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Would you consider it ethical for a lawyer to post the following to a social media site such as Facebook:

“Another great victory in court today! My client is delighted. Who wants to be next?”

In California, that post would violate the Rules of Professional Conduct, according to a recent ethics opinion issued by the State Bar of California’s Standing Committee on Professional Responsibility and Conduct. The opinion, issued late in December, considered the following issue:

Under what circumstances would an attorney’s postings on social media websites be subject to professional responsibility rules and standards governing attorney advertising?

More specifically, it considered five actual posts by an attorney to a social media site that, although not identified as such, sounds to have been Facebook. According to the opinion, the site was one where “only individuals whom the Attorney has approved to view her personal page may view this content.” It went on to say that the attorney had about 500 approved contacts, or “friends,” who were a mix of personal and professional acquaintances, “including some persons whom Attorney does not even know.”

The ethics panel hinged its analysis on Rule 1-400 of California’s Rules of Professional Conduct. For that rule to apply to social media postings, two conditions would have to apply, the panel said:

1. There would have to be a “communication,” which the panel suggested should apply in the broadest sense of the word.
2. The communication would have to concern the lawyer’s “availability for professional employment.”

With regard to the post that I quoted above, the panel said that, had the attorney simply said, “Another great victory in court today,” then Rule 1-400 would not have applied. “However, the addition of the text, ‘[w]ho wants to be next?’ meets the definition of a ‘communication’ because it suggests availability for professional employment.”

Having found that the statement was subject to the rule, the panel went on to say that it violated the ethical rule concerning client testimonials.

An attorney cannot disseminate “communications” that contain testimonials about or endorsements of a member unless the communication also contains an express disclaimer. … Attorney has not included a disclaimer, so her status posting is presumed to violate rule 1-400.

The statement further violated ethical rules, the panel said, because it includes “guarantees, warranties, or predictions regarding the result of the representation.” “The post expressly relates to a ‘victory,’” the panel explained, “and could be interpreted as asking who wants to be the next victorious client.”

Here are the other statements the panel considered. See if you can predict how they ruled:

1. “Case finally over. Unanimous verdict! Celebrating tonight.”
2. “Won a million dollar verdict. Tell your friends and check out my website.”
3. “Won another personal injury case. Call me for a free consultation.”
4. “Just published an article on wage and hour breaks. Let me know if you would like a copy.”

OK, got your answers down? Here is what the panel said:

1. Not a communication under the rule. “Attorney status postings that simply announce recent victories without an accompanying offer about the availability for professional employment generally will not qualify as a communication.”
2. A communication cover d by the rule.
3. A communication covered by the rule, thanks to the second sentence.
4. Not covered by the rule. “The attorney is merely relaying information regarding an article that she has published, and is offering to provide copies.”

The ethics panel concludes its opinion with this summary:

Attorney may post information about her practice on Facebook, Twitter, or other social media websites, but those postings may be subject to compliance with rule 1-400 if their content can be considered to be “concerning the availability for professional employment.” Such communications also may be subject to the relevant sections of California Business and Professions Code sections 6157 et seq.

My summary would be a bit shorter: “Be careful what you post out there!”

A hat tip to Perry Segal at e-Discovery Insights for alerting us to this ruling. 

“Four years after his father died a hero’s death fighting a fire, Tim Ginocchetti was behind bars for killing his mother. How one tragedy led to another is a story that puts a horrifying twist on the familiar one of bullied gay teens. In this case, the bully was the teen’s own mother, and instead of harming himself he killed her in a momentary but irreversible explosion of rage.”

That is legal-affairs writer Mark Obbie’s description of his riveting book, God’s Nobodies, which he recently published as a Kindle Single. Obbie is the former executive editor of The American Lawyer magazine; former author of the now-defunct, award-winning blog LawBeat, where he dissected journalism focused on the justice system, lawyers and the law; and former director of the Carnegie Legal Reporting Program at Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.

