey @groupon, you suck. I don’t care what the deal is – you lost my business.

RT That Groupon commercial may actually inspire the Dalai Lama to give up a lifetime of non-violence to kick the CEO in the nuts.

I’ll bet @groupon placed a call to google tonight and asked if that 6 billion was still on the table.

It shows that @groupon is amateur hour. A real company wouldn’t think of airing those ads.

I fired those tweets off pretty quickly. I was angry. I’ve had Tibetan food. I like it. I’ve eaten Tibetan food with, Palden Gyatso,  a Tibetan Monk who had his teeth knocked out with a electric cattle prod in a Chinese prison. The next morning when I got my groupon emails I cancelled my account.

Yesterday, I got an email from a reporter at the Chicago Tribune. She had searched twitter for people’s reactions to the groupon ad and decided to contact me.  She asked if I’d be willing to be interviewed for an article she was working on. I agreed to the interview.

In today’s Chicago Tribune, I’m quoted in a story about Groupon.

Ryan McKeen, a 30-year-old from Connecticut, tweeted his disdain and unsubscribed from Groupon in protest. “I sat there and watched the ad and I was just stunned,” he said.

The lesson in all of this for lawyers is that people will read your stuff if you put it out online. Even after all I’ve been through with this site – it still surprises me when I get a reaction to something I write which happens fairly frequently. When I started this site, I assumed no one would ever read it. I never assumed it would have any impact.

Especially when you start blogging or using twitter it’s important not to think that you’re writing in a vacuum.

-Over the past 2 weeks this site has been totally redesigned. I selected a new wordpress theme for the site, changed the banner, and have made numerous technical changes under the hood of this site.  I’ve added a bunch of plugins that should make this site more user friendly for you.  Some of which you’ll notice like the suggested posts that appear below every post and some of which you won’t.

-One of the changes that I’ve made is that this site is now much more easily viewed on your mobile device. More and more of my web traffic is coming from mobile devices of all sorts including the iPhone, Blackberrys and Android devices.

-If you have a subscription check out Christian Nolan’s article in the CT Law Tribune “Connecticut Bloggers Among The Best”. I’m in it along with Gideon, Dan Schwartz and Adrian Baron. It’s a very nice article about blogging.

-Things are moving forward with the ABA Journal. Last spring, I was contacted by the ABA to do video tech reviews. I jumped at the opportunity. Lots of exciting things are going on with the ABA Journal and I’m excited to be a part of their team. Look for some reviews both on this site and on their site in the near future. Look for more video blogging on this site in the near future.

-This site is now available on your kindle. Search for “A Connecticut Law Blog”. I saw the site on my wife’s kindle and it looks awesome. I’m not sure it’s worth the $1.99 a month fee that Amazon charges but what I’m there if you’re interested.

-Also coming in the new year, I’m going to be partnering with a network of CT blogs. This is a very exciting opportunity for me. It will expose this site to new audiences while bringing my readers to interesting and insightful content. I’m very excited about this opportunity.

-In addition to the writing that I’ll be doing, I’m also working on Sons of Sam Horn’s 2011 Jimmy Fundraiser. Our goal is to raise a $100,000.00 to fight cancer. One of the things that I’m doing is leading up a virtual running group. So far we have 15 runners all of whom have pledged $500 to the Jimmy Fund. The goal for the new runners is a fall half marathon.  I’m going to tackle a marathon next fall.

-Of course it’s a very busy time of the year to be practicing law. I’m doing that too. Yesterday I was in juvenile court in the morning representing a grandparent, then in civil court in the afternoon representing a judgement creditor in a foreclosure case. In between I was involved in 4 real estate transactions, setting up 2 LLCs, and writing and negotiating 2 commercial leases. Tomorrow, it’s a deposition and Thursday I’m in court representing 3 subcontractors on a multi million dollar foreclosure case that’s headed for the complex lit docket.

-You can read about the last time I wrote about being busy here. At the time, I didn’t listen to WNPR or McEnroe’s show. Since then I cancelled Sirius and am a WNPR fanboy.

Colin McEnroe, please, please, do a show about our obsession with lawns and green alternatives. Please. Or else, I’l start suggesting you do a much more boring show about CT’s Legal Bloggers being Among the Best.

I especially like to follow rules that impact my livelyhood.

Every quarter, I have to register this blog with the grievance committee. I’m not happy about it but I don’t have the time or the desire to make an issue of it. Registering this blog takes 5 minutes of my time every 3 months and is a small price to pay for the privelege of attaching my name to posts about Connecticut law. In life one has to pick one’s fights and this is one that’s not worth fighting.

My real gripe lies with the Grievance Committee’s (SGC) lack of a policy on Facebook and Twitter.

