Heads were exploding. It's always fun to watch heads explode. Carefully crafted business plans were dropping like flies, as desperate twits trying to spin the words were typed furiously. Avvo's Lawyernomics conference was in full force, and somebody let Sam Glover onto the stage. There will be hell to pay. A lot of lawyers have blogs. A lot of those blogs suck. I suppose I am partly to blame for this. For years, I told every lawyer who would listen that he or she ought to start a blog. I explained that a blog was a great way to get clients in the door, as if that would magically happen if you started posting something on your blog every few days. I neglected to explain how to write a blog that doesn’t suck.
Before you rip me a new one, yes, that's the same Sam Glover who owns the Puddle. Yes, the same Puddle that offers insipid, superficial advice from lawyers who have yet to need a shave about how to be a fabulous lawyer, not necessarily wrong but invariably inadequate. But then, remember that Puddle readers tend to prefer small words, ideas that require no chewing and numbered lists so they can check them off. It's not the same crowd as here, so don't judge them harshly. That's my job, anyway.
Even though my Lawyernomics closing keynote address is fully written, somebody at Avvo forgot to send me a first class ticket to Vegas, so I have to count on others at the conference to provide a counterpoint to the facile nonsense they're giving the sad mopes who paid to attend. Like this:
Then Sam gave his presentation, gracefully entitled "Why your blog sucks (and what to do about it)." He begins with an apology for his role in making our world a little worse.
You suppose? Yes, it's not entirely Sam's fault, but only because he doesn't have that kind of clout (with a "c", not a "K"), but he did everything he could to help fit lawyers into hotpants. Before you start screaming, "baby lawyer, heal thyself," don't blame him too harshly.
Bear in mind that he sought an audience of new lawyers with exceptionally limited understanding of either the law or the business of practicing law. They desired not only validation, but bits of advice in very small, easily digestible bites. And there was no way they could stand being told they weren't special. They may not have been the best and the brightest, but they were special little snowflakes.
Ah, how times change. Sam has posted his presentation and you can read it in its entirety at the Puddle. Taking a page from Sam's playbook, here is the one sentence summary:
That's when the heads began to explode. Sam Glover, friend and confidant of the Slackoisie and marketers everywhere, speaking truth to his tribe?Write good stuff because you want to that other people will want to read.
This comes as no surprise to me. I've watched Sam develop for a while now, having been occasionally critical of his ugly baby, even if in a way that made him feel somewhat less than fully appreciated. They don't like tough love at the Puddle, but its merit becomes undeniable over time. And I attribute time and natural maturation to Sam's epiphany. Reading what Sam writes, I have seen him recognize how the notions he promoted a few years ago were, how can I say this nicely, bone-headedly wrong.
The point is that the baby lawyers who thought they knew it all grow up. They gain experience, suffer the indignities of reality over time, and come to realize that neither life nor the practice of law is nearly as easy and simple as they once believed with all their heart and soul. If they have half a brain, and by no means is Sam not a bright fellow, their eyes eventually open and they see that the stuff the mean curmudgeons talk about has been happening all around them the whole time, and they were just too busy believing their own nonsense and validating their own choices to see it.
Sam Glover is coming into his own. And I, for one, am proud of him.
He's got a ways to go still, as is apparent from his Lawyernomics talk. The business he got from the name recognition he developed as a baby blogger might have been pretty good for a n00b, but will be the stuff he doesn't want as his practice matures. He will come to realize that things that work in local niche practices don't scale or work for lawyers in other practice areas. His tolerance for the hundreds of phone calls from free answers will wane. But all this takes time.
A glaring omission is that not everyone can have a viable blawg. For some, the love of writing isn't enough to make their output sufficiently interesting to anyone else. For some, there will be the painful lesson that their best ideas are deemed by others to be, well, dumber than dirt. Not every lawyer's thoughts are brilliant. But the overarching reason is that even if they're good, there isn't enough room for ten thousand blawgs. Nobody has that much time to read.
Still, watching this change happen to Sam has been enormously gratifying to me. Contrary to those who think curmudgeons hate the babies, we are very much interested in helping them to move beyond their infancy and become productive members of the profession. We are here to help, and willing to give of our time and energy to aid in their success. We want nothing from them, no business, no money, no adoration, and see our role as an obligation of one generation of lawyers to those that follow to move them from crawling to walking to running.
But it is fun to watch Sam make other people's heads explode. Mea culpa. And it's good to know that there will be lawyers in the generations that follow the grey-beards who aren't satisfied with wallowing in the gutter.
Special Added Attraction: And if you think I'm dead wrong here and just a complete and total douche, Bruce Godfrey offers you a blogging form to facilitate your path to awesome wealth and prestige.
Update: Colin O'Keefe, Kevin's kid, interviews Sam Glover for LXBN:
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Source: http://blog.simplejustice.us/2013/04/27/sams-club-at-lawyernomics.aspx?ref=rss
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