[begin third party email]

Many thanks for your exposure of Phone2Phone. I manage a public library website and we have gotten emails and phone calls from various websites which have the mailing address 1 International Blvd, Mahwah, New Jersey, including Chessboss.com, Science.org, and Hospital.com. Under 'about us', Hospital.com mentions 4 affiliate sites: Physician.com, Pathology.org, Medicalschool.org and Disease.com. None of these medical sites lists any writers' names or credentials, legitimate organizational affiliations, or authoritative advisory board (or advisory board of any kind). They just claim that they have a 'top-notch writing staff'. (All the articles I saw were written by 'admin'.)

The email from Hospital.com also claims they are in compliance with MedlinePlus/National Library of Medicine Quality Guidelines, though a quick check of the MedlinePlus guidelines refutes this claim. The guidelines state, for example: ".. The source of the content is established, respected and dependable. The organization publishes a list of advisory board members or consultants on the site."

Since they are putting out scientific, legal, and medical information without proper credentials, I wouldn't have put their links on our website in any case - but I fear they may fool others who are more credulous. Just look at how many doctors they've got signed up on Newdoctor.com! Scary.

[end third party email]
_________

My previous coverage of Phone to Phone Inc. and related entities:

* Phone to Phone Inc. is Spamming Again--This Time for Lawschool.org (Jan. 14, 2010)
* Another Phone to Phone Inc. Employee Speaks Out (Dec. 15, 2009)
* Questionable Employment and SEO Practices at Phone to Phone Inc.? (Dec. 10, 2009)
* Attorney.org is Latest Phone to Phone Inc. Website to Spam Me (Oct. 28, 2009)
* More Spam from Phone to Phone Inc.--This Time on Behalf of Laws.com (Oct. 23, 2009)
* Newlawyer.com Spams Me Again (Twice in One Day!) (Oct. 19, 2009)
* Newlawyer.com: Persistent Telemarketer, and Now a Spammer (Oct. 2, 2009)

I also wrote a review of Newlawyer.com at SiteJabber.

from Michael Geller
to egoldman@gmail.com
date Thu, Jan 14, 2010 at 11:18 AM
subject Regarding a Partnership Opportunity

To whom it may concern,

My name is Mike Geller and I am an assistant editor with LawSchool.org. I came across your website and noticed that you have law school related resources on your page, so I wanted to reach out to you to discuss the potential of having LawSchool.org added.

LawSchool.org offers a number of features like a legal career center, up to date law school information and news, profiles of law schools around the country, and information regarding admission standards and financial aid. Several universities and colleges around the country like Syracuse Law School, University of Colorado, and NYU utilize LawSchool.org as a resource for their students. If you have any questions feel free to contact me and please let me know if you are able to make this addition. Thank you very much.

Mike
_____

Obviously Mike didn't actually look at my website (at least, not very closely). If he had, it would have been impossible to miss my repeated blog criticisms of his employer.

I have formulated a new hypothesis that Phone to Phone Inc. is a domainer, i.e., they have a sizable portfolio of domain names, which they are trying to build content for using cheap student labor. Let me offer some support for this theory.

First, they have a portfolio of generic domain names. I don't know how many, in part because the ones I've checked are registered via domain proxies to mask Phone to Phone Inc. as the owner. I believe all of the following domain names are associated with Phone to Phone Inc.:

Attorney.org
Chessboss.com (check out the associated Twitter account--wow!)
Disease.com
Docket.com
Hospital.com
Laws.com
LawSchool.org
Medicalschool.org
Newdoctor.com
NewLawyer.com
Pathology.org
Physician.com
Science.org

I'm pretty sure this list is incomplete. If you know of other domain names in their portfolio, please let me know.

Second, many of their sites are built on the same basic design template. Take a look at a few of the sites and you'll see what I mean.

Third, they use Craigslist aggressively to recruit new employees. See the Craigslist listings for Mahwah, New Jersey and notice how often Phone to Phone Inc. shows up:

* Jan 14 - Looking for Skilled Writers - (Mahwah, NJ) << writing/editing
* Jan 14 - Looking For Marketers - (Mahwah, NJ) << marketing/advertising/PR
* Jan 14 - MARKETING POSITIONS AVAILABLE - (Mahwah, NJ) << marketing/advertising/PR
* Jan 14 - Writing Positions Available - (Mahwah, NJ) << writing/editing
* Jan 14 - Great Postions for Recent College Grads - (Mahwah, NJ) << marketing/advertising/PR
* Jan 14 - Marketing Positions Available - (Mahwah, NJ) << marketing/advertising/PR
* Jan 14 - Marketing JOb Opportunities - (Mahwah, NJ) << marketing/advertising/PR
* Jan 14 - Looking For Writers - (Mahwah, NJ) << writing/editing
* Jan 14 - Limited Number of Marketing Opportunities Available - (Mahwah, NJ) << marketing/advertising/PR
* Jan 13 - MARKETING POSITIONS AVAILABLE - (Mahwah, NJ) << marketing/advertising/PR
* Jan 13 - Limited Number of Marketing Opportunities Available - (Mahwah, NJ) << marketing/advertising/PR
* Jan 13 - Marketing Joba Available - (Mahwah, NJ) << marketing/advertising/PR
* Jan 13 - Limited Number of Marketing Opportunities Available - ((Mahwah, NJ) ) << marketing/advertising/PR
* Jan 11 - Limited Number of Marketing Opportunities Available - (Mahwah, NJ) << marketing/advertising/PR
* Jan 5 - Entry Level Marketing - (Mahwah NJ) << marketing/advertising/PR
* Jan 5 - Writers Needed - (Mahwah NJ) << writing/editing
* Dec 28 - Entry Level Marketing - (Mahwah NJ) << admin/office

I count no less than 9 postings on January 14, 2010 alone! [Update: I count another 7 postings on Jan. 15]. Most of the postings are blind, but they seem to follow some common formats that give me reason to believe that all of these listings are related.