The story of Ginocchetti’s relationship with his mother — complicated by the death of his father — and the events leading up to her murder is compelling in its own right. Perhaps suspecting his homosexuality but by no means willing to accept it, she goaded him for years to “act like a man” and ridiculed his high-pitched voice. But beyond their relationship, Obbie weaves in the story of their immediate and extended family’s blind obedience to an esoteric church and its domineering minister. The church became a wedge, splitting the family apart when they most needed to stand together.

Out of this string of tragedies, one hero emerged. Gonocchetti’s grandmother was the only person willing to stand up for him and against the church. For taking a stand in defense of her grandson, she paid a dear price.

Obbie spent years researching this story, digging through records and interviewing sources. He tells the story in vivid detail, bringing the people and events to life as only an experienced writer can do.

All of this is told in a concise e-book that can be read in a single sitting. Note that you do not need a Kindle to read Kindle books. Free apps are available for your computer or mobile device.

On his website and blog, Obbie is supplementing the book with bonus chapters, audio recordings, photographs, source notes and acknowledgements.

Trust me, this is a good read. But if you need further incentive to buy this book, here it is: It costs just $1.99. Get it at Amazon.

WordPress is a fantastic web publishing platform for blogs and even complete websites. However, in order to run, WordPress must be installed on a Web server. This is not a problem for using WordPress, because most web-hosting companies offer free installation of WordPress. However, it can be a problem if you are looking for an offline or private way to learn WordPress, test out new themes and plug-ins, or design a new WordPress site to replace an existing site.

There are various ways to test drive WordPress outside of public view. The WordPress site describes several. All of these are bit cumbersome, requiring you either to manipulate files on your Web server or install server and database programs directly on your own computer.

Looking for an easier way to test and develop WordPress sites on my own computer, I was thrilled to discover Instant WordPress. This free program installs a full, working version of WordPress on your local computer or even on a USB stick. The installation includes the server files WordPress requires — Apache, MySQL and PHP.

The installation is painless. You simply run the download file and Instant WordPress is installed to the location you designate. I installed it to a USB drive, just because I was skeptical about installing it on my primary PC. I did not need to be.

When you launch the program, it opens a simple menu giving you access to your WordPress front page (the page as it would look on the Web) and to your WordPress admin panel, where you control the design and create new posts and pages. It comes with three common themes installed and you can download and install other themes, just as you can with a live WordPress site.

Let me be clear that this is not a tool for hosting a WordPress website. No one will be able to see your Instant WordPress site except on the computer where it is running.

Also, there is no automatic way to migrate a site created in Instant WordPress to the Web. The developers of Instant WordPress sell a book that describes how to use it to develop a site and then move that site to the Web. For a simple site, it is fairly easy to simply copy and paste pages created in Instant WordPress to a live site and duplicate other settings from your admin panel.

So far, I’ve used this program to play around with page designs and layouts, try out different themes, test self-designed header images for size and appearance, and try out various plug-ins. I like that I can do all this on my laptop, without having to tinker with any of my live WordPress sites.

I would think this would be particularly useful to anyone who is new to WordPress and wants a safe environment in which to learn how to use it.

When I launched this blog in November 2002, I joined the ranks of what then were only a small number of legal blogs. Among those who inspired me back then to start blogging was New Orleans lawyer Ernest Svenson, better known to the legal world as Ernie the Attorney. Ernie started his first blog on March 2, 2002, and later launched a second blog, PDF for Lawyers. Over the years, I have heard other lawyers say that Ernie helped inspire them to start blogging just as he helped inspire me.

Who better, then, to write the book on blogging for lawyers than Ernie Svenson? That is exactly what he has done in Blogging in One Hour for Lawyers, recently published by the Law Practice Management Section of the American Bar Association.

As the name suggests, this is a concise guide to blogging with a focus on the mechanics of creating and launching a blog. Ernie starts the book by answering some basic questions about what blogs are and why lawyers should care about them. In subsequent chapters, he then walks through the anatomy of a blog, selecting the right blog software, setting up a blog, designing a blog and writing your initial posts.

