Sometimes I forget that legal blogs occupy only a very small corner of the greater blogverse. There's some entertaining stuff going on out there, like this "Hot Abercrombie Chick for President" thing.

Long story short: There's considerable debate over whether a decent looking female's blog is real or a hoax. There's a compelling case against the gal's veracity (amassed in part by our own Justin), which essentially boils down to this: hot chick has too much presence in the blogdex to be who/what she claims.

This seemingly trivial amusment does raise a couple of legal and ethical issues: 1) Is it ethical to blog under a false identity? 2) If HAC is in fact a hoax, is it legal to try to get a non-existent person elected President?

In terms of the first issue: Within legal blogging, I believe the standards are somewhat different than the general blogging population. A lawyer who blogs under a hidden identity is probably ok as long as the legal information s/he dispenses is honest and not misleading. If the lawyer's blog is not legal in nature, s/he has a lot more latitude to joke around, but s/he should still be mindful of ethical canons that guide a lawyer on and off the clock. Also, there are varying levels of hiding one's blog identity -- one's actual initials (e.g., TPB), a nom de plume (e.g., Samuel L. Clemons as Mark Twain), a false identity (e.g., some guys claiming to be a hot chick).

Regarding issue 2, I defer to the wisdom of editor David who says
"You have to define "try to get." There are many steps to a political candidacy. Trying to raise money for a nonexistant candidate or setting up a company to raise political funds for a nonexistant candidate: definitely illegal (and most likely a felony). Getting a name on a ballot that may not, in fact, represent a single legal entity: legal in many states. Building a website for an imaginary candidate: totally legal (1st Amendment defenses, parody, etc.)

So no, you can't get them put in jail, unless they are actively raising money and claiming it is for a political campaign and there is no indication (reasonable person standard, I would guess) that the site is parody."