Small Law Firms, Solo Practitioners

A New Lawyer Learns About The Streisand Effect -- The Hard Way

The misadventures of a new lawyer offer some lessons about reputation management.

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It’s tough times as a new lawyer. Hiring is down, far too many lawyers, and the economy still sluggish. Forced to hang their shingle, many new lawyers do almost anything they can in order to make ends meet.

A new lawyer (in terms of bar passage, not in age) in Texas by the name of Matthew Chappell, who graduated law school in December 2013, apparently thought he had found a way to generate extra income. According to Texas criminal defense lawyer Mark Bennett, Chappell emailed Bennett to extend the following offer:

I’m going down the list of Board Certified Texas Attorneys to find a solo attorney with 5 or more years of experience to make this offer to. I have 2 years experience, graduating from STCL in 2013.

I have family friends at Fidelity Investments who promise me AT LEAST one new client a week (Estate Planning) if I were able to get on their Preferred Attorney’s List; however, I have to wait a three more stupid years, as Fidelity now requires 5 years of experience to be placed on this list (which wasn’t always the case).

I need to find someone with 5 years who my friends can nominate; the business would be filtered through that someone, but wouldn’t be intrusive AT ALL (I will set up a separate email acct or Google phone number for these clients).

There is absolutely ZERO liability or accountability or responsibility on your part. In exchange, I’m willing to either offer you a share of the clientele or to subsidize your malpractice insurance to bring it up to 2 million/per incident (usually around $3600/yr), which, in addition to the 5 years, is another Fidelity req to be on the list. I already have this type of policy myself.

Mark Bennett thought this proposal was unwise and tried to get Matthew Chappell to see the error of his ways. Bennett shared his opinions on his blog:

So, lawyers. Let’s imagine what happens if you sign on as Matthew Chappell’s nominee, the strawman to whom Fidelity will refer cases, which will then be funneled to Chappell with no involvement from you….

[S]uppose that “your” clients start complaining to Fidelity about “your” service. How long do you think it’s going to take them to figure out what your arrangement with Chappell was?

When Fidelity realizes what’s going on, do you think they are going to be kindly inclined toward you for helping him defeat their rules, or do you think they’re going to go running to the State Bar and your local DA? You’ve helped Chappell deprive Fidelity of something of value to both it and him (its referrals) on false pretenses.

But this wouldn’t be a post about the Streisand Effect if Chappell had taken Bennett’s advice to heart and seen the error of his ways. Instead, Chappell sent out a demand letter full of bold sentences, ALL CAPS, and generously written in the third person. The final paragraph is worth reproducing:

Before taking these steps, however, Mr. Chappell has generously decided to give you the opportunity to discontinue your illegal conduct by complying with this demand within ten (10) days. Accordingly, please compose a written apology to Mr. Chappell in which you agree to, first, issue a clarification and retraction on your “blogsite”, and second, remove the blog that refers to Mr. Chappell and/or any other media associated with Mr. Chappell’s name and/or law practice. AGAIN, YOU HAVE TEN DAYS, SIR.

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Bennett forwarded the letter to his lawyer, Marc Randazza, for a response. The entire response is worth reading (and actually one of Randazza’ more mild rebukes):

I really like the idea of getting a share of anything with zero liability or accountability. If I could have a share of your french fries without any accountability, I’d take it. But, a share of money with no liability and no accountability? That sounds great.

Unfortunately, it sounds “great” only if you pronounce it using the Bill Lumbergh voice. Here, try it (assume Lumbergh voice): “Yeah, I’m gonna ask you to put your law license on the line, so some second-year lawyer can bulls**t Fidelity Investments, that would be just great.” No. Not great.

Personal Brand v. Reputation

Chappell’s story is now public, and other lawyers (like Scott Greenfield) continue to write about him. Chappell is now a casualty of the Streisand Effect, in which any attempt to hide, remove, or censor a piece of information has the unintended consequence of publicizing the information more widely.

A couple weeks ago, at Associate’s Mind, I wrote about the difference between a “personal brand” and a reputation:

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A personal brand is something that is self-defined. It’s how you dress and act. It’s what you broadcast via social media to the world.

A reputation is an opinion about someone else, arrived at as a result of evaluation and appraisal.

So what is the difference between a personal brand and a reputation? Put simply:

Your personal brand is what you say about yourself, but your reputation is what others say about you.

The former you can control, the latter you can merely influence.

Which is why your reputation is far more important and valuable than your personal brand. 

No matter what Chappell may do going forward to help to polish his “personal brand,” he can’t do much about his reputation. When someone looks him up on the Internet, they will not only find his self-curated information, they will also find unvarnished opinions about him from other lawyers and news outlets.

So a reminder to lawyers out there working hard to cultivate their “personal brand.” Yes, you should likely spend some time on creating a personal brand: your website, business cards, office and the like. But largely speaking, a personal brand is fungible – you can easily swap it out for a different one.

In contrast, your reputation is precious. You only have the one. There is no hiding from it. You can try, but if people really want to know about you, they’ll eventually find out what other people think about you. Reputations are fragile things – intricate, delicate structures that require years to develop and build but only moments to shatter.

Guard yours zealously.

Keith Lee practices law at Hamer Law Group, LLC in Birmingham, Alabama. He writes about professional development, the law, the universe, and everything at Associate’s Mind. He is also the author of The Marble and The Sculptor: From Law School To Law Practice (affiliate link), published by the ABA. You can reach him at keith.lee@hamerlawgroup.com or on Twitter at @associatesmind.

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