Fake Law Firm Web Site Mirrors Reality

Legal Technology

Posted Aug 23, 2007, 02:50 pm CST
By Martha Neil

A fake law firm Web site created to promote a new television legal drama at least arguably is uncomfortably close to some real-life versions.

Streaming video makes the "Hewes & Associates" site difficult to navigate. The 15-year-old fictional Manhattan firm promotes itself in over-the-top (albeit satirical) terms as "one of the country's most highly respected—and feared—law firms," proclaiming its "unparalleled skill" in handling "some of the highest-profile class action suits in recent U.S. history"—while at the same time maintaining a "substantial" pro bono case load. The realism is further enhanced by an anonymous law blog maintained by a disgruntled "senior associate," as the Wall Street Journal Law Blog notes.

The new FX show the Hewes & Associates site promotes, Damages, starring Glenn Close as a lead litigator, has divided journalists at the WSJ Law Blog, Ashby Jones writes. "Some of us find it ridiculously compelling. Others of us find it, well, just ridiculous."

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