Why does the company need to run so many ads? Are people not responding to the ads? (An unlikely prospect given this down market). Does the company have a large or rapidly growing workforce? Does it have unusually high turnover?

You will notice that the listings clearly target student workers, mentioning that they are hiring graduating college seniors/recent graduates and promising volleyball courts and free Red Bull. I wonder if college students, desperate for a job in a down market, are particularly vulnerable to some of the tactics alleged by a previous tipster?

I am curious about their cost model of developing content. A previous tipster indicated that employees are expected to write about one 500 word article every 30 minutes. At a salary of $12/hr, fully loaded to approx. $15/hr including benefits, this would work out to about $7.50 per 500 word article. (I'm discounting the allegations that they don't pay some folks at all for the work they do, which if true would result in extremely cheap content). I'm pretty sure $7.50 for 500 words is relatively cheap for content acquisition, but you get what you pay for. My personal assessment of the content I've seen is that it's crap--it's low-quality search engine bait that indexes well but is useless to humans who actually read it. Google needs to do a better job coping with these attacks on the integrity of their algorithms. I suspect, in the end, Google will have to make manual downgrades of crummy sites that they discover are engaged in pumping out lots of low content quality. In any case, it appears that Phone to Phone Inc. is aggregating cheap but junky content that will not improve readers' impressions of their brand. No surprises there.

My previous coverage of Phone to Phone Inc. and related entities:

* Another Phone to Phone Inc. Employee Speaks Out (Dec. 15, 2009)
* Questionable Employment and SEO Practices at Phone to Phone Inc.? (Dec. 10, 2009)
* Attorney.org is Latest Phone to Phone Inc. Website to Spam Me (Oct. 28, 2009)
* More Spam from Phone to Phone Inc.--This Time on Behalf of Laws.com (Oct. 23, 2009)
* Newlawyer.com Spams Me Again (Twice in One Day!) (Oct. 19, 2009)
* Newlawyer.com: Persistent Telemarketer, and Now a Spammer (Oct. 2, 2009)

I also wrote a review of Newlawyer.com at SiteJabber.

In November 2009, I spoke at an interesting and unusual event sponsored by the Ninth Circuit Public Information and Community Outreach Committee, a group I'd never heard of before. The group regularly sponsors a conference called the "Northern California Federal Courts Media Conference," which brings together journalists, judges and court administrators to talk about media coverage of the federal courts. This year's event was entitled "New Media in the Courtroom: How Blogs, Twitter and Social Media Are Changing Legal Reporting." You can watch some of the conference proceedings here.

Broadcasting Courtroom Proceedings

The OJ Simpson trial in the early 1990s reshaped media coverage in the courtroom. The trial was documented exhaustively by the cameras and left many with the perception that the judge and attorneys mugged for the in-courtroom cameras (although Kelli Sager's position is that the mugging did not decrease when the cameras were off). Shortly after the OJ trial, the federal courts (and many state courts) adopted ruled prohibiting recording and broadcasting of events within the courtroom. The federal rules even take the discretion out of district court judges' hands to waive the rule if they choose.

As an example of the anti-broadcasting rules, Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure 53 says:

Except as otherwise provided by a statute or these rules, the court must not permit the taking of photographs in the courtroom during judicial proceedings or the broadcasting of judicial proceedings from the courtroom.

This rule is fairly easily applied to Big Media representatives who show up with bulky TV or still cameras and are repeat players known to court administrators. But what does it mean to "broadcast" courtroom proceedings in an era where cheap and ubiquitous technological devices have turned every courtroom audience member into a potential broadcaster? In some courtrooms, judges are excluding cellphones and potentially even laptops (Judge Illston says she allows computers unless the typing noise is too distracting). Even more extreme, in November, a district court judge barred a journalist from live-Twittering the proceedings via his Blackberry because the judge took the position (wrongly, IMO) that Twittering is a prohibited "broadcasting" of the event. See US v. Shelnutt, 2009 WL 3681827 (M.D .Ga. Nov. 2, 2009). The judge said:

the contemporaneous transmission of electronic messages from the courtroom describing the trial proceedings, and the dissemination of those messages in a manner such that they are widely and instantaneously accessible to the general public, falls within the definition of "broadcasting" as used in Rule 53. Therefore, this type of broadcasting is prohibited under Rule 53.

The illogic of this rule is overwhelming. Is one Twitter post enough? Does it matter if the poster has no followers? What if the posts are impressions and not factual descriptions? More importantly, does it change the analysis if the reporter writes his posts contemporaneously and then uploads them at the breaks or the end of the day? It seems like it would in the Shelnutt case, but this is silly--it's the exact same content, just posted on a delay.

I don't want to speak for others, but my impression is that none of the conference attendees supported the current categorical ban against courtroom broadcasting. Obviously the journalists and First Amendment types don't like it; but neither did the judges, who would rather have discretion over administrating their courtrooms. Further, a comprehensive recording of trial proceedings could help appellate review as well as future researchers trying to understand a case's context.

There was some hope expressed at the conference that the no-broadcasting rule would be relaxed in the next year or two. In my opinion, the rule has long outlived any usefulness it had. However, Judge Illston sounded a cautionary note when she said that the court reporter lobby is "a force to be reckoned with." Perhaps economic protectionism will make the deregulation process harder than it should be.

