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Law Technology

: Social Media Law Student

Blogger Award Scam Aimed at Top Law Bloggers

By Rex Gradeless

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Why anyone would try to scam some of the world’s most tech savvy legal professionals is beyond me. Unfortunately, someone tried. And they got caught.

Basically, a group of people running NewLawyer.com, Attorney.org, and Laws.com tried to pawn off an award to some of the top legal bloggers in the country. This award promised these law bloggers that they were chosen among a select group of bloggers and would be featured on their site just for adding a special code and icon to their blog. 1stplace

Now, and contrary to what I imagine their goals were, all of the top legal blogs in the country are telling their readers about this scam – the law blog award that never was.

Here’s some great posts on this subject:

NewLawyer.com, Attorney.org and Laws.com one and the same animal – Kevin O’Keefe

A ‘Top 100′ Honor I Can Do Without – Bob Ambrogi

More Spam from Phone to Phone Inc.–This Time on Behalf of Laws.com – Eric Goldman

SocialMediaLawStudent.com was apparently scam-worthy as well. We received a solicitation of our “award” with the following email:

socialmedialawstudents@gmail.com

to socialmedialaw.

a form has been submitted on October 21, 2009, via: http://socialmedialawstudent.com/contact/ [IP 69.127.12.5]

Contact-Form

Contact

Your Name Patrick

Email lawsinfo.in@gmail.com

Website www.laws.com

Message Our website Laws.com is considered one of the largest legal informational database in the world, containing crucial information on jurisdictions and breaking legal news. We have offered this site to the public to increase the FREE flow of information. There is little to be said for the many judicial systems around the country and we strive to offer the information much of the public seeks. The only way to increase the information we offer is to seek out some of the top informational resources online. Your blog seems to be an excellent informational resource and would bring a great resource to our viewing public. We would be pleased to offer your inclusion in Laws.com as a featured blogger, as well as giving you the Laws.com Featured Blogger Badge. This is a prestigious award given to some of the brightest bloggers around the country to recognize their dedication and hard work.

powered by cformsII

This did not pass the smell test (thanks for your ip address “Patrick”). I had never heard of Laws.com being “one of the largest legal informational databases in the world” nor had I heard of Laws.com at all. Upon further investigation, their site looked fishy and lacked substance. So I responded with the following email 4 days later:

Social Media Law Student

ok? so where’s your ask? Not sure what to do. Is a featured blogger the “featured links section at the bottom?

to lawsinfo.in Oct 25

Then I received the following nonsensical response:

lawsinfo.in

to Social Oct 27

Thank for the quick response. All you would have to do is copy and paste the code below to your website.

<A title=”Laws” href=”%20Http://www.laws.com” target=”_blank”><IMG SRC=”i1016.photobucket.com=”" albums=”" af287=”" newdoctorstuff=”" laws.jpg=”" href=”http://i1016.photobucket.com/albums/af287/NewDoctorStuff/laws.jpg” style=”color: rgb(42, 93, 176);” target=”_blank”>http://i1016.photobucket.com/albums/af287/NewDoctorStuff/laws.jpg” ALT=” Laws” WIDTH=”110″ HEIGHT=”40″ HSPACE=”2″ BORDER=”0″></a><br>Featured Resource</a>

This is an award banner due to your great reputation which was compiled through a number of polls we ran.

Thank You,

Mary Miller

This was a strange in that “Mary Miller” responded without introducing herself, what happened to Patrick? After receiving this response, there was no question that this was some type of scam. I never responded and never added their badge. I hope they didn’t spend any money on those polls!

Anyone else scammed by these people?

Take Away: 1) If it doesn’t pass the smell test it’s probably not the real deal and 2) trying to scam tech savvy legal professionals will most likely fail.

Update: Some people were a little sad that they were not included in this scam. In order to assuage this painful experience we’ve “created” a Medal of Awesomeness that you can add to your very own blog!!

(click for larger view!)

By adding this simple code below, you too can have a Medal of Awesomeness badge:

<a href=”http://socialmedialawstudent.com/”><img style=”border: 1px solid gray;” src=”http://socialmedialawstudent.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/awesomness.jpg” alt=”I Am Awesome Too”/></a>

Enjoy being awesome! For best results display prominently on your blog. Ideal positioning includes: next to, or in place of, the blog’s title or main logo.