NY Wants To Make Life Difficult For Blogging Lawyers

from the can't-do-that dept

Thu, Sep 14th 2006 3:14pm — Mike Masnick

Greg Beck writes "New York is proposing new "ethics" rules on attorney advertising that would make it difficult for lawyers in New York to blog or in many cases even send an email. The rules are so out of touch with technology that, for example, a blog would have to be printed out and saved for a year (with an extra copy mailed to the state) every time it is updated." This isn't the first time we've seen this. Last year, there was a similar issue in Kentucky. As Greg's post shows, lawyer blogs would also have to include additional info announcing that it was advertising, while listing the names and law firms of any participating lawyers in the largest font found on the page. Funny, that: even lawyers can't seem to understand that the laws they're writing for themselves aren't any good.

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8 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 14 Sep 2006 @ 3:22pm

Who ever thought lawyers were either good or smart? The real smart and good lawyers are either owned by Big Business or Big Content, or else are working for a cause they believe in like EFF.
The majority of Lawyers are Ambulance Chasers in my opinion.
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®idiculous ©rap, 14 Sep 2006 @ 3:50pm

Right, just mail copies of every update.
Sad thing is, I work with people that think printing the internet is a good thing. I swear to God, half the time I walk by the printer someone is printing out a 10 page website, or 10 pages of search results, or 10 pages of yellow pages. These are not small print jobs, and they are not infrequent. Who does this?!

Naturally many of these critical printiouts sit unclaimed near the printer for weeks. Perhaps I can start making use of these unclaimed printouts by mailing them to the state of NY for archival purposes.
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Ben K, 14 Sep 2006 @ 4:17pm

Forklift Reports
I used to work for a major company whose manufacturing division used to produce what we called forklift reports. Every day, they would print out two pallettes worth of paper (!) for pending production orders, just because. All the information was available on line, and I can only guess at the tiny percentage that was ever looked at on paper.
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Jo Mamma, 14 Sep 2006 @ 4:24pm

Good God, people are stupid
Well, they've gotta send it in on paper. Otherwise the Internet tubes would clog up!

Think people, think.

(PS I'm sorry, but I'll be making Internet tube jokes for the rest of my life)
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Anonymous Coward, 14 Sep 2006 @ 4:43pm

Re: Ambulance Chasers
This is just so sad. "Ambulance chasers" are the lawyers who represent plaintiffs in suits against their insurance companies, negligent employers, and drug companies. Yeah, they have a pretty crummy public image, what with all the silly urban legends floating around about 'frivolous lawsuits.' And their cheesy TV ads don't help much, either.

And some of them really are sleazy. But there are a lot of brilliant attorneys out there working in personal injury law because it's the right thing to do.

PI lawyers represent employees whose limbs were severed because their employers circumvented safety devices to speed up work. They represent people whose own insurance companies are acting in bad faith. People injured or widowed because some drug company intentionally covered up information about side effects. People whose health insurers retroactively review their coverage once they find out they have something expensive and maybe fatal.

Some of them really are jerks, sure, but some of the best, most principled and intelligent lawyers out there are "ambulance chasers."
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Another crappy lawyer, 14 Sep 2006 @ 5:13pm

Re: "Who ever thought lawyers were either good or smart? The real smart and good lawyers are either owned by Big Business or Big Content, or else are working for a cause they believe in like EFF.
The majority of Lawyers are Ambulance Chasers in my opinion."

Now, this is an informed, insightful and provocative opinion! And how risky and unique to trash lawyers! And this person calls him or herself a coward. Why hide? With brilliance like this, please let us know who you are. We crave more.
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MrDraino, 14 Sep 2006 @ 5:39pm

Re: Good God, people are stupid
you and i both...
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Sep 2006 @ 7:18am

Re: Ambulance Chasers? - Not all of them.
Hey, just because you're too lazy to find yourself a good lawyer does NOT mean they are not out there. I happen to have a VERY good, smart and time-generous lawyer whom I go through to do all of my personal business. He charges flat rates for consultations, and always keeps his calendar open for a consult to overflow. And he DOES NOT charge for that time. He is neither greedy, nor a dumbass, nor a thief, nor any of those other things that you seem to think all lawyers are made of.
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