We discussed the allocation of scarce resources among potential media sources, such as courtroom seats when audience demand exceeds room capacity. Where encountering scarcities, judges inevitably draw lines between "credible" journalists and other media representatives, even though they don't want to make those distinctions--and no one else wants them to make those distinctions either. For now, my impression is that judges treat Big Media better than bloggers when doling out scarce resources, although as Big Media fades away and citizen journalists continue to prove their credibility and become repeat players, I could see this changing. Obviously the better solution is to eliminate scarcity when possible so every media representative can get equal treatment. Live broadcasting of courtroom proceedings would be a huge step forward in alleviating any seat scarcity issues.

Juror Exposure to Case Information

We also discussed juror exposure to case information. The rule is simple--jurors are supposed to consider only evidence presented in court. In practice, this rule is out-of-sync with modern information flows and people's temptation to self-educate by doing their own research. Certainly that's how I usually proceed when I'm trying to learn something new. I do Google searches and often look through multiple search results, and when I can't do that, I feel bereft. So walling off judicial proceedings both from modern life and people's normal learning processes is fundamentally anachronistic. Evan Brown has more to say on this topic (and supports the anachronism).

Nevertheless, judges are trying to restrict the infoglut by giving jurors increasingly long lists of things they cannot do while in a trial. Not only does this include restrictions on seeking out case information, but it also includes enjoying technological devices that may passively expose the juror to case information. Taken to an extreme, this could include reading one's email, because someone might inadvertently email case information to the juror. As Judge Illston described it, the restriction lists are like trying to sequester jurors without sequestering them--in other words, cut off their information flows without physically restraining them, Jennifer Granick suggested that judges may need to designate more alternate jurors so that the inevitable juror slip-ups don't require a complete process restart.

The de facto info-sequestration raises some interesting questions about whether depriving jurors of their normal tools actually degrades jurors' decision-making. It reminds me a little of the mental confusion that can occur when law professors force law students to take law school exams using hand-written bluebooks when all of the students spent the entire semester learning the material and expressing themselves via computer. Carol Williams from the LA Times also pointed out that info-sequestration poses problems for potential jurors who need to use the Internet for professional and personal reasons. Ultimately, these folks may be removed from the jury pool, directly or because they try to wiggle out of the obligation, and either way this change in the jury pool could have other unwanted consequences.

This discussion suggested a sure-to-work way to get kicked off a jury or avoid being empaneled in the first place--simply search for case information using your mobile device while you're waiting, and off you go. Of course, if they judge instructs you not to do that, it would be inappropriate and potentially punishable to disregard the judge's instructions.

A related issue: In many cases, testifying witnesses are not supposed to monitor trial proceedings. However, with the advent of real-time reporting on cases, it's possible to do so remotely--and frequently judges do not have a chance to admonish witnesses until they appear in the courtroom, which might be too late. Judges can tell lawyers to instruct their witnesses not to monitor the trial proceedings, but lawyers might drop the ball or witnesses might not heed the warning (especially if the witness is adverse or would give more credit to a warning directly from the judge). Lawyers cross-examining a witness might increasingly ask the witness what research he/she has done to learn more about the trial proceedings.

Conclusion

The interplay between court administration and media/blogger coverage is an interesting, rich and multi-faceted topic. The conference covered a lot of ground but left many questions open. For more reading about the conference, see Joyce Cutler's BNA recap and John Steele's live-blogging of the first session.

Some recent topically related articles include Rachel Lee, "Ex Parte Blogging: The Legal Ethics of Supreme Court Advocacy in the Internet Era" and the recently issued and very useful CMLP Guilde to Live-Blogging and Tweeting from Court.

Media Alerts Initiative

In a separate but related announcement, Judge McKeown previewed the new Media Alerts on Federal Courts of Appeals, where academics will select and summarize key federal appellate court rulings. The site describes its mission as:

This website is designed to provide reporters, lawyers, educators, and the public with prompt, accurate, unbiased information about newsworthy and legally significant cases pending in and decided by the Federal Courts of Appeals. Our goal is to assist the media’s efforts to provide timely and extensive reporting about federal court decisions.

I think this is a great objective, although I wonder how useful media folks will find the website, especially given that it is effectively competing with existing blog coverage. I also wonder how invested the academics and their students will be in this endeavor. For example, just looking at the Ninth Circuit roster, the featured "upcoming cases" have an argument date of Dec. 14. Hmm....

As part of preparing for my sabbatical, I have intentionally reduced my travel and speaking engagements in Spring. My current schedule of trips and public speaking gigs (I'm sure there will be others):

January 8-9: AALS, New Orleans. At minimum, I'll be at the IP professors gathering on Friday night, the IP Section meeting on Saturday morning, and the Law & Computers section meeting (which I'll be chairing--please come!) on Saturday afternoon. This is one of only two currently scheduled trips outside of the Bay Area for the semester, so I hope to catch you there.

January 28: FTC Privacy Roundtable, Berkeley

March 9, 6 pm: Jewish High Tech Community, Mountain View. I'll present my reputation project to a non-lawyer audience. This event is open to the public for a nominal fee, so I hope you'll consider coming.

April 8: I will be helping with Paul Ohm's joint HTLI-CSTS-Markkula presentation at SCU on de-identification.

April 9-10: Copyright @300, Berkeley, cosponsored by the BCLT and HTLI. I don't have a speaking/moderating role, but I will be around for at least part of the event. This should be a terrific conference, and I hope you can make it.

