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Thompson Hine LLP, a full-service business law firm with approximately 400 lawyers in 11 offices, was ranked number 1 in the category “Most innovative North American law firms: New working models” by The Financial Times and was 1 of 7 firms shortlisted for The American Lawyer’s inaugural Legal Services Innovation Award. The firm has been recognized by the National Law Journal as a Legal Technology Trailblazer and featured by Bloomberg for its innovative service delivery models, which drive accuracy and predictability. The firm’s commitment to innovation is embodied in Thompson Hine SmartPaTHTM – a smarter way to work – predictable, efficient and aligned with client goals. For more information, please visit ThompsonHine.com and ThompsonHine.com/SmartPaTH.

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<img style="max-width: 100%;height: auto;max-width: 100%;height: auto" loading="lazy" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-2148" src="https://www.thelawforlawyerstoday.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/754/2015/11/Store-300x200.jpg" alt="Store" width="300" height="200">It&rsquo;s pretty circular for a legal blogger to write a blog post about &mdash; blogging.&nbsp; But bear with me:&nbsp; there&rsquo;s a legal ethics issue in here.&nbsp; Thomson Reuters recently introduced a new product for busy lawyers who &ldquo;do not have time to write articles,&rdquo; but want to produce a blog.&nbsp; (Hat tip to @kevinokeefe over at <a href="http://kevin.lexblog.com/2015/11/03/want-to-be-a-thought-leader-law-blog-fodder-for-sale-at-the-content-store/?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+KevinOKeefe%2FRealLawyersHaveBlogs+%28Real+Lawyers+Have+Blogs%29">Real Lawyers Have Blogs</a>.)
Called the &ldquo;Content Store&rdquo; (I kid you not),&nbsp;Thompson Reuters&nbsp;promises that &ldquo;we have developed thousands of articles that you may use to boost your thought leadership quotient without spending too much of your valuable time.&rdquo;&nbsp; You can &ldquo;easily search, find, purchase and download professionally-written articles on a wide variety of legal ... subjects for less than it would cost to write it in-house.&rdquo;
The idea is that you pay Thomson Reuters&nbsp; by the piece or by the year to have access to these articles, which you then push out as your own in your blog.&nbsp; Increased &ldquo;thought leadership quotient&rdquo; is supposed to result.
Lest you think that this smacks of&nbsp;rank copying,&nbsp;Thompson Reuters says that you can easily edit the articles, to &ldquo;tweak, embellish, [and] customize&rdquo; them.&nbsp; However, the bold-face slug at the top of the webpage says &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t have time to brainstorm blog topics, much less write the posts.&rdquo;&nbsp; Presumably you might also&nbsp;be too&nbsp;busy to &ldquo;tweak&rdquo; or &ldquo;embellish&rdquo; your store-bought &ldquo;content.&rdquo;
So is this kosher?
I can think of a couple ethics rules that&nbsp;strongly suggest that you can&rsquo;t pass off someone else&rsquo;s written &ldquo;content&rdquo; as your own writing &mdash; even with permission.&nbsp; First, <a href="http://www.americanbar.org/groups/professional_responsibility/publications/model_rules_of_professional_conduct/rule_8_4_misconduct.html">Model Rule 8.4(c)</a> says that a lawyer can&rsquo;t engage in dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation.&nbsp;&nbsp;Second, to the extent that a law blog may be deemed to be a communication about the lawyer&rsquo;s services, <a href="http://www.americanbar.org/groups/professional_responsibility/publications/model_rules_of_professional_conduct/rule_7_1_communication_concerning_a_lawyer_s_services.html">Model Rule 7.1</a> says that you shall not &ldquo;shall not make a false or misleading communication&rdquo;
Lawyers can get&nbsp;into trouble for playing fast and loose with the truth when it comes to identifying who wrote documents submitted to a tribunal &mdash; for instance, ghostwriting a brief and having a pro se party sign it as the party&rsquo;s own.&nbsp; See, e.g., Ostevoll v. Ostevoll, 2000 U.S. Dist. LEXIS&nbsp;(S.D. Ohio Aug. 16, 2000) (agreeing that ghostwriting involves dishonesty and deceit on the part of the&nbsp;lawyer);&nbsp;<a href="http://filehost.thompsonhine.com/uploads/Gordon_v._Dadante_6110.pdf">Gordon v. Dadante</a>&nbsp;(N.D. Ohio 2009) (&ldquo;This Court will continue to strike ghostwritten submissions from any party and will, in the future, entertain motions for contempt against a party submitting ghostwritten material.&rdquo;); Laremont-Lopez v. Southeastern Tidewater Opp. Ctr., 968 F. Supp. 1075&nbsp;(E.D. Va. 1997) (ghostwritten pleadings constitute misrepresentation).
The same should hold true&nbsp;with blog content.&nbsp; Buying it and passing it off as your own is a form of lying.
By the way, I wrote this content myself.&nbsp; It took me an hour.&nbsp; I didn&rsquo;t buy it from anyone.&nbsp; Hope you enjoyed it.

core/freeform

Ethics

Legal Ethics, Professional Responsibility and the Business of Law

Buying pre-fab legal blog content — any ethics issues with that?