Ernie also covers how to promote your blog and offers ideas on how to come up with a steady stream of material to blog about. In the final chapter, he reviews ethical considerations and offers tips for success. An appendix includes lists of recommended law blogs and recommended reading along with a checklist for new bloggers.

If you are new to blogging, you will not go wrong in buying this book. Ernie covers virtually every question a new blogger might have, right down to basics such as how long to make your posts and what writing style to use.

Reluctantly, I do have one quibble to point out. The book focuses heavily on the little-used blogging platform Typepad and gives only short shrift to WordPress, which the most-popular blogging platform by far. A recent study found that only 2 percent of blogs use Typepad, while 48 percent use WordPress. Despite that, the chapters on setting up, designing and posting to a blog all describe how to do these things in Typepad, but not in WordPress.

A color-coordinated Ernie and me at ABA TechShow in 2004.

In addition, the book fails to distinguish between WordPress.com, which is a commercial hosting site for WordPress blogs, and WordPress.org, which is the home of the blogging software. In fact, in briefly describing WordPress, the book sounds as if it is talking about the software, but it  provides a screenshot of and link to the WordPress.com site. The book makes it sound as if the WordPress software is difficult to install, set up and design, whereas most website hosting providers will install it automatically on your site at no cost and there are any number of free, attractive design templates available to use with WordPress at the click of a button.

That said, when it comes down to using the different blogging platforms, there is not that much difference among them. My own recommendation would be WordPress over Typepad, but I would still say that this book is worth obtaining. As Ernie himself says in the book, even if you’ve opted for a WordPress blog, the book’s sections on set up and design “will still be useful for understanding the typical options for a blog, and why you’d choose some things and not others.”

The cost of the book is $39.95. Members of the ABA’s Law Practice Management Section can buy it for the discounted price of $24.95.

You are not likely to find an author who knows more about legal blogging than Ernie Svenson. If you are thinking about starting a blog, this book will walk you through the essential elements you’ll need to know.

I always find it interesting to look back over the year to see which of my posts generated the most traffic. Interestingly, of my top 10 posts for traffic in 2012, six were actually posted in 2011 or 2010. This first list shows the top 10 in traffic for the year, regardless of what year they were written. The second list shows the top 10 among posts actually written during 2012.

Top 10 posts of 2012, regardless of year written:

1. What Do You Pay for Westlaw or Lexis? (July 13, 2011).
2. ABA Survey Shows Growth in Lawyers’ Social Media Use (Aug. 16, 2012).
3. Problems with Adobe Acrobat X Pro (Jan. 21, 2011).
4. A Cute, Cheap Alternative to Adobe Acrobat Pro (Dec. 23, 2010).
5. Lexis Launches Advance, its Next-Generation Research Platform (Dec. 5, 2011).
6. The Art and Science of Lawyer Bios (Aug. 27, 2010).
7. Shared a Dropbox folder? Don’t forget! (June 13, 2012).
8. Popular Legal Directories, Ranked by Traffic (June 8, 2011).
9. Lawline Opens its Full CLE Catalog to Free Access (June 20, 2012).
10. A First Look at the Newest Casemaker (March 4, 2012).

Top 10 posts of 2012, showing only posts written in 2012:

1. ABA Survey Shows Growth in Lawyers’ Social Media Use (Aug. 16, 2012).
2. Shared a Dropbox folder? Don’t forget! (June 13, 2012).
3. Lawline Opens its Full CLE Catalog to Free Access (June 20, 2012).
4. A First Look at the Newest Casemaker (March 4, 2012).
5. ‘Lexis Advance’ Advances Again (July 19, 2012).
6. Bloomberg Law Now Fully Integrates BNA Content (April 3, 2012).
7. Court Says 1st Amendment Protects Lawyer’s Blogging (June 14, 2012).
8. Another Site for Lawyers to Share Legal Forms (March 15, 2012).
9. New Contract Drafting Tool: ACC Contract Advisor (April 9, 2012).
10. Virtual Lawyers Earns Lawyer a Bar Reprimand (Aug. 30, 2012).

