Daniel Jaffe of DUI Law Blog: LexBlog Q & A

Arizona DUI attorney Daniel Jaffe first tiptoed into blogging back in 2003, creating a blog page at DUI Attorney that was not much more than a basic website. But it was a start, and over the last few years he’s become an active blogger on DUI news and issues.

Dan admits that in the beginning, like a lot of new bloggers, he had a tendency toward "spewing information out there into cyberspace." But his blogging has evolved to become a voice within the larger DUI conversation.

"To me, blogging is like participating in a group discussion," he says. "On my blog I lead the discussion, but without involving others and acknowledging them there is no discussion… just me talking about stuff that few people would want to read."

Dan launched the DUI Law Blog in November of 2008 to provide commentary on DUI issues around the country. The newer site is more geared toward other attorneys, while the DUI Attorney Blog has more of a client focus. We caught up with Dan via email to ask him how his two sites interact and what he sees in a blogosphere that’s getting more popular every day.

See our e-mail exchange with Dan (after the jump).

Lisa Kennelly: Why did you decide to start a blog?

Dan Jaffe: Around 2003 I noticed the emergence of blogs and I had to try. My first blog was built into DUI Attorney which was, at that point, just an Arizona DUI website. It lacked the bells and whistles of a modern blog, but was dynamic and had a basic RSS feed.

Lisa Kennelly: What did you expect out of blogging going in, and what have you learned about it so far?

Dan Jaffe: When I started blogging I had no expectation as the platform was still in its infancy. Over the years of doing it I have realized that blogging is not about just spewing information out there into cyberspace. I did plenty of that early on. To me, blogging is like participating in a group discussion. On my blog I lead the discussion, but without involving others and acknowledging them there is no discussion… just me talking about stuff that few people would want to read. I mostly blog about DUI law. It’s what I know best, and I try to involve other DUI lawyers who are also interested and insightful participants, as well as experts in other areas of drunk driving, such as expert witnesses.

Lisa Kennelly: How do you see your blog as relating to or working with your practice of DUI law?

Dan Jaffe: Blogging is critical to the effective and competent practice of law. Between DUI lawyers it is a great tool to alert each other about new cases and strategies. For our clients and the public who read our posts, it helps educate them about the myths and realities of drunk driving law and what it is really like to defend people accused of one of the most unpopular and common crimes.

Lisa Kennelly: How does this blog relate to or work with your website, DUI Attorney, and your DUI Attorney blog? Do you plan on streamlining them?

Dan Jaffe: DUI Attorney is a nationwide source for information about DUI law and DUI lawyers. It is written with the help of our local attorneys. Each attorney has a voice (and a blogging account) where they can start discussions and post news, new cases and local developments. It is written with the public in mind. The DUI Law Blog is written with attorneys in mind, and aims to provide timely updates on the latest DUI decisions from around the country. At times, we may do a complex analysis of a newly issued DWI decision on DUI Law Blog and also a more mainstream, what-this-decision-means-to-you type post on DUI Attorney.

Lisa Kennelly: What has the response been to your blog from clients, other lawyers, or anyone else?

Dan Jaffe: I have been fortunate to have had an excellent response to my blogs throughout the years. Four years ago few lawyers had blogs. Now, everybody understands that they should have a blog, which is good. The problem is that most don’t know what they are doing, and don’t have time to do much more than a post a week, or less. The net effect is that the internet is getting very cluttered with junk blogs and stale blogs. I bring this up in response to your question because it is difficult to judge responses these days as the backdrop of blogging is changing so rapidly. The metrics by which I gauge response are constantly changing.

I used to believe you could judge a blog post by the comments it generates. However, that metric is fading as well. One thing I have noticed recently is a lot of attempted comment spam. Some of my local competitors have hired so-called Search Engine Optimization (SEO) experts. These people who are often times hired based on cold calls or solicitation emails don’t know what they are doing or don’t care. They go to established lawyer blogs and try to post links back to the websites they seek to promote. This "black hat" tactic worked well until about mid 2004. What these "SEO" people apparently don’t realize is that most modern blogs have spam filters and/or automatically ad "no-follow" tags to outbound links, effectively nullifying any potential SEO value for the major search engines. But when a good portion of comments come from competitor’s trying to spam the site, I’m not sure whether to take this as a failure or a compliment. One way or another, a site that gets this sort of attention is obviously attracting attention from lawyers or their agents.

You also can’t judge the response to, or success of, a blog based purely on numbers. You have to look at where the visits come from, how long they stay on the site, and how deep into the site they go. At present, the visitors to DUI Attorney look at an average of 7 pages and stay over 3 minutes, which is pretty good. Another consideration is location of visitors, which is easily tracked. If you look at some so-called popular local attorney blogs and websites and analyze their traffic, you will see that a high percentage of the visitors come from India, Russia and other areas of the world where visitors are highly unlikely to need a local U.S. lawyer. I call these junk visitors. They also generate a lot of attempted comment spam.

The web is still the Wild West and there are new innovations every day. The trick is to figure out which new site or feature is worth jumping on, and which is of little value or redundant. To me, blogging remains the single best tool available for lawyers to get their message out and establish themselves an recognized experts. LexBlog understands this, and their example and inspiration, in my opinion, is making a strong impact on the quality of lawyer blogs. I have fully embraced blogging in my practice and encourage other lawyers who don’t want to be left behind to do the same.