Question of Ethics in a Blawg: Matt Homann
Matt Homann, the St Louis blawgger behind LexThink and the non-billable hour is facing a sticky situation worth discussing.
In April 2004, he wrote a post critical of Legal Match, a company that matches possible clients with lawyers. After writing the post, he engaged in a discussion with LegalMatch employees, and discovered he liked the company, but disliked their sales tactics.
After a series of posts on the matter, he updated the links, and actually joined the board of directors for Legal Match. Case closed, right?
Well, his contact just left LegalMatch for their closest competitor, CasePost, and Matt has been invited to join the new board of directors at Casepost.
Matt's question was how he should address the problem of the Legal Match posts when he is not firmly attached to both companies in the minds of his readers. What is the ethical thing to do?
The comments are now closed, but I think Matt did the best thing. He openly described the problem, addressed the issue, and is offering to put a disclaimer on all posts pertaining to Legal Match.
As bloggers go mainstream, their position as individuals expressing opinions changes to that of paid consultants. The problem is not what was said in the past, but rather if the behavior and viewpoint of the blogger changes when money or publicity is injected.
Good for Matt for airing the question, and we wish him the best in his attempts to walk that line.
In April 2004, he wrote a post critical of Legal Match, a company that matches possible clients with lawyers. After writing the post, he engaged in a discussion with LegalMatch employees, and discovered he liked the company, but disliked their sales tactics.
After a series of posts on the matter, he updated the links, and actually joined the board of directors for Legal Match. Case closed, right?
Well, his contact just left LegalMatch for their closest competitor, CasePost, and Matt has been invited to join the new board of directors at Casepost.
Matt's question was how he should address the problem of the Legal Match posts when he is not firmly attached to both companies in the minds of his readers. What is the ethical thing to do?
The comments are now closed, but I think Matt did the best thing. He openly described the problem, addressed the issue, and is offering to put a disclaimer on all posts pertaining to Legal Match.
As bloggers go mainstream, their position as individuals expressing opinions changes to that of paid consultants. The problem is not what was said in the past, but rather if the behavior and viewpoint of the blogger changes when money or publicity is injected.
Good for Matt for airing the question, and we wish him the best in his attempts to walk that line.
posted by James Durbin @ 10:46 AM PERMALINK
1 Comments:
Thanks for picking this up. The comments are still open, and I'd welcome your readers' input. One more thing -- I didn't actually join LegalMatch's Board of Advisors, though I was asked to do so. I am now working with CasePost, though.
Matt
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