It
has been almost a year since a lengthy and heated dispute was exchanged between
a few legal bloggers and myself. In large part, after a few days of e-mail
exchanges, I chose to ignore all of the hatred spewed in my direction – and
instead tried to focus on the positive aspects of my life and practice. After
all of this time, and obviously as tempers have cooled, it is my choice to
finally write my response.
The
situation arose over 12 simple rules for a law firm. I do not know when this
content was posted on my website, but I am posting it here because it is
relevant for my response.
1.
Represent only clients you like ;2. The client is the main event; 3. Make sure
everyone in your firm knows the client is the main event ; 4. Deliver legal
work that changes the way clients think about lawyers; 5. Over-communicate:
bombard, copy and confirm ; 6. When you work, you are marketing; 7. Know the
client; 8. Think like the client--help control costs; 9. Be there for
clients--24/7 ;10. Be accurate, thorough and timely--but not perfect ;11. Treat
each co-worker like he or she is your best client; 12. Have fun.
These
12 rules were given to me for approval, in paper form, by a legal staff member
to gauge how I felt about them. I will say with full, and 100% complete
honesty, I did not even think as to where they might have come from. It should
be noted that they came from a civil attorney in San Diego, named Dan Hull. These
are the 12 basic rules, and he has a vast amount of content that goes in much
further detail into each one. I did not have all of the content from his
description of each on my website, just the 12 simple rules.
The
purpose of me writing this is not to defend putting these on my website. It is pertinent to note, that I have many
things on all of my websites. I
currently have 7 websites, and there is content stemming from many of them. I
was later accused of posting this content, and was accused of trying to take
credit for its origination. I swear on theeverything that I hold dear that
Tthis was never done by me intentionally, or by anyone on my staff. You can
clearly see other content from my website, where I have attributed other
others. If I truly was this type of an individual, I would not have a multitude
of other articles and posts written by others, given full attribution for
each. If I had known where this came
from, I would have attributed it to Mr. Hull, and this would never have been an
issue.
Scott
Greenfeld
Scott
Greenfeld, an attorney in New York, New York, claims he e-mailed me, asking me
about the aforementioned material. I say with full honesty that I never
received such an e-mail. Had I received it, I would not have reacted in the
fashion that I did later.
I
stumbled across his blog post about a month or two after he posted it. I first
read it on my iPhone, and I immediately became very angry. His blog post made
very pointed and critical assertions about my integrity as a person, and an
attorney, He claimed he tried to contact me, and whether he did or not – what I
can say is I never received an e-mail regarding it. Perhaps it went into my
spam folder. What I do know is he never made an attempt to contact me
personally by telephone, or any other means that would have been easily done to
communicate further into whatever situation he felt he should engage himself
in. It should be noted, obviously, that Mr. Greenfeld did this on behalf of Mr.
Dan Hull.
I
immediately wrote a response back from my iPhone. When I first wrote a
response, I was very angry, frustrated, and I felt attacked by someone who had
never even met me, nor had the courtesy to even attempt to contact by any of
the social media avenues that are readily available these days. I felt
attacked, and I responded.
After
the intial response on his blog subsequent to when I first found the blog post,
I wrote a message to Mr. Dan Hull, in response to a kindly worded e-mail from
him about the situation, and I did so, again, on my iphone – though this time I
was the passenger in a car writing on my way to the Dallas County courthouse. I
even apologized in advance, if memory serves me correct – for any grammatical
mistakes. It seems that Mr. Hull then forwarded this message to Mr. Greenfield,
and more banter between these “professional bloggers” ensued.
This
all transpired over one year ago as I write this response, and I still do not
regret acting out in calling out Mr. Greenfeld for being a coward.
Blogging
My
initial responses garnered a myriad of responses from many individuals, most of
whom are active bloggers, and pride themselves on being so. My main bone of
contention was that it was very easy for Mr. Greenfeld to hide behind a
computer and spout various accusations about an individual, while not doing it
face to face. The title of his post was
“Carl David Ceder learns the 12 Rules of the Blawgosphere.”
I am
the first one to admit that I am not an active blogger, in the traditional
sense. I have learned through this
experience how serious some bloggers take their writing. I have never claimed
to be an avid blogger. Much of my response was being critical of how serious
they took their blogging. It seemed to
me, and this still appears to be the case, that they take more pride in writing
on their blogs, than they do actually practicing law. Most of my blog content
is simply things that I experience, or see, that inspires me in the practice of
law. I have various quotations from famous attorneys, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore
Roosevelt, etc. Everything that I have not originally written, I HAVE GIVEN
PROPER ATTRIBUTION.