The best I can conclude from these lists is that there is no predicting which posts will fly and which will not. My brief 2011 post asking for feedback on what people pay for Westlaw or Lexis generates lots of traffic still, no doubt driven by people searching for the answer to the very question I asked. The two posts on the top list about Adobe Acrobat Pro probably also owe their popularity to search-engine traffic from people encountering problems of their own or looking for PDF alternatives.

Generally, as I’ve also found in past years, posts about legal research services are popular. You seen several on these lists, covering Westlaw, Lexis, Bloomberg Law and Casemaker.

Beyond that, a post’s popularity is often subject to the vagaries of who else links to it or even sometimes simply of timing. I’ve been doing this long enough that I often have a feel for which posts will draw higher traffic numbers. But I continue to be surprised by some that I would never have expected to take off.

When it comes to practice management software, competition is a good thing. With the ever-increasing popularity of cloud-based practice management among lawyers, the various platforms have all been scurrying to add new features and enhancements. A prime example is Rocket Matter, which in recent months has added email integration, launched an iPhone app, launched an API to allow third-party developers to integrate their own applications, and added document assembly and custom fields.

Now, Rocket Matter has released an add-on that enables its users to integrate with QuickBooks, the popular accounting software from Intuit. Unlike earlier enhancements, this one is offered as an add-on for an additional fee of $14.99 a month (with discounts for longer-term subscriptions). That would be in addition to the monthly subscription fee, which starts at $59.99 for the first user and goes down based on numbers of users and term of subscription.

Rocket Matter integrates with QuickBooks by using the Intuit App Center as the link between billing within Rocket Matter and accounting in QuickBooks. This avoids the need to import or export QuickBook’s propriequickbooks ty .iif (Intuit Interchange Format) files.

“Like we did with our email integration, the QuickBooks integration is accomplished in a seamless way,” Rocket Matter CEO Larry Port said in an email. “We wanted to avoid ‘download, import, and pray.’ There’s no IIF files or nasty import-export process. Everything syncs with a couple of clicks, similar to how law firms sync QuickBooks with their bank account.”

Once the integration is set up, synchronization is basically a two-step process. First, from the billing dashboard within Rocket Matter, you click the the “Sync to QuickBooks” button. Then you go to QuickBooks and select an option there to begin synchronization. With that, the Rocket Matter data is added to QuickBooks.

The integration works with 2009 and later Windows versions of QuickBooks Pro, Premium or Enterprise Edition. It supports both accrual and cash accounting as well as trust accounting.

Below is Rocket Matter’s tutorial showing how to set up and use the QuickBooks integration.

Last week, I wrote a follow-up to my October post about the launch of wireLawyer.com, a new professional network for lawyers. In my post, I took issue with a press release it issued claiming to be the first online professional network for the legal community. Matt Tollin, wireLawyer’s CEO, has posted a comment replying to my post which I urge you to read.

Also, Evan Koblentz has written an article about wireLawyer for Law Technology News: WireLawyer Aims to Be the LinkedIn for Lawyers.

More than a quarter of the nation’s top 200 law firms now have mobile websites, an increase of 46% from last year. This is the finding of the Second Annual AmLaw 200 and Global 100 Mobile Web Survey, conducted by the Law Firm Mobile blog.

The survey looked at which firms from the AmLaw 200 and the Global 100 have created mobile sites. It also looked at the types of content they published to those sites, how firms enhanced their sites, and where some sites need improvement.

Among the survey’s key findings:

• Among AmLaw 200 firms, 54 (27%) have mobile sites, an increase of 17 firms since 2011. Of firms on the Global 100 list, 29 have mobile sites, an increase of seven firms from 2011.
• Of the firms that have a mobile website, most (67%) have between seven and nine types of content on the site.

The most popular type of content these firms have on their sites are:

• Professional biographies (59).
• Offices (53).
• Practice areas (52).
• News (45).
• About the firm (42).
• Careers (40).
• Events (38).
• Publications (34).

Surprisingly, one of the least common content types is “contact us” information, included on just 13 sites.

