Wachtell Lipton may be saying one thing about its advertising and marketing while doing the opposite.

Dave Hoffman at Concurring Opinions today did a search of law firms that edit their Wikipedia pages in order to burnish their image. Wachtell, despite a prior disavowal of any marketing or advertising activities, apparently made 168 Wikipedia edits that included their own page as well as those of Cravath and Kramer Levin, according to Hoffman.

It is the law firm related edits that bring up the issue of duplicity. Because Wachtell already told the New York Times earlier this year that it didn’t engage in marekting or advertising. From a story on March 2nd on New York’s new attorney advertising rules:

Another big law firm, Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz — did nothing immediately after the new advertising rules went into effect on Feb. 1. After the firm was contacted by a reporter, it put up a disclaimer.

“I did that in an overabundance of caution,” said Meyer G. Koplow, Wachtell’s executive partner. “Somebody was obviously asking questions.”

Mr. Koplow said that the firm views its site only as a tool in recruiting law students.

“You’re not going to see highlights of our flashy cases,” he said. “This is a law firm that has no marketing department, no marketing director and does not engage in advertising activities.”

If they are not going to show “highlights of their flashy cases” then why was I so quickly able to find this edit (I stopped looking after finding one, there may well be others) touting the firm from edit #72441900 (addition in red):

The firm is also known for its skill in business litigation. It has handled many of the precedent-setting Delaware corporate governance cases.

It seems to me that if the firm wasn’t interested in touting their “flashy cases” they would have let others do the writing.

No marketing or advertising? Leaving aside the existence of a web site, doesn’t editing your profile on Wikipedia to improve your image qualify as marketing? It seems like a reasonable question to ask since such conduct would be the type of thing one might expect from a marketing department.

I think it’s safe to say this has nothing to do with New York personal injury law….

(Photo credit: Niece Julie)

I wasn’t going to blog anything this week from vacation, but my nephew Max but this together with me and one of my kids, so it gives me a chance to experiment with video. Sort of.

That violent thunderstorm that knocked New York’s subways and trains out yesterday was confirmed as a tornado that touched down in Brooklyn and Staten Island. This is the first such tornado in Brooklyn since records started being kept this century, giving the Coney Island Cyclone some new bragging rights. Prior to official record keeping, one was reported in Brooklyn the late 1800s.

Amazingly, no one was killed.

Right in Bay Ridge – Tracks the twister
New York Daily News: Brooklyn Becomes Tornado Alley
Newsday: A Brooklyn Tornado Is A Rarity
New York Times: Chronicling a Day of Chaos

Brooklyn Law School Professor Aaron Twerski will be honored by the American Bar Association on Sunday with the 2007 Robert B. McKay Law Professor Award.

According to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle (via TortsProf) the award “recognizes law professors who are committed to the advancement of justice, scholarship and the legal profession in the fields of tort and insurance law.” Prior recipients of the award included Judge Richard A. Posner, and the late Charles Alan Wright.

According to the article:

“Twerski, an authority in the areas of product liability and tort law, has contributed to the fields through his service as both a scholar and a teacher. He has published dozens of law review articles as well as books on torts and product liability law. He was named the R. Ammi Cutter Reporter for his outstanding work as co-reporter for the American Law Institute’s Restatement of the Law (Third) Torts: Products Liability, published in 1998. His most recent articles were published in the Yale Law Journal, Cornell Law Review and the Georgetown Law Journal. He is co-author of the leading textbook, Products Liability: Problems and Process as well as Torts, Cases and Materials, with Cornell Law School professor James A. Henderson Jr.”

But he doesn’t blog.