My
objective in even having a blog on my website, for me individually, is more so
to actively record my thoughts. I was highly critical of how critical all of
the bloggers were of this situation, and just how high they placed the “ethics”
of blogging. I was literally shocked by how serious some were. One individual,
Mark Bennett of Houston, Texas, I found has bragged that he has written over
80,000 words in his blog. I personally feel “to each, their own” – however, for
me, what I tried to convey is that what one should focus on, in our profession,
is being successful in the courtroom. I still firmly believe this should be the
case.
To
be perfectly candid, as well, I found it extremely pathetic how serious many of
these individuals were in how serious they took to blogging. I couldn’t help myself from thinking: why
would a criminal defense attorney want to spend so much time writing, everyday,
blog articles? If this is the case, which it is for many individuals, why do
they find they have to be so overly critical of others, almost on a constant
basis?
Cynics
and Hypocrits
Previous
to this incident, it had always been my experience that criminal attorneys
should help each other. My own analysis was that we are in a profession that can
evoke the ire of many members of the public – and as such, we should always
strive to support each other, and not find needless ways to denigrate each
other over trivial details.
The
dictionary defines a cynic as:
a person who shows or expresses a bitter
attitude; a person who has negative opinions about other people and about
the things people do.
I am of the opinion that Mr. Greenfeld, and many who were
critical during this situation, are overly cynical people. I find this to be a
sad. Again, I think criminal defense attorneys should be uplifting to one
another, and not look for ways to find ways to try and ruin reputations. It is
clear to me, after doing only a light amount of research on Mr. Greenfeld, that
he prides himself on being a cynic, and seems to indicate this is one of the
main purposes of his blog. He seems to relish that he possesses this character
trait.
The
dictionary defines a hypocrite as a person who pretends to have virtues, moral or religious beliefs,
principles, etc., that he or she does not actually possess, especially a
person whose actions belie stated beliefs.
Mark Bennett
When all of
this was transpiring, I received an e-mail from Mark Bennett from Houston,
Texas. It seemed we had a mutual friend in common, and being an extremely
active blogger, he felt the need to contact me personally. When he did so, in
no uncertain terms, he gave me an ultimatem. Either I profusefuly apologize for
my response to Mr. Scott Greenfeld, or he would write his own blog article
about me critizing how I handled the situation. If I refused, he stated that he
would write a blog article about me and use me “as an example.” With his
ultimatem, he demanded that I call him by 4pm that day (he sent and I received
the e-mail message at approximately 2pm that same day) or he would write the
article blasting me and thus, subjecting me to further critique and ridicule.
I ended up
calling Mr. Bennett – and we had a lengthy phone conversation. I told him I was
aware of how he had been known to constantly critique other attorneys, some of
whom I knew – and I questioned as to why he would give me such an ultimatem,
and I made it very clear that I did not appreciate being treated with what was
tantamount to a threat. We ended the converstation as amicably as I was able to
at the time – but I was steadfast in my refusal to apologize to Mr. Greenfeld.
He ended up writing a blog post titled “Fake Carl Ceder” (and perhaps some
others) – where he put some of my writing in Dr. Nerve’s Markov Page. It is
stated on this page that “it allows the writer to type in prose or poetry, and
submit it to a Markov Chain engine. This engine munches through the writer's
text, performs a statistical analysis, and spits out statistically similar
text.” Presumably, I would assume, Mr. Bennett did this to critique my writing.
I took the liberty of also putting some of Mr. Bennett’s own recent blog
articles in the same Dr. Nerve’s Markov Page – and you will find the result on
my similarly title blog post: Fake Houston Attorney Mark Bennett.
After about
six months from he first contacted me with his ultimatem, I asked him, in a
very polite e-mail message, if he would please change just the title tags (not
take down, or even change, the actual content) in his post referencing me. His
response to me was very condescending and insulting. I have posted an excerpt
of a snapshot of his response at the end of this article. In my message to him,
I tried to be humble, polite, and courteous. In his response, he steadfastly
refused. What perhaps I found the most indicative of his nature, and his
perceived benevolence, he called me a “fucking dolt” for even making such a
request. Again, I was offended, but chose not to respond in the manner I did
when I first read Mr. Greenfeld’s blog post about me.
What I found
perhaps the most perplexing – is that Mr. Bennett literally tried to act as
though he was trying to help me. He gave the appearance of an older, wiser
attorney who was trying to help someone in how to respond when I was attacked.