April 16-17: Chicago for a private gathering of trademark law professors.

May 11, noon: San Jose State University School of Library and Information Science as part of their colloquia series. I'll be presenting on my reputation project again. I believe this event is open to the public, and the talk also will be podcast (and perhaps webcast?).

As always, let me know if you would like more details about an event or if you would like to meet up.

Winter--September through May
Advantages: certain activities are possible only during this time, such as the emergence of polar bear cubs
Disadvantages: 24 hours of darkness between November and February, dangerously cold, risk of long blizzards, weather may prevent transportation, many animals have migrated for the season, extremely limited commercial tours available

Spring--first three weeks of June
Advantages: 24 hours of sunlight, weather has warmed up enough to be tolerable, bugs generally are limited
Disadvantages: weather can still be cold and fickle, rivers may still be iced over in places, hills and tundra may be mostly brown (not yet green)

Summer--last week of June to first week of August
Advantages: 24 hours of sunlight, weather is warmest that it gets, river water levels reach their peak (around end of July), July has best display of wildflowers
Disadvantages: bugs can be oppressive

Fall--last three weeks of August
Advantages: tundra changes colors, possibility of seeing the aurora borealis, temperatures are still tolerable (although snow becomes increasingly likely in second half of August)
Disadvantages can be rainy, may still be buggy

Prior posts on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge:

* Review of Ah, Rose Marie Bed & Breakfast, Fairbanks, Alaska
* Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Reading List
* Arctic National Wildlife Refuge/Hulahula River Photos and Video
* Arctic National Wildlife Refuge/Hulahula River Trip Quick FAQs

[begin third party email]

Good evening Mr. Goldman,

I am a former "employee" of Phone To Phone Inc. I looked them up on Google and found your article on New Lawyer as it was one of the top links to pop up. Phone To Phone Inc itself as a company is a scam. They tell you you're on a training period of three (3) days, during which time you will be payed $12.00 per hour, and IF YOU PASS THE TRAINING, you will become a full time employee. However, during those three days, they had me making 150-200 phone calls, 100 E-mails, with expectations of getting a minimum of 3 "links" per day, without ANY actual training!

I didn't even know what a link was, but they felt confident enough to throw me on the phones and put the company name in the dumpster with my lack of knowledge, which I surely did, proudly.

On my second day of "training", another employee I became relativity close with told me the President of the company Borris, along with one of the managers Domenik, brought him in the back room and told him he wasn't working out, and they'd like him to quit. With no second thoughts, he told them he quit. Well, because he "quit", they claimed that there was a company policy (which was NOT made available to sign when given three vague papers to read on the first day of training) that claims if the trainee quits during the first TWO WEEKS of working at Phone To Phone, then the company DOES NOT have to pay the trainee/employee.

On my third day, I get called into the back office. I get asked to quit, because it wasn't working out. Fortunately, I was made aware of their scam by my friend the day before, so I declined to quit. I sat in the office arguing with Domenik for nearly an HOUR before he finally got the idea that I was not budging. I asked him for the papers stating the "not getting paid if quit within 2 weeks", which is when he came back and offered to pay me for one of the 3 days I worked. When I told him paying me for one of the three days I worked was NOT a favor, that I still wanted the papers, he said they'll write me a check without taking out any taxes, despite the fact they didn't even have me fill out any tax forms. (Supposedly, all that legitimate stuff comes after the training period.) At that point, I realized what a scam it was, until they gave me the HAND WRITTEN check of $96.00, that's when I realized it was a JOKE.

Phone To Phone is NOTHING more then a scam, and the sites they represent are far from adequate. You have my permission to use this E-mail on your website or any other resource you so choose, I just ask that you please change my name and do not publicize my E-mail address.

I hope this has given you a better insight as to what Phone To Phone is all about.

[end third party email]
_____________

I then got a follow-up email from the same person addressing my confusion about the myriad of folks who all listed the same job title in their spams:
_____________

[begin third party email]

[a quote of mine from a prior blog post] "Interestingly, Dominic's email indicated that he was the director of marketing. So either they have multiple directors of marketing, or Dominic got the sack (wishful thinking) or everyone who uses their template falsely claims to be the director of marketing."

You are very correct. On my first day of training, I ask Dominic what the name of my position was, and he told I am "free to choose" between Senior Marketing Executive, or Director of Marketing. When I asked him how it's possible I can be holding a "senior" or "director" word in my position name on my FIRST DAY OF TRAINING, he said to me "It just makes the person you're talking to feel like they're talking to someone high up in the ranks." But in reality Eric, other then Dominic and a few others, every other "director of marketing" or "senior marketing exec" are in fact not directors and seniors, but merely college students on a three day "volunteer" training period.

[end third party email]
_____________

All of this helps explain why we as bloggers kept getting hammered in a short period of time by repeated telemarketing and spam despite our opt-out requests. These emails also reinforce that we should be asking some very tough questions about the legitimacy of Phone to Phone Inc.'s practices.

[begin third party email]

"They hired me as an article writer for their "websites". Which if you haven't seen... compare the following two of their big ones

www.attorney.org
www.science.org

And click a few links. They had me write 15 500 word articles based on keywords. I spent the day writing 500 word articles with the keyword [redacted]. Where there must be 30 total instances of the keywords in each article and they do zero fact checking.

In order to hopefully gain full employment I would have to show up at their office each day, write 15 of these a day. On the third day, they could let me go, and keep all 45 of the articles I wrote. They bring in about 20 new people a day, having them do something similar. Though most people are hired to make calls, and they have them make at least 150 calls each day for three days before informing them if they've been accepted for employment.