The Law Firm Mobile blog has many more details about the survey, along with a full listing of the firms that have mobile sites and a screen shot of each firm’s site.

WordRake is a new editing program created specifically for lawyers. An add-on to Microsoft Word, it “rakes” your documents in search of unnecessary and obtuse words, suggesting edits to improve clarity and concision. It is the creation of Gary Kinder, a lawyer and writer whose 1998 book, Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea, went to number seven on The New York Times bestseller list.

What better way to test WordRake, I decided, than to use it on two of the most eloquent writers on the Supreme Court, Justice Antonin Scalia and Justice Elena Kagan. Together with Bryan A. Garner, Scalia is the author of two books about legal writing, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts, and Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges. Kagan received praise from Jeffrey Rosen in The New Republic for her “emergence as an eloquent voice” on the court. As an example, he cited her dissent in the 2011 case, Arizona Free Enterprise Club v. Bennett.

If WordRake could improve on Scalia and Kagan, imagine what it could do for the rest of us, I thought.

Rosen calls Scalia the court’s “most dazzling writer.” To illustrate his point, he quotes a sentence from Scalia’s concurring opinion in the 1993 case, Lamb’s Chapel v. Center Moriches School District.

Like some ghoul in a late night horror movie that repeatedly sits up in its grave and shuffles abroad, after being repeatedly killed and buried, Lemon stalks our Establishment Clause jurisprudence once again, frightening the little children and school attorneys of Center Moriches Union Free School District.

Taking my cue from Rosen, I pasted Scalia’s Lamb’s Chapel concurrence into a Word document and ran it through WordRake. First, I downloaded the free, three-day trial of the software and installed it in Word. This takes just a few moments, after which WordRake appears on the Word menu. Highlight a selection of text, select “Rake” from the WordRake menu, and the program begins to scan the document. When it is done, you can review its suggestions and accept or reject them.

Here you see WordRake’s treatment of the opening paragraph of Scalia’s concurrence:

 Here, WordRake has succeeded in improving Scalia’s prose. It deletes both “generally” and “in this regard” as unnecessary words. It smooths out “a violation of” to “violating” and does the same for “the showing of” to “showing.”

In this next example, WordRake does not perform as admirably.

Several of WordRake’s suggestions here are simply wrong. In the first line, it changes “the proposed use of the school’s facilities” to “the proposed the school’s facilities.” Later, it changes, “That was not the view of those who adopted our Constitution,” to, “That was not adopted our Constitution.” Then, it changes, “It suffices to point out that,” to, “It points out that.” Other changes are more matters of style than of wrong or right, such as deleting “then” from the phrase, “Unsurprisingly, then, indifference ….”

I decided to try another Scalia sample, the majority opinion in the 2008 Second Amendment case, District of Columbia v. Heller. After reviewing the roughly 17,000-word opinion, WordRake was fairly modest in its suggestions for Scalia. Many of the suggestions were repetitive, such as changing every instance of “insofar as” to “where,” “the use of” to “using,” and “makes clear” to “clarifies.”  In at least one instance, WordRake’s suggestion changed the meaning of the phrase.

Where Scalia wrote, “Since those discussions took place 75 years after the ratification of the Second Amendment, they do not provide as much insight into its original meaning as earlier sources,” WordRake would change that to, “Since those discussions took place 75 years after the ratification of the Second Amendment, they provide as little insight into its original meaning as earlier sources.” Scalia is saying that the earlier sources provide greater insight but WordRake puts the earlier and later sources on a par in providing “little insight.”

For Kagan, I again took my cue from Jeffrey Rosen, testing WordRake using her dissenting opinion in Arizona Free Enterprise. WordRake uncovered no major “gotchas” in Kagan’s writing. The following paragraph is a good example of its review:

These are stylistic judgment calls. Do you want to say, “The difficulty, then, is …,” or, “The difficulty is …”? What about, “In short, the dynamic nature,” versus, “The dynamic nature …”? WordRake cuts words of transition that, while not necessary, arguably help the flow. WordRake is correct in pointing out that “the amount of money needed” can be shortened to “the money needed,” but it is wrong in suggesting the deletion of “effectively” in the last line.

