What can we learn from lawyers who stop publishing to their blog?

The Wisconsin Law Journal ran a story last week about infrequent posts on some lawyer’s blogs.

The Journal’s reporter, Jack Zemlicka, called me and asked me to comment on why some lawyers, after starting a blog, may not continue to post to their blog on a regular basis. I explained that lawyers often blog for business development, but when they don’t how to blog well they fall short of their goal and publish infrequently.

It’s not complicated. Lawyers who don’t know how to network through the net for professional and business development – through blogging or any other medium – have less success in doing so. And when you don’t get regular positive feedback from blogging and you don’t realize a return in investment of your time, you stop trying.

Look at the blogging experience of the Wisconsin lawyers whom Zemlicka spoke with. I am not certain these lawyers knew how to network through the Internet via a blog.

Milwaukee area Attorney Robert Teuber, an early publisher of a tax law blog with podcasts, told Zemlicka that his blog lead to a bump in business. However, Teuber stopped publishing posts as often to his personal blog and started publishing to a blog that’s buried in the website of his law firm, Weiss Berzowski Brady (something that’s destined to achieve less than blog outside a website). The firm’s blog is a multi-practice area blog that gets “updated sporadically throughout the year.” Multi-practice area blogs also pose their own set of challenges.

Madison Attorney Nathan Dosch, publisher of an infrequently updated estate and tax blog, drew Zemlicka’s next call, though Dosch, out of fear he’d embarrass himself, scrambled to get a post up before Zemlicka’s article came out.

I’m sure Dosch is a good guy, but as I explained to Zemlicka when I spoke with him, it’s apparent looking at Dosch’s Estate and Tax Blog that there was little strategy that went into identifying Dosch’s target audience of clients, prospective clients, referral sources, and the influencers of those three. Dosch is now ‘spinning off’ this blog to start another blog on ‘digital estate planning.’

There’s nothing on the face of Dosch’s blog to indicate he understands how to engage his target audience through the Internet for either professional or development success. Starting a second blog in an attempt to get a greater audience (something not necessary to achieve success) is a sketchy idea. It seems like a lot of effort without significant return, not the type of experience that inspires a lawyer to blog regularly.

Criminal defense attorney William Reddin’s blog was the next Wisconsin blog Zemlicka found not to be updated often after some postings in ’08, taking a year off in ’09, and then a few postings this year.

Reddin looks to be a pretty good lawyer, but again looking at his blog (little engagement of target audience, not optimized for search, etc.) makes me wonder what Reddin has done to learn what it means to network through the Internet and what’s required to develop the strategy that’s required for success. Reddin even admits that “…[P]erhaps I haven’t given [the blog] a fair shake.”

It comes as no surprise that Reddin has stopped posting to his blog because the returns in business development and networking with colleagues (his original goals) did not merit the time it took to blog. My guess is that Reddin didn’t appreciate that the most important part of blogging is listening to your target audience. And only then, engaging them.

Reddin has yet to realize that blogging in an engaging fashion with a clear strategy nurtures existing relationships and builds new ones — relationships that lead to business and professional development success — and that blogging in this fashion takes less time. Most lawyers having the blogging experience Reddin has had would stop as well.

There are other reasons a lawyer may not publish often to their blog. As I told Zemlicka, some lawyers even stop because their blog works too well. Like the lawyer whose blog was recognized by the Wall Street Journal and generated so much work he stopped blogging because his partners wouldn’t recognize the blog for purpose of time allocation (ie, wouldn’t give credit for blogging time) and compensation.

Or the personal injury lawyer I talked with last week whose blog generated so many good cases that he was struggling funding the out of pocket expenses he needed to finance the cases through settlement or resolution in the courts. He was talking of merging into another firm or bringing on co-counsel to solve his problems. Understandably, he hadn’t posted to his blog since last year – though the blog still generates good cases.

As I explained to Zemlicka, if a Wisconsin lawyer buys a car and can only figure out how to drive laps around Milwaukee’s Mayfair Mall, let’s not talk to that lawyer when working on a story about the effectiveness of a lawyer’s use of a car to get to court hearings 80 miles to the Northwest in Madison. The lawyer driving around the parking lot will tell you that, at best, they’ve had mixed success getting to Madison with their car. They’re sticking with Badger Bus Line.

I’m not saying Reddin, Teuber, or Dosch are bad guys or that they have not a ‘blogging clue.’ Heck, they’re from Wisconsin, where the good stuff comes from. I’ve had a couple beers with Teuber when presenting at a Wisconsin Bar Conference, he’s a good guy. Plus, Dosch and Teuber make clear they’re going to continue blogging. Teuber thinks a blog “…is still probably the best of the Internet tools to try and develop.”

But don’t seek out lawyers who post infrequently to their blogs and draw conclusions as to why they are not publishing. It may not be the time demands or that other forms of social media are newer and sexier. You may have to dig a little deeper.