Lawyers, like most people, want good reputations. We would like others to think and speak highly of us, to write gently about us and to give us the most stars whenever asked. Even our colleagues of questionable character, marginal competence or tarnished history want to be proud of their reputations. This is not incongruous. As Thomas Paine noted: “Reputation is what men and women think of us; character is what God and angels know of us.” Today, your reputation may depend on what the internet says first about you. And the chances are it may not be good.
Two centuries after Paine, came another American with common sense, Warren Buffet, who said, “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.” Two minor issues with that: 1) many of us have considered the downside and still did nothing differently, and 2) destroying a reputation no longer requires five minutes. Today it takes a nanosecond to put an eternally damning video or selfie or Facebook post or YouTube link or email or sound bite before millions and millions and millions of people.
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