Blabbing to the world

I hit the wrong key and think - did I just hit the wrong key?

Flashback about ten years ago.  We are just getting into the whole email thing.  Cautiously because we are lawyers and about five years behind everyone else.  There are about 500 of us trial lawyers on a listserve.  It is changing the way we know and can help each other.  Very cool indeed!

One day I post something and a friend emails me back with a question.  What is DART?  I tell her it is a group of male attorneys who have appointed themselves as the best plaintiff trial lawyers in the state.  I say a couple of other things that are hmmm not really derogatory but certainly a bit flippant and of course highly disrespectful.  I hit that send button and  the message goes to all 500 instead of the 1.

You know that feeling.  That kind of slightly sick feeling where you start to sweat even though you are suddenly cold?  Yeah, well I get that feeling.  I then reassure myself with the thought that it's ok, they're old (rhymes with darts) and probably don't know how to use the listserve anyway.  Wrong.  One of them emails me back.  And then to make sure the others don't miss it either, he sends it by old fashioned postal service to each member of the group .

Now there was a bit of a brouhahahahaha afterwards, but that isn't the point of this story so I'm not going into all of it.  Some of it was funny, some of it was not.  But it all ended just fine and dandy and I'm still here typing so obviously it wasn't too catastrophic.

Fast forward to the land of facebook, twitter and the Kardashians.  The lawyers' email listserve is still going strong.  A few of them have ventured into FB.   But for the most part, the lawyers are mainly interested in trying to keep the insurance companies out of their clients' social networking.

The few that use twitter or blog (using a generality here - there are exceptions for example Paul Luvera's personal blog; Justin Walsh's appellate law blog) do so specifically to increase website traffic and get clients.  I've spent some time looking at the various law sites, and I have to say - it's kind of ucky.  There said it.  Okay, let's be real here.  If your tweet is to post each new car collision and a link to your website every few hours, does that have any chance of fostering a healthy respect for our profession.  If you hire someone to blog for you - how exactly is that different from having someone take your test for you in school and pass it off as your own.

Am I in trouble yet?  Probably.  But the very fact that I can have my own opinion and put it out there for whatever it's worth to whomever wants to give it the time of day - that's the great fun of blabbing to the world.