A normal local attorney, no matter how good he or she may be, is generally not suitable for the various problems that occur on the internet. Internet Law, especially when it comes to State laws that can affect commerce and your website, is changing fast – and it makes a huge difference on who represents you.

While many attorneys try to keep up with the issues governing the internet, it is almost impossible to do so, plus run a practice unless it’s your specialization.  Here are a few key points that are highly recommended for any “Internet Lawyer” that you hire.

1. Lawyer must be admitted to the Federal bar. Almost half of all internet related cases go through the Federal Court System. Unless the attorney knows the Federal laws that affect any internet business or internet property, they will have no idea what to do. The Federal laws that govern the internet are extremely complex – and require in-depth understanding of how they are interpreted.

2. Lawyer should be admitted in California or New York, or Both. A large part of all internet business State lawsuits are in either New York or California. This is partially because of the unique consumer protection laws in those States, plus long-arm statues that allow people to sue companies outside the State even if they aren’t doing business in that State. If your “local” attorney in Nebraska or Wisconsin is not admitted in those States, you will have to fork up as much as $15,000 often to retain an attorney who can practice in those States. On top of that, since many of the major internet companies are in those States, any good Internet Lawyer will get admitted in one of those States even if they don’t live there.

3. Lawyer must have extensive REAL WORLD experience. Since its become easier and easier to get a law degree (you can get one over the internet now!) there are a plethora of attorneys who barely pass the bars. Many of them go shopping for the easiest State to be admitted, and then attempt to set up shop in those States and self-proclaim that they are an “Internet Attorneys.” Ask those attorneys what major companies they have represented, what major law firm they worked for. Where did they get their training?

4. Lawyer Must know the Federal Trade Commission. The biggest issue facing many internet businesses right now is the FTC. Even if the laws don’t change, their interpretation of the laws does change. This means you need an Internet Attorney who actually is involved with the FTC, handles FTC cases and knows the staff over there. Many FTC cases are based on a few words or recent rulings and knowing not only what is expected of a business online, but how to respond to FTC requests and compliance notices, is important for any attorney.

So what attorney should I hire? While I recommend doing some research and asking around what attorneys are best, here is a great place to start.

These are three attorneys that I know of that have created an excellent reputation as perhaps the best internet attorneys in their field. They fit the above requirements and more!

Richard Newman, Internet Attorney Specialist at Hinch Newman LLP. Richard Newman is admitted in New York, California, Nevada and DC. He has extensive experience dealing with the FTC, plus is well recognized in the interactive advertising community. He is one of the team members of the highly regarded Performance Marketing Association, plus the attorney for the Executive Council of Performance Marketers.

Bennet Kelley, of the Internet Law Center. He was previously the Assistant General Counsel for ValueClick and a well known columnist on both political and internet law issues.  He is admitted in California, and has a highly respected practice on Internet Law.  Heavy involved with issues of display advertising network and webmaster issues.

Anthony Handal, Handal & Morofsky. Anthony Handal is a highly regarded internet lawyer who specializes in intellectual property issues. He Admitted to both in New York and Connecticut,  and is also admitted to practice before the United States Parent and Trademark Office, which only a small percentage of attorneys are.

Author: Pace Lattin is a leading expert in compliance and ethics in interactive advertising and online businesses.

Strangely enough this is an extremely controversial thing to say in the day and age of the internet. Everyone is always talking about new technology, the greatest newest thing. Those things don’t matter. Relationships are always what it’s been about.

Apple is perhaps the biggest example of this. Despite having some cool products, what they have the most is relationships with their customers. That’s why when Apple wasn’t one of the biggest companies in the world, people still loved them: their core product was always that relationship with customers. Without that base, there would have never been evangelists to promote their products in the first place.

Depending on technology and more importantly, “cool phrases” to build your business is never a business success model. Technology, amazing platforms, better ways to build a mousetrap are all good, but they mean nothing if you can’t have relationships with your clients, your customers, your base.  In fact, any technology company that has not embraced relationships has eventually fallen on their faces.

When I think of huge failures, I think mainly of Pets.com. Despite all their advertising, all their branding with a drunk sock puppet, customers did not want to do business with them. The reason was simple: they had absolutely no relationship with customers, and assumed that by just having a simple URL people would flock to buy their products. Pet owners are obviously very concerned with relationships and telling them in the middle of a superbowl they need to buy on a website their products instead of their local pet store, will never work.

