We used to be ignored. Criminal defense lawyers were never the belle of the ball – people said “how can you represent those people?” And even though we banded together, for years the system ignored us. After all, we wore the black hat and were contrarian to the goal: convict more, jail more, and be quiet.

Boy! We’ve come a long way! We earned a seat at the table. We have a large and collective voice. We are consulted. We are shaping the system.

And now, as JoAnne Musick just found out – we are being copied!  Brown & Musselwhite, a Houston law firm, has started copying our blog posts (and all others) via Texas Bar Today. Their website boasts, “No Games, Just Law.” Yet their news is really everyone else’s. Sort of gaming the system there. They copy our content, link our writers back to themselves, and hope that Google and other search engines will reward them. They hope that a Google search for key words in our content will reveal their site. They hope that a Google search for our writers will net their site. That’s a game folks! No law, just games.

Sam Adamo Jr. wrote an incredible piece on Fitbit technology and its use in criminal defense – yep, they copied it.

Jillian Beck at the State Bar wrote about our annual awards – yep, they copied it.

JoAnne wrote about school principals interrogating students – yep, copied!

JoAnne wrote about juvenile priors and impeachment – yep, you guessed it! Copied!

JoAnne wrote about stun guns and a recent Supreme Court decision – Copied!

Ironically, they copied Darin Klemchuk’s Best Practices to Avoid Plagiarism and Copyright Infringment! (But I digress)

JoAnne wrote about innocent clients wanting to plea guilty – Copied!

And so many more! The fact is nothing they have posted is their work. It is all simply a bad copy of the curating done by the Texas Bar Today blog. They include no links to the original posts. No links to identify the author. Just mass amounts of “key word” content they are hoping will net search results. That’s bad marketing. That’s bad business. Especially for lawyers!

To paraphrase Mark Bennett: outsource your marketing, outsource your reputation. Which begs the question: are they bad lawyers or just bad marketers?