New York Bar May Crack Down on Blogging Lawyers

An anonymous reader writes "While you might not guess it from watching late night TV, advertisements by lawyers are regulated by a web of regulations intended to protect potential clients from deceptive claims in such ads. Generally, these rules require lawyers to submit their ads to a review board, often with a filing fee paid with each new advertisement. The New York bar has proposed new rules which would define blogging as advertising. Should these rules be enacted, any New York lawyer who blogs on any legal topic in New York would be required to submit any new blog post to the New York Bar for review. For New York lawyers who write frequently updated blogs, this could force them to make multiple (and potentially expensive) reports to the New York Bar every single day."

Or...

this could force them to make multiple (and potentially expensive) reports to the New York Bar every single day.

Or they could just stop blogging and do the job i'm paying them $100/hr to do.

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$100/hr??? 99% of my clients are lawyers and they regularly bill upwards of $300/hr

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$100/hr??? 99% of my clients are lawyers and they regularly bill upwards of $300/hr

Of all the people to attempt to deprive of their rights, lawyers would be right at the bottom of my list. They seem quite well equipped to defend themselves.

So yeah, I'm

Re:Or...

Childhood friend of mine's dad is a local lawyer.
He normally goes upwards of $1K+/Hr. His Jr. lawyers in his firm are $250-500/hr and do most the work. He usually only bills his hours when the client insists he handle the case, or when in court and such.
I helped him with his PBX and a couple other little PC things. He was quoted an absurd ammount of money (to the tune of $8K) for what took me about an hour or so to do. I told him "no worries" and went out to lunch with him (he bought) and that was good enough for me.

Some years later I had a *real issue* at work with a way out of control manager (involved verbal and physical abuse, threats, and a knife). Gary gave me about 10 hours of his firms time and saved me from making some stupid, but not so obvious, mistakes when dealing with HR and legal. The end result is that I am still employed (so unfortunately is the manager) and I will never have to work with or under him again.

FF another few years to the link in my sig, again Gary to the rescue. He proof read my response to the C&D letter and blessed it as "an excellent response" along with some other wonder advice.

Moral? It never hurts to have an excellent lawyer think he owes you more than he does :-)
-nB

Sorry for the ramble, just got going and wandered around O_o

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Funny story time:

When I was in college I worked at a mom and pop PC store. Mom and pop we're unfortunately going through a terrible divorce that involved the insurance saleswoman next door. My boss got a bill from his lawyer one day and called me into hi

Re:Or...

I don't think causing problems for lawyers is very bright.

I imagine the New York Bar has some pretty good lawyers of their own.

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Then why are they so clearly considering violating the First Amendment rights of other lawyers in New York?

The bar association can condition the practice of law on adherence to regulations that, were they laws rather than conditions attached to the practic

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The bar association can condition the practice of law on adherence to regulations that, were they laws rather than conditions attached to the practice of law, would be Constitutionally barred, because practicing law isn't a right.

Assuming that the bar

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IANAL, but what you say makes sense. That is, the bar assn. would appear to be a monopoly, and as such one would think it would be subject to certain restrictions. That is, if the use their position as the only entity that will allow lawyers to work to fo

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However, one thing I've never seen properly explained: what keeps someone who isn't certified by the bar association from practicing law?

In Washington state for example, the State Bar Act [wa.gov] defines who can and cannot practice law under various circumstance

Re:Or...

And lawyers don't have off-hours?

No, they bill 84 hours per day.

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Pft. That's just during the week. On the weekends I like to take some time off, so I only bill 60 hours a day.

To blog or not to blog

The New York bar has proposed new rules which would define blogging as advertising.

Yeah, I'm tired of searching out Lawyer's blogs to see who has the most annoying 1-800-ASK-____ phone number because late night TV doesn't show me enough of them.

to affect slashdot's own.

Too bad for Newyorkcountrylawyer [slashdot.org] and his blog [blogspot.com].

I wonder if slashdot interviews would count?

Re:to affect slashdot's own.

tddoog wrote:

"Too bad for Newyorkcountrylawyer and his blog. I wonder if slashdot interviews would count?"

If those rules go into effect, both of my blogs, Recording Industry vs. The People [blogspot.com], and Ohio Election Fraud (formerly "Fairness") [blogspot.com], along with my web sites, info.riaalawsuits.us [riaalawsuits.us] and Ohio Election 2004 [ohioelection2004.com] would be taken down, as it would be far too costly and time consuming to comply with the new rules. See my collection of articles on New York's rules and the impact they would have on lawyer blogs here [blogspot.com]j.