They bring in about 20 "prospectives" a day, and hire very very few. This gets them a lot of "free" work.

You will notice that the articles on their websites are not, in fact, articles based on the content, but based on keywords. Try a few of the links and you'll notice on science.org in one 500 word article the word science appears approx 25 times.

All attempts to get their site to be the number one hit on key terms without having any actual content to speak of."

[end third party email]
__________

This email prompted me to poke around both science.org and attorney.org. I was completely unimpressed by the quality of content I saw. I thought this junk article (I nofollowed the link--no link juice from me!) on "Patent Laws for Inventors" was a fine exemplar of the (low) article quality on science.org. Check it out and evaluate it for yourself. I don't mean to be snarky, but I would expect most seventh graders to do a better writing job than the writing in this article. A few representative quotes:

* "Inventors may come up with ideas that are in regard to machines or processes."
* Referring to design patents, "A design is the face of the product or the company and should be protected. Designs distinguish and separate one company from the next and it is because of this that this type of patent is required for businesses and manufacturers alike." [this was not about trade dress or trademarks; it was about design patents]
* "A patent should not be confuse [sic] with a copyright. A copyright will provide inventors with the rights to prevent any other inventors from producing material in the same way or with the same expression."
* "Keep in mind that not everything can be patented and some things are already, so make sure you have a solid and original idea before you even apply for one."
* "It should be also noted that the process may be lengthy and is not conducted over night."

A sterling contribution to the literature. Anyone who knows IP law can immediately spot ambiguities or outright flaws in the above quotes. Frankly, if it weren't so spammy (out of 516 words, I count 18 references to "patent" and 15 to "inventor"), I'd actually wonder if this was intended to be a spoof or satire about how seriously people take patents. Even if that wasn't the intent, the article has far more value as a satire than it does as an educative piece.

Bela Lugosi's Dead - Bauhaus (terrific song)
Monster Mash - Boris Pickett (corny but essential)
Werewolves of London - Warren Zevon
The Devil Went Down to Georgia - Charlie Daniels
Thriller - Michael Jackson
Dead Man's Party - Oingo Boingo (another great song; I'm surprised at how rarely this song makes Halloween mix lists given how topical it is)
The Exorcist (Theme from Tubular Bells)
Somebody's Watching Me - Rockwell
I Want Candy - Bow Wow Wow (this is Lisa being silly)
Overture from Phantom of the Opera
Black Magic Woman - Santana
Requiem: Dies Irae - Mozart (another great Halloween song that doesn't make the mix lists often enough)
Great Balls of Fire - Jerry Lee Lewis
Superstition - Stevie Wonder
I Put A Spell On You - Creedence Clearwater Revival

In some of her spinning classes, she gives out halloween candy as prizes to people who can guess some of the obscure artists represented in this list. Hope you have a happy and safe halloween!

Here's the text of the spam promoting Attorney.org. Uh, no thanks.
_______

from Michael Foti
to egoldman@gmail.com
date Mon, Oct 26, 2009 at 7:31 AM
subject About Your Blog

Dear Eric,

My name is Michael Foti and I am the Executive Director of Marketing for Attorney.org. I am writing you this email to better inform you about our website and in hopes of reaching a mutually beneficial strategic partnership. Attorney.org is one of the top sources of free legal information on the Internet. We provide articles of general and specific information to our visitors regarding common legal issues as well as breaking legal news. In addition to providing information, Attorney.org will be profiling noteworthy attorneys from around the country, attorney generals, district attorneys, and high-ranking local, state, and federal government officials. It is not only a great networking tool for attorneys, but it is also an efficient way to reach out to prospective clients. I believe that your blog can benefit greatly from a new audience of 10,000 unique visitors a month.

We want to list your blog as a source of information on our resources page, and potentially highlight you as a top blog on the Internet in an article on Attorney.org. Our website currently ranks in the top 50 for the anchors "attorney" and "attorneys", and will only continue to move up. I am hoping that in return, you will be able to include a link to Attorney.org somewhere on your blog (preferably as an addition to your blog roll). This would increase the free flow of information and provide an additional source of information for the readers of both our websites.

There is no doubt in my mind that your blog will be a valuable resource to our Attorney.org users. I believe that we can both benefit from this prospective strategic partnership as the increased traffic will drive new users to both our websites. Should you have any questions at all, please do not hesitate to contact me. I have included the link information as well as my contact information below.

Title: Attorney, Attorneys (Attorney.org)
Description: Attorney.org

Michael Foti
Executive Director of Marketing, Legal Network
1 International Blvd. Suite 211 Mahwah, NJ 07495
Office: 201-252-8255
Cell:551-795-2806

from Partick Coleman
to egoldman@gmail.com
date Wed, Oct 21, 2009 at 12:47 PM
subject Love this site -http://www.ericgoldman.org

Dear Webmaster,

Our website Laws.com is considered one of the largest legal informational database in the world, containing crucial information on jurisdictions and breaking legal news. We have offered this site to the public to increase the FREE flow of information. There is little to be said for the many judicial systems around the country and we strive to offer the information much of the public seeks. The only way to increase the information we offer is to seek out some of the top informational resources online. Your blog seems to be an excellent informational resource and would bring a great resource to our viewing public. We would be pleased to offer your inclusion in Laws.com as a featured blogger, as well as giving you the Laws.com Featured Blogger Badge. This is a prestigious award given to some of the brightest bloggers around the country to recognize their dedication and hard work. You will see the code for the featured blogger badge within this email, please get back to us with your blogs banner so we may make your blog available to our public ASAP. Thanks!, keep up the great work.

