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Uncovered law blog niches represent opportunities for lawyers

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Joseph Lichterman (@ylichterman) shares word of a Pew Research Journalism Project study released last week on the decline of reporters covering statehouses across our country.

The result is situations, as in Georgia, where there aren’t enough reporters to get the word out to citizens of recently passed legislation ranging from restrictions on guns in churches, bars, and schools to one that would require some food-stamp recipients to take drug tests.

Emma Durand-Wood (@emmaewood) reported last week that despite there now being over 440 Canadian law blogs, there are no blogs covering education law, election law, animal law, admiralty/marine law, or church/religion law.

Even with the advent of blogs, non-profit organizations, and student reporters, there hasn’t been enough to fill the void as to state house coverage, per Amy Mitchell (@asmitch), Pew’s director of journalism research.

Despite the positive impact of having reporting reach more people through alternative methods, there still is a need for more individuals actually reporting the news.

It also carries with it the potential downside of fewer perspectives — less really localized perspective — when it’s coming to looking at what’s happening and how this impacts my area of the state, and fewer bodies just watching what’s happening and raising their hands to ask questions day-in-and-day-out of what the legislative leaders are doing at the state level.

I’m not telliing you as a lawyer to run out and cover the state house, though that’s not altogether bad idea if you are building a practice centered in a state capitol in a niche area of the law.

I am suggesting that you look around and see what is not being covered by law blogs. Look at subjects. Look at other states or metro areas which has niche blog coverage which is lacking in your state or metro. Opportunity awaits you.

Over 50 years ago a businessman rode the train from New York to Chicago. He carried with him the yellow pages for each New York City and Chicago.

He looked for businesses which Chicago did not yet have which New York City did. He started a few of them and became a multi-millionaire and philanthropist.

Mind you that you need to have passion for the area you’re going to be blogging on. If you’ve not identified your passion in the law, look around to see what may spark you.

Chasing an uncovered niche in the law is not only valuable for you in developing business, but like uncovered state houses, it’s valuable for society.

With the decline in newspapers and traditional media, we’re not getting the coverage on a myriad of niches that we have in the past. We’ve also come to expect that when we turn to the Internet we’ll find high quality information on any subject in the world. You can fill the voids for us.

Look for the gaps, they’re there — and so is a good law blog.

Image courtesy of Flickr by NapInterrupted

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