WordRake does make some minor improvements to Kagan’s prose. Among its suggestions are to change “does not restrict any person’s ability” to “restricts no person’s ability”; “subsidies … do not restrict any speech” to “subsidies … restrict no speech”; and “who presumably would not be able to” to “who presumably could not.” It regularly deletes transitional phrases such as “for this reason” and “to the contrary.”

Fearing that I had not been fair to WordRake by pitting it against two of the legal profession’s most accomplished writers, I decided to try it on a random contract. I went to the wireLawyer site that I wrote about last week and found a 124-page El Pollo Loco franchise agreement. I downloaded it as a Word document and ran it through WordRake.

Above is a typical paragraph, as edited by WordRake. The more you use the software, the more you see how it works. It searches for phrases lawyers often use — such as “in addition to,” “pursuant to” and “in accordance with” — and suggests simpler words such as “besides” and “under.” It is programmed with a set of usage and grammar rules and applies those rules to the document.

Above is another example from the franchise agreement. The suggestions are mostly improvements, but note that the final deletion would alter the meaning of the sentence.

WordRake does not have a has no brain. It is unable to discern meaning, context or color. In its mechanical application of rules, it risks changing the meaning of a sentence or phrase.

Still, WordRake was able, in some instances, to improve the writing of linguistic legal luminaries Scalia and Kagan. If it can help them, chances are it can help you. The important lesson from the above examples is to use WordRake with a critical eye. Review each suggestion and consider whether it helps or hurts. Clearly, it is capable of doing either.

WordRake is sold on a subscription basis. A one-year subscription is $99. Quantity pricing is available. As I noted at the outset, you can download a three-day free trial.

In my opinion, at $99, WordRake is sensible purchase. Think of it as an extra layer of review for your writing or even as a sort-of robotic writing teacher. See its suggestions for simplifying text often enough and they may become second nature. Use it for a year and, who knows, you may learn enough that you will not need a second year.

Back in October, I reported the beta launch of wireLawyer.com, which described itself as “the first dedicated digital network created by lawyers for lawyers” and as having “the first crowd-sourced peer-2-peer exchange for documents.” Neither claim was true and, at that point, there was not much to the site.

Now, wireLawyer has once again announced its launch in beta, putting out a press release proclaiming, “wireLawyer Launches First Online Professional Network for the Legal Community.” You have to wonder how a PR person can write a headline like that without at least Googling the claim. Have they really not heard of Legal OnRamp, Martindale Connected, or even the ABA’s ill-fated LegallyMinded? This is all the more surprising given that the site lists LexisNexis and Martindale.com as a “partner,” whatever that means.

One also has to wonder why they would announce a site that is so far from being ready for prime time. The press release describes the site this way:

Drawing on the expertise of the Harvard Law community and Silicon Valley, wireLawyer provides an essential business-to-business platform, allowing lawyers to insource and outsource paid work, access thousands of peer-reviewed documents, and research curated questions, which bring big firm best practices to the entire legal community.

But if you go to the site, most of these promised features are inoperable. Click on “Groups,” “Q&A” or “Transact,” and all you get is a notice proclaiming, “Coming Soon.” So far, wireLawyer is just another site for searching for canned legal forms. Although the press release promises documents that are peer reviewed, the ones I’ve seen all seem to be pulled straight out of EDGAR or somewhere similar.

The press release also lists an elite roster of advisors and backers for the site, including Harvard Law School professors Charles Nesson and Charles Ogletree; Tim Stanley, CEO of Justia.com and co-founder of Findlaw; Martin Roscheisen, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and co-founder of Findlaw and eGroups; Leon Charney, a New York attorney turned wealthy real-estate investor; and Paul Pangaro, Stanford University and New School professor and CTO of several notable startups.

Given the site’s hype and the pedigree, I’ll be interested to see how wireLawyer develops. I just hope that the next time it announces its launch with a big splash, there is something to see there.