[code omitted to ensure that they get no link love here]

Nick Fox
Senior Marketing Executive
Phone to Phone Inc.
1 International Blvd. Suite 203
Mahwah, New Jersey
+1(551) 655 6828
Laws.com
_________

If this is the first time I had heard from this outfit, I simply would have marked it as spam as another link request and then moved on. But because of the Phone to Phone Inc. connection, this just becomes more evidence of Phone to Phone Inc.'s shadiness. Another piece of evidence of their shadiness: the email purported to be from "Partick Coleman" but the sig block says "Nick Fox." Spamming lawyers and bloggers is bad enough, but sloppy spam is inexcusable!

I am now skeptical of all Phone to Phone Inc. operated websites, which (according to Bob) include Laws.com, NewLawyer.com, Attorney.org, LawSchool.org and Docket.com. Great way to build your brand, guys.

"Sorry about it, Sir. But, there was no harm intention to hurt you. I am promising you that no one from our firm will be contacting you in future. Our emails are not spam. We just need co-operation from people like you. We are here to help people. Anyways sir, I am sorry again." (emphasis added)

A broken promise! This morning I got a virtually identical spam from Steven Kim under the subject line "We love your blog" (aww, how sweet, but I'm beginning to wish they loved me a little less):
_________

from Steven Kim
to egoldman@gmail.com
date Mon, Oct 19, 2009 at 9:18 AM
subject We love your blog

Hi,

My name is Steven and I am the Director of Marketing for NewLawyer.com.I found your blog/website interesting. Our blogs are posted in most of the websites. I want to feature you onto our website and that for absolutely free. Our website is the first telelegal portal that connects attorneys to those in need of legal advice through phone to phone consultations via the technology on our website. I would love to feature your blog on NewLawyer as I believe that many of our Lawyers would enjoy your blog. I was hoping to have NewLawyer added to your blog roll if that would be at all possible. I've included some additional information below and if you have any questions feel free to find my contact info below and call me. I look forward to hearing from you.

We would like to list your blog on our site as an additional resource to our users. We believe that your blog would be a great addition. The blog's website would be linked to our page so that our users would be able to click the link and utilize your website and find more information. We believe in the free flow of information and want to provide the best resources for our users. The following information is to reciprocate the link on your own website:

Title: Lawyer, Attorney , Legal Advice , New Lawyer (NewLawyer dot com)

Description: Personal Injury Lawyer, Accident Lawyer, Divorce Lawyer, Attorneys, Legal Information

The following are points of information listed on our website:

* Listings of licensed legal professionals
* Blogging information
* Legal news around the country
* Additional resources for the users to take advantage of.
_________

Interestingly, Dominic's email indicated that he was the director of marketing. So either they have multiple directors of marketing, or Dominic got the sack (wishful thinking) or everyone who uses their template falsely claims to be the director of marketing.

I am beginning to get emails from other folks who are ticked at Newlawyer.com. For example, I recently got the following email:

"I just wanted to write and thank you, post reading your article on NewLawyer.com. They approached me this evening with the standardised letter and I found the whole affair a little dubious. Google flagged up your article and it confirmed my sentiments. As there is nowhere on your site to comment, I am e mailing just to say your post is appreciated."

It just seems inevitable that if Newlawyer.com keeps annoying lawyers, eventually one will turn litigious. You've been warned.

UPDATE: I got a second identical email from Steven Kim about 3 hours later. What will it take to stop their emails?

UPDATE 2: Ryan Gile of Las Vegas Trademark Attorney blog also got nailed with the following message:

Dear Mr. Gile,

My name is Michael Foti and I am the Director of Marketing for a network of legal websites that includes Laws.com, NewLawyer.com, Attorney.org, LawSchool.org, and Docket.com. Here at NewLawyer.com, we are running a campaign to highlight some of the top blawgs on the internet. After reviewing your blog, we'd like to include you, and your blawg, in that feature. Below, I've included the code for you to copy and paste into your source to display your NewLawyer.com Top Legal Resource award button. An extraordinary amount of time and effort goes into making a feature like this possible, so all we ask in return is that you display your award banner prominently for all your readers to see. Please email me once you post it so I can check it out. Thank you and congratulations on being one of the top legal resources on the internet!

[snip]

Michael Foti
Director of Marketing, PhoneToPhone Inc.
1 International Blvd. Suite 211 Mahwah, NJ 07495
Office: 201-252-8255
Cell:551-795-2806

UPDATE 3: I posted a critique of Newlawyer.com on SiteJabber.

At about 10:30 a.m. on June 6, 2006, Franco and Henry Chavez were seen racing each other in their Mustang vehicles on the Ventura Freeway, each reaching speeds of approximately 100 miles per hour. Franco applied her brakes while Chavez was directly behind her, causing him to lose control of his vehicle. The vehicle travelled to the other side of the freeway, flipped, and landed in a strawberry field. Chavez was killed. Franco did not stop.

Franco testified that she was driving approximately 75 miles an hour on the freeway when Chavez began tailgating her. When she changed lanes, he followed her. Noticing that her speed had increased, she tapped on her brakes to slow down. Chavez veered to avoid hitting her, then lost control of his vehicle. She saw a plume of dust but kept driving as her boyfriend advised when she called him on her cell phone. The day before the accident, however, Franco had written on her MySpace page, “If you find me on the freeway and you can keep up I have a really bad habit of racing random people.”