Fortunately, though, the various bar associations and other lawyer groups are very concerned about the rules, and are putting in detailed comments explaining how the proposed rules are too overbroad. And the Appellate Divisions have postponed the proposed effective dates, in order to give the legal community and the public at large more time to comment.

Arguably my entire membership in Slashdot would indeed count, since my profile identifies me. It would of course be impossible to comply with those rules, so I might just have to stop participating in Slashdot, which for me would be sad indeed. I have really come to enjoy it here.

Blogs by lawyers are a pretty new thing, but I think they have made a significant contribution. I think it would be a shame if we had to stop blogging just because we're lawyers.

I don't think the proposed rules will be passed in that form, so I'm not too worried.

For those of you who haven't seen the proposed rules, they're posted here [nycourts.gov].

Missing the point

For New York lawyers who write frequently updated blogs, this could force them to make multiple (and potentially expensive) reports to the New York Bar every single day.

Don't be absurd. It won't force them to report more, it will force them not to update their web logs, which is, no doubt, the real point.

Re:Missing the point

Why doesn't the Bar just subscribe to RSS feeds of the blogs?

Can you say

Money Grubbing Lawyers?

"Generally, these rules require lawyers to submit their ads to a review board, often with a filing fee paid with each new advertisement."

Some blogging...

...is certainly akin to advertising, but some is more akin to writing op-ed pieces for a newspaper and doing commentary in other media, or just writing a book (but that it is published incrementally.)

Seems to me it makes more sense to regulate based on the content than the medium, in this case, but then, I'm not a member of the NY Bar.

How many can the bar handle?

There are an insane number of lawyers in New York. If 1% of them sent in a blog post check request every day for a week you probably wouldn't be able to stand in the bar associations hall and USPS would be profitable again. They might even be able to put some of those blue mailboxes back on the streets again.

Misleading article

Having read through the rule changes, this seems to be limited to actual solicitation for services. Legal commentary or discussion of legal issues isn't anywhere in this, that I could see.

Basically, it applies the limitations currently in place for print and television ads to internet ads as well, which is a reasonable step to take... regulate all advertising, or regulate none.

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From the proposed rules:

(k) "Advertisement" means any public communication made by or on behalf of a lawyer
or law firm about a lawyer or law firm, or about a lawyer's or law firm's services.

I think it's reasonable to call a lawyer's blog a public communica

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I disagree. My blogs, and even my Slashdot profile, identify me and who I am. Under the proposed rules that could make the entire publication "an advertisement". No lawyer who wants to keep on being a lawyer is going to take a chance on that.

New York Bar May Crack Down on Blogging Lawyers

Did anyone else see this headline and think it was talking about some bar-room brawl aimed at lawyers that spread all over new york, then want to join in? Pass the bud and punch another lawyer!!

Re: New York Bar May Crack Down on Blogging Lawyer

My first impression from the headline was that there was a tavern in New York that was taking a stand against lawyers doing their blogging while sitting around in bars. My first thought: "Bars in New York have wireless internet?"

Am I the only one...

...who read the headline, and immediately thought that some bar in New York was having problems with lawyers taking up the tables with their laptops, blogging away all night and taking the space away from paying patrons?

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Almost, only I thought about lawyers wardriving on the open wireless accesspoint in the bar.
Damn those people, crashing into my right to get drunk and surf for porn with the resident old drunk geezer.

Help me!

I want to care about lawyers getting screwed but I'm too busy getting giddy over the thought of it.

Another stuffy oganization fears Internet's power

Information flowing without our control! The horror.

-Nothing to see here, move along. You've seen this story before.

505

"For New York lawyers who write frequently updated blogs, this could force them to make multiple (and potentially expensive) reports to the New York Bar every single day."

Yes that and the mounting server costs as he is slashdotted to oblivion.

Who would it affect?

For New York lawyers who write frequently updated blogs [blogspot.com], this could force them to make multiple (and potentially expensive) reports to the New York Bar every single day."

I'm no expert on Greenwald, but doesn't he live in Brazil or something? Would this still affect him? Is he still practicing NY law from another country? Or is it Thomas Ellers that live in NY while Greenwald lives in Brazil?

What will this mean...

...for the Bob Loblaw Law Blog [chicagotribune.com]

Odd

IIANYL, and this strikes me as a red herring. I've read through this, and the gist of the amendments have to deal with solicitations and advertisements as applied to modern technology. I can't read the arguments on the second link, but there are two things that were immediately clear from reading the amendments. First, they are narrowly construed to apply only to solicitation and advertisement, not publications in general. Second, it is in large part a technological amendment, to deal with new methods of advertisements like pop-up advertisements.

