“Where’s the outrage” wrote legal tech leader Ryan McLead, on the widely read, 3 Geeks and a Law Blog, referring to Covington & Burling LLP and Perkins Coie LLP being being attacked by the current administration.
Seeing little commentary from the legal community, McLead, CEO of Sente Advisors, shared:
I completely understand not wanting “politics” or “partisanship” to invade our little LegalTech enclave…
But what value our Legal Technology Innovation initiatives, if there is no rule of law?
What value our Law Firms, if there is no rule of law?
McLead acknowledged that he saw a few people speak up.
The irony was that unlike McLead speaking up on an independent legal blog publication, the others he saw were writing on social publishing platforms owned and controlled by third parties, in some cases sympathetic to and supportive of the administration.
I saw people in legal speaking up on Meta’s Facebook platform. I laud them for speaking up, but Facebook’s algorithms are controlled by someone who would sink posts to the bottom of the ocean on a call from the White House.
LinkedIn’s platform, though owned by a company more neutral than Meta gave millions of dollars to Trump’s two campaigns, and which cannot afford to be on wrong side as far as the White House is concerned.
Over two hundred years ago, journalists in colonial America published to take on the British, particularly in the years leading up to and during the American Revolution. Their writings were instrumental in shaping public opinion against British rule and rallying support for independence.
These so called “infamous scribblers,” such as Paine and Franklin, wrote on their own independent publications. Imagine if they wrote for or on newspapers controlled by the British or people sympathetic to the British.
I am not saying speaking up on LinkedIn, Facebook and elsewhere—including the ABA’s strong position against the White House’s attack of law firms, is not valuable. It is.
The better choice, though, is to be standing up on an independent publication, one that you control.