I know most of us already know this lesson, but this case reminds us that our statements on social networking sites can and will be used against us. It also reminds us how hard it's becoming to maintain multiple persona--in this case, the in-court persona of being a safe and courteous driver while simultaneously maintaining an alternative persona as a "secret" street racer.

1) Never tick off a lawyer. They tend to be, you know, litigious by nature.
2) Never tick off a blogger. They tend to be very noisy about their gripes.
3) Never, ever tick off lawyers who also blog. A toxic combination.

Newlawyer.com has pulled off an impressive hat trick of rule violations. I'm not exactly sure I fully understand Newlawyer.com's business, but my superficial review of the site suggests it is some sort of lead generation engine for lawyers.

For some reason, Newlawyer.com has been one of the most aggressive and persistent solicitors of a link exchange I've encountered. Despite the relatively small footprint of my blogs, I get plenty of requests from folks for link exchanges, all of which I categorically turn down. Usually I hit the "report spam" button on Gmail and occasionally I'll write a "no thanks" reply, and either way that ends that. In contrast, I've had more difficulty evading Newlawyer.com because they have telemarketed me at least 6 times, including three phone calls in a 36 hour span earlier this week. I don't understand what kind of boiler room operation they are running, but I can't imagine how calling me 6 times can be cost-justified even if I did agree to the link exchange (which I won't, and you'll notice they aren't getting any link love in this post either). Just how much is a link from my blog worth to them???

I've tried to politely but firmly tell them to buzz off each of the six times they have called me, and each time I get a mea culpa and a broken promise not to keep calling. But I guess in a technical way they have finally honored their promises because today I got a spam from them (see, no phone call!) once again soliciting a link exchange. The email text:
_______

from dominic sebahia
to egoldman@gmail.com
date Fri, Oct 2, 2009 at 7:46 AM
subject i like your blog

Hi,
My name is Dominic and I am the Director of Marketing for NewLawyer.com.I found your blog/website interesting. Our blogs are posted in most of the websites. I want to feature you onto our website and that for absolutely free. Our website is the first telelegal portal that connects attorneys to those in need of legal advice through phone to phone consultations via the technology on our website. I would love to feature your blog on NewLawyer as I believe that many of our Lawyers would enjoy your blog. I was hoping to have NewLawyer added to your blog roll if that would be at all possible. I've included some additional information below and if you have any questions feel free to find my contact info below and call me. I look forward to hearing from you.

We would like to list your blog on our site as an additional resource to our users. We believe that your blog would be a great addition. The blog's website would be linked to our page so that our users would be able to click the link and utilize your website and find more information. We believe in the free flow of information and want to provide the best resources for our users. The following information is to reciprocate the link on your own website:

Title: Lawyer, Attorney , Legal Advice , New Lawyer (NewLawyer.com)

Description: Personal Injury Lawyer, Accident Lawyer, Divorce Lawyer, Attorneys, Legal Information

URL: http://www.newlawyer.com

The following are points of information listed on our website:

* Listings of licensed legal professionals
* Blogging information
* Legal news around the country
* Additional resources for the users to take advantage of.

Dominic
Director of Marketing, PhoneToPhone Inc.
1 International Blvd. Suite 211 Mahwah, NJ 07495
Office: 201-252-8255
Cell:201-663-2565
_______

The silly thing is that if they really believe that linking to my blogs is valuable to their audience, they don't need my permission, and they know it (if for no other reason than I've told them so in a couple of our phone chats). But clearly the flattery and the request to link to me is just a ruse to get me to consider the reciprocal link exchange. Also telling is the reference to my non-existent blogroll (something I've also mentioned to them on the phone).

Now, I'm not a litigious person, so I'm not personally interested in investigating my legal rights against Newlawyer.com for their repeated disregard of my requests. However, in response to my anti-Newlawyer.com Twitter posts, I saw that several other lawyers have been getting bombarded by Newlawyer.com solicitations. It's possible they are not as reticent as I am.

Irrespective of their ultimate legal disposition, it seems like Newlawyer.com is doing a fantastic job of alienating one of its core audiences (lawyers) and building a reputation (but not a good one). Further, should Google get wise to Newlawyer.com's aggressive efforts to generate link exchanges, Newlawyer.com's strategy could very well backfire in a big way.

David first described three structural changes affecting the legal industry.

1) erosion (not the death) of the billable hour. Clients want good value, and they want predictability over their expenses. Both factors are driving clients and firms to alternative billing arrangements, such as fixed fee projects and all-you-cat-eat retainers.

A comment on this: when I was in-house, I was a fan of fixed-fee arrangements for their budgetability/predictability. As manager of the company's legal expenses, I needed to keep my expenses within my quarterly budget, so fixed-fee deals were very beneficial to their predictability. One thing I absolutely HATED was when I would get hourly time billed months or even years after the actual work was done--and therefore after the quarter when the money was allocated, meaning the charge would hit a subsequent quarter's budget. I won't name names, but one firm sent me a bill for time TWO YEARS after the work was done. I didn't pay it.

For what it's worth, when I do my side gigs, I also prefer to do fixed-fee projects or monthly retainers. I often end up earning a little less than I might if I billed hourly, but (1) I always feel like I get a fair deal, especially when both the client and I take some risk on the outcome, and (2) I like that clients don't calculate the marginal cost of contacting me (i.e., I don't want to talk with my lawyer because it's going to cost $50 for a brief phone call, and I don't know if that call is worth $50), which means they contact me earlier in their processes when my advice is actually more useful.

2) erosion of locksteps, which is moving towards an increase in meritocracy. The challenge with this movement is setting an appropriate valuation on merit. People aren't entirely clear how to assess quality.