The first is the relevant part. I don't, on the face of it, see how this would preclude blogging. It would prevent blogging as a form of advertisement, but that's the very point of the restrictions on professional attorney and counselor publications. Advertisements for lawyers are permitted insofar, but only insofar, as the advertisement aids the public's ability to make an informed decision. Extensions of that are generally barred as being potentially misleading.

The second comment is relevant because it shows that they are technologically savvy. This gives some hope that even if this comes into force and causes problems, they will be conscious of the problems it creates and amend it appropriately. Incidentally, before this amendment, by interpretation, there appears to be some technical requirement to have every partner's name in the law firm's domain name.

Again, though, I haven't read the criticisms, and I've only given it a once-over. I don't pretend to be defending the NY bar; I don't know the arguments against it. I've just read through it and this is all I could come up with. If there is something there that unduly inhibits an attorney or counselor-at-law's ability to publish online, I would be interested in seeing that amended before it goes into force. If someone points a good argument out to me, I'll be sure to send along my comments, as a member of the bar.

The only criticism I could see was an extraterritorial clause which makes the law apply to out-of-NY lawyers who solicit or advertise their services in NY. But that seems reasonable, given the nexus between the out-of-NY lawyers and their purported NY services, and is totally unrelated to this slashdot article.

Ha!

Finally, a legal situation where lawyers lose. Karma's a bitch.

Usually they're the only ones that come out ahead...

Why censor lawyers?

While limitations on advertising by lawyers have been around for a long time, they seem to have their roots in in pre-democratic times, when legal representation was to available to the wealthy if at all and the very practice of law was considered a somewhat questionable activity that had to be strictly regulated in order to be kept respectable. I fail to see any justification for restrictions on the speech of lawyers different from those that apply to everyone else. Lawyers would still be deterred from false advertising and libel by the existing laws of general application. Is there any good reason that censorship by the bar associations should not be eliminated?

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While limitations on advertising by lawyers have been around for a long time, they seem to have their roots in in pre-democratic times, when [...] the very practice of law was considered a somewhat questionable activity that had to be strictly regulated in

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For a lawyer, Bar Association membership is, depending on the state, de facto mandatory, or legally mandatory.

Re:Who cares

This is a mandatory bar that all lawyers admitted in New York State must join.

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Can you cite the requirement?

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The proposed rules are posted here [nycourts.gov].

Re:Who cares

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_State_Bar_As sociation [wikipedia.org], In New York there is no mandatory bar, but the title in the Slashdot summary is confusing because it's not the bar association imposing the rule but the New York's Administrative Board of Courts which is in fact a government entity which all lawyers who wish to practice in New York must abide by.

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Yes these would be binding rules imposed on all lawyers in New York.

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It's not like the government is doing this

You seem to have misread TFA. New York's Administrative Board of Courts is indeed "the government."

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In which case, they cannot restrict free speech in the form of posting opinion pieces on personal webpages.

In the example given, Glenn Greenwald's blog, his entries are no different than letters to the editor published by the NYT, or live appearances on

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I agree with you that there are huge First Amendment issues with the proposed rules. But if they were to go through in that format, most lawyers who need to make a living are not going to take a chance on violating the rules and then using the First Amendm

Re:Your rights online?

Hardly.

This is just one occupation that is being censored. Because it is lawyers, nobody will stand up and argue. But what other occupations can be censored to make sure that you have to have your information certified on your blogs? Medical blogs? Engineering blogs? Government watchgroup blogs that happen to have a lawyer on their staff? Nutritional blogs? Technology blogs?

If this concept is slightly extended, anyone who has to be certified in any way will have to prove every statement they make on a blog is correct (and pay the fees to do so). There are a lot of jobs that require some sort of certification from the level of operating a nuclear reactor to the level of driving a truck.

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the sad part is that they realy arn't trying to censor them.. they just want the money.. i am sure that if someone posts 3 times a day and they have 1000 people posting we get 3000 things every day.. the board isn't going to read a damn one of them.. they

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Enforcement usually would probably be in response to a complaint of violation; state bar associations tend to have broad powers to discipline their members, and that discipline can be pretty effective given that bar association membership is legally requir

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The solution is simple! Just precede every post with IANAL!

Re:Recording Industry vs The People based in NY

Thank you. I agree that it is way over the top. I can see where big corporations -- who can pay top dollar for legal information -- would love to see the information become less available to the public. For example, how happy do you think the record labels would be to see my recording industry blog shut down?

Fortunately, though, the entire legal community in New York agrees with you as well, that it is way over the top. So I don't think the rules will go through in that overbroad format.

For those of you who haven't seen the rules, they're posted here [nycourts.gov].