Comments on: Chris Dorbandt and Catalyst Design: Partners in Crime

By: Mark Bennett

Mark Bennett — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 00:19:10 +0000

No. I’m not sure he’s a real person.

By: Ken

Ken — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 00:16:39 +0000

Ever hear back on this one, Mark?

By: Ross

Ross — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 05:20:06 +0000

Lawyers with a little knowledge of technology are dangerous – to themselves. I used to sell and support WordPerfect to law firms, and had a hard time getting some of them to understand why buying one copy for a firm with 30 users was bad from both an ethical and a legal perspective. Many of them could not have cared less about the violation of copyright law, as long as they saved the purchase price of the “extra” copies. I am getting the same feeling about some of the less than stellar blawgs.

By: Rafael Ledesma

Rafael Ledesma — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 01:38:35 +0000

It seems the blogs have been taken down. I think that a link to the original source is all that is needed to correct the situation with the name of author. I understood the blog to be just a compilation of articles with a few personal comments. Would be a better blog with more personal comments.

I am an attorney in Austin. I don’t work with Chris Dorbrandt, but I do know him and the lawyers in his firm. They are good people. I am sure they will attribute correctly in the future. Thank you blog police.

By: Mark Bennett

Mark Bennett — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 18:52:25 +0000

Really? There might have been a good reason that they “let the blogs post”? Other than the obvious SEO?

Fascinating.

Lots of luck with your legal career.

By: Lauren Jones

Lauren Jones — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 18:45:42 +0000

It seems to be that this lawyer actually had no idea on how to use the blog.
Question: did you try calling his office or really try finding out exactly what was going on?
The exchange of emails don’t give enough information to know why they let the blogs post. It does however show that you have a lot of time in your hands to call this busy lawyer out. How immature.. really! I would like to think that the lawyer community would try and help each other out (guess…because I’m going to be a lawyer as well).

What needs to be done is someone needs to teach that lawyer how to share these articles through facebook or something.. that way it publishes and links from the actual source.
TO GIVE you know….THE REAL PROFESSIONAL JOURNALISTS CREDIT!! !!

Blogging.. what a waste of time and SPACE!

Have a great time blogging ATTORNEY Bennett.

By: Antonin I. Pribetic

Antonin I. Pribetic — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 15:46:15 +0000

“Plagiarism reflects unfavorably on Dorbandt’s judgment, his ethics, and otherwise on his fitness to practice law.”

Mark, when you first broke this story on Twitter, I assumed this was an “outsource marketing = outsource ethics” scenario. What is astonishing is his cavalier attitude and blithe replies to your emails regarding his duplicitous plagiarism. This is not simply an oversight or failure to provide source attribution under Fair Use copyright doctrine. It is outright literary theft and the fact that it is so plainly obvious that the post is written in a news reporting style begs the question: does Dorbandt delegate his brief writing to Catalyst Designs, as well?

In response to your rhetorical query:: “How stupid does a lawyer have to be to plagiarize the courthouse reporters in his local paper?” Really.