3) erosion of stable employment relationships. The days are gone when lawyers would view the decision to join a firm as a two-way lifetime commitment. Now, attorneys (including partners) are moving between firms regularly, practice groups and offices are spinning off, partners are being de-equitized, and of course, the ubiquitous and dreaded layoffs. There is also an increased customization and flexibility of associate positions. As David said, we might see a "gazillion different titles" for attorneys working for a firm--a trend towards "title proliferation."

David then moved to address what these changes mean.

On the downside, there has been a decline of trust in the industry. For example, a fixed-fee arrangement can be driven, in part, by clients distrusting their attorneys' efforts to keep costs down. But there is also a lot of intra-firm distrust.

On the upside, there has been increased independence in the industry, although this may require attorneys to become more entrepreneurial.

David concluded with two pieces of advice:

1) Stay informed about firms and the industry (an admittedly self-serving piece of advice)

2) Network! In times of crisis, relationships are key. He recommended that students get business cards and hand them out freely. He also recommended that students get to know their classmates and professors as part of network-building.

In the Q&A, a student asked him what changes law schools should make. David rattled off a bunch of ideas in quick succession, including:
* make law school two years (a move I wouldn't necessarily oppose but it is inconsistent with current accreditation norms for the foreseeable future)
* make law school cheaper
* fewer law schools
* more training in the field (like articling)

I asked him about the consequences of a movement from focusing on top-of-market compensation for attorneys, which ATL did obsessively in 2007-08, to multiple compensation models. David expressed concern that customized/individualized compensation would give law firms the ability to reduce their overall associate compensation because there is less transparency. At the same time, both he and I wondered if this reduced transparency might have a salutary benefit of defusing the excessive focus on compensation benchmarking, which might allow attorneys to reset their compensation expectations to how much they need to live a comfortable and satisfied life.

[Note: I'm assuming a start-up has already correctly decided that it needs to hire a GC. That consideration could be the subject of another whole post.]
___

In addition to the standard criteria used to evaluate lawyers, like legal acumen and professionalism, I suggest the following criteria:

* past in-house experience. There is a learning curve to being in-house, and someone who has done it before will be initially better equipped to handle the speed of a start-up than someone who is trying to learn how to be an in-house counsel on the fly.

* past experience working in a start-up. Start-ups pose unusual demands on lawyers, and some lawyers can't easily adjust. Therefore, someone who has lived through a start-up environment before will be better prepared for the unique challenges. For more on this, see my recap of my first three months at Epinions.

* willingness to be a line contributor. A start-up has a lot of routine commodity legal work. It also needs to build a lot of unsexy internal processes and needs someone to pay attention to little details--simple things like filing contracts or domain name renewals. So a start-up needs a lawyer who isn't afraid to roll up his/her sleeves and do some mundane legal work his/herself as opposed to delegating the work to others or outsourcing the work to outside counsel.

* not an empire-builder. In the same vein, some lawyers want to build up a resource-intensive legal department, and this is the last thing a start-up needs.

* excellent business judgment. Ideally, a GC at a start-up can contribute to the overall management of the company. This requires a person who can balance legal concerns with other business perspectives. At minimum, a start-up GC needs to be able to triage and decide which of the many legal problems on his/her desk need immediate attention, can wait, or can be ignored entirely.

* someone who can grow with the company. Some companies may have idiosyncratic perennial issues where some background expertise will help, but a GC should be able to grow with the company to handle the full range of legal issues the company is likely to encounter over its lifecycle. It could be a mistake to hire a GC with specific technical expertise only in one area that is a hot button for the company today. Once that issue dies down, the company may be stuck with a GC who isn't adaptable to the many other issues that will arise.

* the ability to say--and sell--"no." Start-up companies--even the best-meaning ones--tend to be willing to push legal limits. However, most in-house counsel are socialized to avoid saying "no" if at all possible. A start-up company needs a GC who can say no when it needs to be said. Further, because people don't like to hear "no," a GC needs to be able to get others to listen when he/she says no. This means wielding the N-word wisely but also having the credibility/salesmanship to make "no" stick when it's wielded.

* interest in the company's products. A start-up job is usually fairly demanding, so it really helps if someone is actually interested (or, better yet, passionate) about the company's products and services. That way, they will be more excited to undertake the sometimes-heroic efforts required to help the company succeed.

UPDATE: I got the following from Josh King at Avvo: "I would add two related points: 1) Your new GC must be flexible enough to not only deal with mundane legal work, but also to do all manner of other work that assistants, secretaries or people in other groups did previously for them. I regularly go on beer runs for the office, deliver mail and shop for office supplies, and supporting the office as a regular member of the team is critical to success in startup culture. 2) In addition to having excellent business judgment and the ability to grow with the business - I've never had an in-house role that didn't morph in wildly unpredictable ways within the first 6 months - your GC must be able to match the company's level of risk aversion. It's a lot easier to sell "no" when you're not wringing your hands over every little potential legal risk the company might face."

As I told Josh in a reply email, WRT #1, I used to restock the snacks in the kitchen and sort the mail.

UPDATE 2: I got the additional comment, which I fully agree with:

"The one consideration that's missing from your list -- the most important one, in my view -- is someone with the trust and confidence of the principal business person, usually the CEO. It does not have to exist prior to hiring -- an investor can and often does install someone of their own choosing. But if the GC and the CEO don't have personal trust and confidence -- both ways -- the GC hire will never contribute at the highest level. Trust and confidence -- all the rest can be learned."