If you are worried about your business in this economy, I ask that the first thing you do is solidify your relationships. That means getting to know your clients, your customers, your distributors and even your staff. If you build and concentrate on those relationships moving forward, you’ll find a base of people that can assist you in not only stabilizing your business but growing it. Business relationships mean more than just sending out a CRM based email, or leaving a Facebook message. It means calling someone up, learning about their life, asking about their family and then being honest with them about your business issues.

One of the most amazing things will happen if you do that. You will find that on the other end of the internet connection are real people who actually are willing to help you with your business. Stop pitching your clients for a while, stop trying to sell a product and spend some time getting to know the people you work with.

I said this a few years ago: All these companies that have concentrated only on technology are going to die like flies attracted to a bug zapper. Those that have built real relationships with others will always survive.

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Author: Pace Lattin is an interactive advertising guy who really loves relationships. He’s been publishing in online media for over a decade and recently relaunched his publication InsideOfferVault as Performance Marketing Insider.

First of all, I want to make very clear that my son is probably one of the best behaved 18 month year-old you’ll ever see. He loved sitting at the table at Starbucks eating his breakfast “Protein Plate” while looking at everyone go by. Much of the time he’d look at passer-byes, give them a huge grin and then often wave. We sat next to a window that faced the drive-thru, so he had the opportunity to do the same with those getting their morning pick-me-up in their cars. Either way, he’s an extremely well behaved and friendly child.

While sitting there watching how people engaged him, I learned that there are probably two types of people when it comes to children. The first kinds were those who smiled back, waved and often made comments about how cute he is. Surely everyone thinks a blonde, blue-eyed kid, smiling with a mouth full of egg is adorable, no?

Unfortunately there was the second type of person: it was the customer who looked at my son, glanced away quickly and made a grimace. It was very clear that they did not feel that children belonged out in public, let alone at Starbucks. Somehow having a baby at Starbucks was only a step away from learning that the coffee was filtered using a dirty diaper. I’m not sure what’s happened to them to feel that way.

What really got me was that while the Starbucks staff was very nice to my child and myself, Starbucks as a establishment isn’t really that friendly to children. While they push the idea that you can go there, get a cup of coffee, pull out your laptop and pretend to work, they haven’t really made the place suitable for children. While most of the staff were appreciative of me bringing my son, there were those who seemed similarly perplexed why I wanted to sit down with a baby – and never offered to assist me with my handful of drinks, food, keys, diaper bag… plus my son.

For the first time it hit me that more businesses need to be kid-friendly and more importantly, invite children into their establishment. The idea that children, with all the things they do that make them children, don’t always belong in public seems absurd. In fact, minus maybe fast-food joints and “family restaurants,” very few businesses go out of their way to cater to children.

From a business perspective, inviting parents and their children makes really good sense. In fact, I’ve been told we were all children, and children do grow up to be consumers. They may remember the fond times they had at Starbucks.

From a completely different perspective, as we become more and more separated by the web, less connected to people, we need to learn from children.  Perhaps by having more around us, we’ll learn how children look at the world, in a sense of amazement and wonder – trying to connect and form bonds with anyone, anything.  There’s something amazing to learn from this about connections, humanity and being open.

Perhaps also that little smile will be a little more important than their Grande-Café-Whatever-Latte.

Author: Pace Lattin is an well-known writer, entrepreneur, marketing expert and a father.

I’ve been in the interactive marketing and advertising business for almost 15 years. During this time I’ve founded three publications, a major interactive display network, a major performance marketing and email company and have written for almost every major publication in the industry. It’s made me quite well known, provided me a constant stream of income and a even more consistent stream of detractors.  Occasionally a client comes to me and goes, “I just read on someone’s blog that you are really a spy for the Israeli Mossad, what’s up with that?” (True Story)  Most of the times they also notice while there is 5% negative comments about my work, there is thousands of websites and interviews about my ethical internet marketing goals, my organizations. For the client who wants more, I send them to my Pace Lattin reference letters section on Scribd.