In preparing for the upcoming CLE on the Basics of Blogs, Twitter, and Social Media for Lawyers, I asked the SGC for materials or guidance on the ethical requirements for attorney’s using social media. I was told in so many words that the rules haven’t caught up with Web 2.0.

What we’re left with is the SGC applying outdated Web 1.0 rules to Web 2.0 and that’s a problem, especially for attorneys who are solos or practice in small firms.

The rule is easy enough:

Connecticut Attorneys must register all communications made by a lawyer or a law firm about legal services offered by the law firm.

The exceptions are as follows:

1. An advertisement in the public media that contains only the information, in whole or in part, contained in Rule 7.2 (i) of the Rules of Professional Conduct, provided the information is not false or misleading;

2. An advertisement in a telephone directory;

3. A listing or entry in a regularly published law list;

4. An announcement card stating new or changed associations, new offices, or similar changes relating to an attorney or firm, or a tombstone professional card;

5. A communication sent only to:

(i) Existing or former clients;

(ii) Other attorneys or professionals; business organizations including trade groups; not-for-profit organizations; governmental bodies and/or

(iii) Members of a not-for-profit organization that meets the following conditions: the primary purposes of the organization do not include the rendition of legal services; the recommending, furnishing, paying for or educating persons regarding legal services is incidental and reasonably related to the primary purposes of the organization; the organization does not derive a financial benefit from the rendition of legal services by an attorney; and the person for whom the legal services are rendered, and not the organization, is recognized as the client of the attorney who is recommended, furnished, or paid for by the organization.

6. Communication that is requested by a prospective client.

7. The contents of an attorney’s website(s). Attorneys must provide the domain name(s) (URLs) of the website(s) only and must do so only on a quarterly basis.

The rules about internet advertising are clearly set up for stale websites on which lawyers boast about being a Super Lawyer, their community involvement, and their diplomas. I call these websites dinosaurs.

I have a Facebook page and have several hundred “friends.” Most of them are former classmates, co-workers, family, and friends with pretty much the sole exception being that I’m “friends” with  Red Sox pitcher Justin Masterson, who pitched well last night in leading the Red Sox to their 10th straight win and completing the sweep over the Yankees.  I digress.

My Facebook page lists my occupation and describes a little of what I do. It’s not all that different than my bio page on this site, less words but the same idea.

My profile can only be seen by people that I’m “friends” with.

Sometimes, I write about law. Again not a whole lot different that what I do on this site. Sometimes, I’ll post a link on my profile page and embed an article or blog post that catches my eye. Sometimes, I’ll update my status and it will include something law related such as “off to court” or some such useless nonsense.

It was suggested to me by the SGC that it may be best to separate my personal life from my professional life online by creating some sort of a net wall.

But that’s not right. I have rights under both the United States and Connecticut Constitutions to comment on law, my life, or whatever nonsense pops into my head.

Norm Pattis has done a wonderful job in making the case that attorney ethics rules are written for large firms and that applying them to small firms and solos places unfair constraints on those who don’t have a 150 partners.

Facebook is ground zero for this conflict. On one hand my Facebook page exists as a private way for me to keep in contact with the people in my life on the other hand it is a way for me to market myself.

The question is where to draw the line?

I rely on my friends, family, and former classmates for business. I couldn’t exist without them.  Law school classmates send me cases, family members and friends have me prepare their wills and buy and sell their homes. 

Does it benefit me if my high school classmates know where I practice and what it is that I do? Absolutely.

Lawyers in large firms spend lots of marketing time meeting with and speaking to people in whatever industry they happen to serve. For example, it makes sense for an energy lawyer to be out an about at meetings with the energy industry. 

For me Facebook works in much the same way.

I can’t think of a policy for the SGC to regulate attorneys’ Facebook pages.

Facebook allows a person to buy very targeted ads that appear on Facebook and I think it makes sense for attorney’s to have to register those ads.

Registering my page with includes lots of personal photos and information goes to far. I don’t post pictures of me with my dog in a Halloween costume on this site because they are not for public consumption. The SGC has no right to view those pictures. I do not want the SGC as my friend and it probably does not want me to be it’s friend either.

The only policy that makes any sort of sense is for Facebook pages to be exempt from registration and review the same way an advertisement in the yellow pages is exempt. It makes sense.

The only people who can see my Facebook page are people who (1) I let see it; and (2) people who choose to see it. 

The SGC shouldn’t wait around to enact such a policy either.  Failing to have a policy in place has a chilling effect on speech. I shouldn’t be left wondering if updating my status to read “busy today,  last day of the month, lots of closings” or “proud of legislature for enacting Kerrigan legislation” is a violation of my ethical duties as an attorney.