QUESTION:
Mr. Campitelli:
I am an attorney located in California. After looking into establishing a website of my own involving the practice of law, I have become leery of using a website design company to do so. This is because I have noted the rarity in which law firm’s and legal websites comply with their state’s ethical guidelines and the Rules of PR governing lawyers. As surprising as this is, I have also noted the very common practice of using testimonials on legal websites, which violates new FTC guidelines and which you address in general in your “Internet Law Compliance System.”
While attorneys may not be able to safeguard themselves against all laws, I find potential State Bar and FTC violations of this kind maddening. On the one hand, most law firms cite their own excellent work, successful results, number of years experience, etc.; yet, a quick look at their own websites will (almost always) reveal breaches of PR and (not quite as common) FTC violations. In my view, violations of either kind are about as severe as IRS/tax evasion lawsuits. They place one’s livelihood – the practice of law – at substantial risk of jeopardy via suit, sanction or disbarment.
Given the foregoing, the reason for contacting you is to find out to what extent, if any, I, as an attorney, might be able to use the materials in your “Internet Law Compliance System,” where pertinent, as templates for the purpose of drafting similar documents, and providing specific legal advice to law firms and others to better ensure compliance with FTC guidelines. In addition, for people who do not want or need the specific advice from an attorney that I would like your permission to provide (once I set up a website of my own) a hyperlink to your website. While not by any means is it the determining factor, I need to know whether doing so would provide me with affiliate compensation.
Regardless of whether you grant or deny use, or provide affiliate linking compensation, I recognize the value of the work. Of course, I will respect all of your intellectual property and copyright issues.
Although the “internet law” search term is not as widespread as I thought it would be by now (Wordtracker shows < 766 occurrences of the term), people need to become aware of your offering and the importance of complying with FTC guidelines to diminish the threat of a lawsuit. Your material is very useful in this respect.
I would greatly appreciate your thoughts and kind comments.
Thanks very much!
Eric
ANSWER:
Eric –
I appreciate both your mail and your courtesy.
First, to the latter idea in your email: yes, there’s an affiliate program that pays 20% ($20 at the moment) for each sale that comes via you and $2 for each sale that comes from someone to whom you sold the product to. (One level down). That’s as far as our simple program can go!
Now to the substantive issues. My sense is that the advice you provide, whether you base it on extensive Lexis homework or my humble work, is essentially your business. Clearly my ideas would be hearsay unless you supplied the footnotes. Which neither of us wants to do I’m sure.
I can’t exactly tell from your email if you’re already a member or rather thinking about becoming one.
The history of the publication is that the research was commissioned by another lawyer, Shawn Casey, (www.shawncasey.com or do a google search) who is now a leading internet guru and has quit practicing law. Anyway, Shawn had trained me in marketing for three years and I knew I had to make sure the material did not become a law book and that it was helpful to marketing people, not law professors. So the book is pro-marketing. Every time there is a regulatory hurdle, I find a way to make it a selling point not a stumbling block.
If you’re not yet a member, I would urge you to become one for $99.99. I’ll tell you why. I specifically address issues of confidentiality in the privacy policy section as it relates to lawyers (and other professionals with fiduciary relationships). It’s not a major secret that how you send, receive, and store communications from clients is a big deal in the legal profession. Or it used to be when we had a Constitution, but I digress. :) At any rate it remains a big deal in civil exposure. This is not a big section, so don’t buy it for that reason. But it shows the breadth of the material was designed even to fit the needs of lawyers, accountants and other professionals with confidentiality issues. For instance, should your data about clients be encrypted? Secured behind a strong firewall? Should a client of yours be able to “unsubscribe” from email communication with you? (The answer is “no” but you should include it with the proviso that if they click they won’t hear from you again.) Do you need to have an “unsubscribe” feature in your email signatures? (No, but prudently you should meet the standards of commercial email.) For instance, you wrote me so I have an implied right to respond but you’ll note that my signature meets commercial email requirements even though I probably don’t need to.
While I’d prefer you “sold” my product (as an affiliate) that includes copyrighted fully-licensed user, privacy and purchase agreements (which I’m fond of for the do-it-yourselfer), I would say that the various agreements were written after both personal experience in internet marketing and a lot of “thinking on it” so as to design something that had teeth in it to protect the web marketer. As the material points out, you may modify them and add YOUR copyright to my publisher’s copyright for each client. There is no provision for you to do this except to have each client or you buy the product each time you use it to get the license for you to modify for the client based on your knowledge of the client’s needs. Since you’d already have the copy, if you were a member, this is pretty easy. The “good part” of doing it this way is that the client will get a great overview of what the territory looks like for probably less than the cost of a 1/2 hour of your time. And more information than you could dump on him in half a day. (There is a provision for a multi-site license for the same user for $50 but nothing for a reseller of the license.) It’s easier and cheaper for you to buy the product for the client or have the client buy it themselves — and then tweak it as you see necessary.
After the client has read the text, your discussions to fine-tune the various agreements will be much more efficient since the client will be more in tune with the parameters. In fact, when you read mine you will most likely takes notes on particularly sensitive areas you will want to address.
The text of the ILC System is fun to read and pretty informative. What I try to do is to get the reader to get in the groove of thinking about the “how” to organize his or her efforts so that they instinctively make sound decisions even when they don’t know the specific rules. Further, and what may be of interest to you, is the emphasis on writing copy that is both compliant and interesting. After all, even if it’s for your firm’s website, your copy should follow standard marketing rules. The point of which is to motivate a would-be client to contact you in some, hopefully paying, manner. In addition to compliant, it should be compelling and always include a call to action — even on your firm’s website. You’re not running a law library. You want to attract clients while using the internet to further legitimize your credentials. Most lawyers don’t understand that a website is more than a method for people to “look you up” but a way to attract clients. A webpage must be designed to sell you and unless someone has paid for your opinion it is a way to get more clients. And there is no selling without a “call to action” and that means writing you or telephoning you to set an appointment.
Knowing the regulations while knowing how to write a disclaimer that sells, rather than dims sales, is a big deal.
If you haven’t done so, go to the sales letter page: www.internetlawcomplicance.com, scroll to the bottom, and click on the “Disclaimers and Disclosures” hyperlink. That’s a serious disclosure and disclaimer. But it remains a fun read and for the observant is a template for how to write a compelling disclosure/disclaimer. The simple truth is that over 50% of my sales come directly from that very Disclosure page. Now THAT, to my way of thinking, is a compelling disclosure!
Lastly, by way of reference, some years ago I received a letter from a law firm that threatened to sue me for using their material — after their client complained that someone had stolen the “special” material the lawyer had been paid (handsomely) to handcraft for them. MY lawyer responded to the nasty-gram by calling attention to the difference in the copyright dates, mine being a few years older than theirs and on over a thousand websites long before they “wrote” theirs. Some clever junior partner, it turned out, did his research by finding out which user agreement, privacy policy, and purchase agreement was used most on the internet and stumbled on mine and simply “cut and pasted” it into a word doc. He made a good choice. I’m smiling when I say humbly that they ARE the best “canned” agreements. Sadly, he no longer works at that firm and there was much crow to go around. But, with full disclosure, I include that story, at no charge, as a testimonial for your consideration.
I mean how often can an author claim threatened litigation as a testimonial to another lawyer!
So . . . keep in touch and feel free to ask any questions you have.
Jack