When researching Mr. Bennett, I curiously found that he was listed on the
website: http://www.neighborhoodchristianlawyer.com/Profiles/Bennett-Bennet/Staff/Mark-Bennett.aspx
I also
noticed that he majored in Religious Studies at Rice University in Houston,
Texas. While I do not know what his particular religious beliefs happen to be,
nor do I really think them to be relevant, but I do find it a bit ironic that he
would use such extreme profanity in response to a simple humble request. I
couldn’t help but think he could have simply replied that he would not change
the title tag.
Given
everything I know of Mr. Bennett, it seems to me that despite what he probably
thinks of himself, he seems to define the word hypocrit. As defined above, a
hypocrite is as a person who pretends to have virtues, moral or religious beliefs,
principles, etc., that he or she does not actually possess, especially a
person whose actions belie stated beliefs.
As I
researched Mr. Bennett’s background, it appeared to me that he had a habit of
writing insulting things about attorneys, many of whom he did not know. You can find such links here:
- http://houstondwidefender.com/2009/11/guerilla-blog-tactics-by-mark-bennett-against-tyler-flood/
- http://bennettandbennett.com/blog/tag/tyler-flood
- http://blog.bennettandbennett.com/2014/05/moron-dallas-lawyer-everett-newton.html
(I found this to be perhaps the most in defining his character, in calling
a Dallas attorney a “moron.”)
The
dictionary defines a cynic as:
a person who shows or expresses a bitter
attitude; a person who has negative opinions about other people and about
the things people do. I could not find a single blog post, article, or anything
written whatsoever where Mr. Bennett asserted praise for someone, or something
– only cynicism.
Black Hat SEO
Black Hat SEO, by definition I found on the internet (found
http://www.wordstream.com/black-hat-seo), is as follows:
Black hat SEO is a practice that increases a page's rank in
search engines through means that violate the search engines' terms of service.
The term "black hat" originated in Western movies to distinguish the
"bad guys" from the "good guys," who wore white hats (see
white hat SEO). Recently, it's used more commonly to describe computer hackers,
virus creators, and those who perform unethical actions with computers.
Some Black Hat SEO Techniques include, but is not exclusive
of: Link Manipulation - Buying links, link schemes, link networks, etc.
Not even a two weeks after all of the initial blog posts,
the responses, the messages, etc. – I received an e-mail message, from a
company named “Slap Up Media” – wondering if I would allow for an article on my
website to be published, while authorizing a link back to simplejustice.us. It
even offered to compensate me if I would agree to authorize a link to Mr.
Greenfield’s blog.
So, it would appear that Mr. Greenfield adamantly felt the
need to accuse me of doing something he felt was unethical (even though I did
not have knowledge of anything being done, nor was I trying to claim
attribution for the 12 rules) – but I received an e-mail from him, clearly
indicating that he was trying to manipulate Google’s guidelines to enhance his
own blog. The message even asked to
compensate me for such a link.
I will let you draw your own conclusions as to what this
means regarding the integrity of Mr. Greenfeld. It is clear that he was
engaging in “Black Hat SEO” techniques – and did not even think to have those
authorized to try and create such manipulation, think to NOT send a request to
the person who he has taken such painstaking measures to vilify?
The term "black hat" originated in Western movies
to distinguish the "bad guys" from the "good guys," who
wore white hats (see white hat SEO). The definition of hypocrite is a person who pretends to have virtues,
principles, etc., that he or she does not actually possess, especially a
person whose actions belie stated beliefs.
As such, Mr. Greenfeld had such a strong stance on my situation, but has anyone
yet called him out on deliberately employing a company to engage in link
manipulation? While also not having the
foresight to inform them to NOT send such a request to me just weeks after he
boldly critizes me?
I also found this to be extremely relevant:
https://asshatlawyers.wordpress.com/tag/mark-w-bennett/.
Blackhat SEO techniques involve those engaged in link schemes, link networks,
etc. What I found, after researching all of the bloggers who attacked me, is
they all have created their own blogs, websites, etc. – and taken extreme
measures to link them altogether to give them greater weight with the Google
algorithm.
Hypocrits? Cynics?
Hi. I’m Designer of Blog Magic. I’m CEO/Founder of ThemeXpose. I’m Creative Art Director, Web Designer, UI/UX Designer, Interaction Designer, Industrial Designer, Web Developer, Business Enthusiast, StartUp Enthusiast, Speaker, Writer and Photographer. Inspired to make things looks better.
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