This is a small collection of some of the best reference and referral letters that I’ve received in the past two years, including a letter from a Three-time Nobel Peace Prize Nominee. While I have many more thank you and reference letters from people, I felt that these were the best ones that I’ve ever received. I actually ask everyone that I do business with to give me a letter about the work I’ve done, something that I learn years ago from a FDNY Chaplain that I worked with after 9/11. He said that even in his work, that he found that there were always people who put down what he was doing – which at the time was helping firefighters recover from their biggest loss.  He asked everyone he knew to send him a letter about his work and kept it in a huge folder to show anyone who wanted to know what he did.  Now we have Scribd and other document functions which work much better.

The key in presenting reference letters is simple. Keep all that you get, but only highlight the best ones. When I ask for reference letters, one key thing I always tell people to do, is speak from the heart about what they know about me. It creates more personal letters that let those who read it, know who I am. Since I am a very vocal writer, often people only see that side of me.  According to my friend Tim Ferris, 10% of the people out there will always take things personally. The internet has created the ability for those crazy 10% (who voted also for Ross Perot) to speak out on whatever they want, from their belief that Aliens were involved in 9/11 to that Pace Lattin is really a Zionist Spy.  Letters of recommendation should be from those who met you, know you and appreciate the work that you are doing. It’s the easiest way to address these nutcases without actually addressing them.

Lastly, remember to thank those that give you letters of recommendation. They are putting their reputation, their business name along with yours. They have allied themselves with you publicly and said, “This guy is good, I want you to do business with them.” This means that you need to put those people at the top of the line when it comes to doing favors and remember to take care of them. They’ve done something nice for you, you need to show them that it was warranted. Because it’s human nature, they will always remember that they did this for you, and will actually draw them closer to your cause and business. Similarly, they will expect that in the future you will be the person they spoke kindly about.

The fight that the Mainstream Alliance claims to be fighting is against a perceived unfairness given to retailers that do business over the Internet. Their claim is that while local businesses pay local taxes, that businesses online don’t have to pay tax, causing unfair competition.  Unfortunately for the Mainstream Alliance, no matter how much they believe this is unfair, the Supreme Court already ruled in Quill Corporation v. North Dakota, that States cannot collect taxes from businesses that don’t have a presence in their state. In order to get around this ruling, States are passing “affiliate nexus taxes” that claim that “marketing affiliates” somehow are employees and agents of online retailers, and thus should taxed as having a presence in those States.

While the argument seems to make sense from the outside, that perhaps small businesses are being effected, there is a real problem with the entire campaign. As mentioned, heading this campaign, paying for most of the bills is Wal-mart.  No one in their right mind believes that Walle-World has any interest in protecting small business. We all know that their corporate strategy is to put a Wal-mart Superstore in every single community, replacing all the local stores. So really, what is happening?

It’s simple: the campaign has nothing whatsoever to do with small businesses versus big business. In order to push this idea, Wal-Mart and their comrades have dubbed these taxes as “Amazon taxes” somehow claiming that it is targeted to Amazon. However, as anyone in the marketing industry knows, a large part of the internet marketing done on every single platform actually comes from small businesses. More and more “local businesses” on “main street” are creating an internet presence. Tons of businesses exist on EBAY, promoted on AMAZON and through hundreds of affiliate programs.

The real truth is that Wal-Mart knows this. They employee hundreds of people who spend their entire time analyzing threats to their dominance of the marketplace. However, despite this they are already facing more and more consumers going not only to Amazon, but to other small businesses online. Their goal of taking over shopping experiences in your community is at risk when you can do comparison shopping online, find a small business in another State and buy that product from that business. Wal-Mart is actually facing finally stiff competition from small businesses online, not just Amazon. In fact, if you didn’t know it, Amazon is one of the top sources for small businesses to actually sell their products directly to consumers.

The worse part of this entire “affiliate tax” business is that behind the scenes, every State that has had legislators pass an affiliate tax, has received enormous benefits given to them from Wal-Mart. As soon as the legislators in those states showed Wal-Mart that they were on their side, Wal-Mart agreed to build new stores in those districts. The result was more small businesses in those areas being closed in order to make room for Wal-Mart. This has to be the saddest part about this entire issue. There are some small businesses that think that fighting the internet will help them, but they are actually promoting an agenda that will put them out of business faster.

Author: Pace Lattin is a leading interactive advertising expert and marketer. He has founded some of the top publications in the internet including ADOTAS, plus has been behind several affiliate marketing and display advertising networks. Pace Lattin currently writes for several publications including ClickZ and Technorati, and his own publication, Inside the Offervault.