Legal blogging group highlights for August 20 – August 26, 2010

The Legal Blogging Group at LinkedIn is now 4,385 members strong. Here are the highlights from a very active week.

The discussion New ideas for a blog post? garnered many comments. Members’ advice (in a nutshell) is to write about what you love, look at other blogs for inspirations, follow Google alerts of your favorite subjects, write about topics relevant to current events, consider clients’ questions/comments (but in a generic way), and blog about other blogs. In perhaps the most eloquent prose ever devoted to the topic, a member writes,

What if you are a songwriter and can’t think of a tune, or a writer of fiction and can’t think of a story? Or a sculptor sitting in front of a block of granite and don’t know what to mold? The songwriter listens to other music, the writer reads works of others, the sculptor studies other’s works, all seeking inspiration. So, too should a successful blog writer, when hit with the inevitable writer’s block, a common artisitic malady, read substantive blogs written by others and draw inspiration or even take a thread drawn from another blog, giving proper attribution and, indeed, a direct link, and move on from there.

Daniel Schwartz shares Thomas Clifford’s "How to let your articles breathe." Schwartz says the post has helped him "get ideas for blog posts and write simply," and other members certainly agree, judging from their comments.

If you’re new to blogging and are discouraged by negative comments, An Associates’ Mind’s post on the issue is worth a read. Essentially, negativity is really nothing to worry about– welcome to the internet. [Warning: post does contain strong language.]

With legal issues in blogging on many people’s minds with week because of, among other things, a blogger facing serious prison time by stating that a judge should be killed, Adrianos Facchetti shares his post 5 Ways To Avoid Being Sued On Your Blog.

Finally, Total Attorneys is hosting a free webinar, Real Networking In A Virtual World, tomorrow at 11 am CDT; The webinar is hosted by Nancy Myrland and Pam Gracyalny. I listened to this morning’s version and found it educational and informative for people of all levels of social media experience.

Want to share your thoughts? Join the conversation at LinkedIn.