Real Lawyers Have Blogs : Law Blogs, Blawgs, Law Firm Marketing

Brad Smith, General Counsel for Microsoft, writing for InsideCounsel Magazine, shares some insight into the opportunities blogs and social media offer corporate heads.

New Internet and communications technologies continue to change our daily lives. It’s possible today to switch easily between e-mail, text messaging, instant messaging, blogging and social networking sites.

Teenagers simply use all of these at the same time! But for those who are a bit older, the impact of new technologies is profound. For in-house counsel, it is becoming increasingly important to think about both the challenges and opportunities these changes create.

When it comes to employees blogging (Microsoft has 1,500) Smith advises providing guidance on how to blog legally with a focus on existing company policy.

The goal [for Microsoft] was not to devise entirely new policies for blogging, but to help employees apply existing standards on confidentiality and business conduct in this new online environment. It was important to provide this advice in a form that employee bloggers would find natural and useful—namely, a list of frequently asked questions and best practices posted on an internal ‘blog for bloggers.’

Beyond employee blogs Smith offers other potential uses for corporate blogs:

• Medium for sharing information with employees.
• Make broad communication with employees a two-way street.
• Legal statements from companies not in the form of a traditional press release, but as less formal blog postings.

As to whether the corporate legal department should have a blog and what it should offer, Smith says 'A decade from now these questions may well seem like old hat.'

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I asked Rupert over cocktails last week if he could do something to endorse the concept of 'Real Lawyers Have Blogs.'

This from Dan Slater at the WSJ Law Blog looks pretty close. Too bad they cut my head off.

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Nice article in yesterday's Boston Business Journal by Lisa van der Pool. Lisa was reporting on my presentation at the New England Legal Marketing Association's event, "How to Work a Room in the Digital Age: Social Networking for Law Firms."

Lisa's takeaways from my presentation:

• Blogs are good idea for lawyers. Especially if they want to package their legal musings in a zippy, readable way, shine up their firm's reputation and attract reporters looking for expert sources.
• While not every individual lawyer has a flair for the conversational writing style that is the mainstay of a popular blog, "every type of practice area and every firm could benefit from blogging."
• Lawyers should become familiar with social networking sites LinkedIn, Legal On Ramp, YouTube and Facebook.
• There are 2,000 law blogs today, and every day, four new law blogs are created.
• 75 percent of reporters scan blogs to find experts for articles -- which in turn could mean pretty valuable exposure to a lawyer and a firm.
• Law firms are part of the media today. If you don't put information out there where it can be seen by influencers, then you're really missing something.

Thanks for the report Lisa, especially the plug that LexBlog '...[Coaches lawyers on how best to present their blogs in terms of design, marketing and writing style -- so that they enhances their firms' reputations rather than damage them." She added "We're not going to let [law firms] embarrass themselves."

Thanks to the New England Chapter of the Legal Marketing Association and its President, Jeff Scalzi, Director of Marketing at Foley Hoag. First class event attended by what I understand was record crowd of over 80 legal marketing professionals.

Click here for a copy of my PowerPoint presentation . The PowerPoint may not mean too much as the presentation drifted to subjects of keen interest to the audience.

Looks like I am doing encore presentations for Legal Marketing Chapters in Cleveland, Portland, and Seattle. If you need a speaker to cover a fun and what appears to be an in demand topic, give me a call. I'm cheap. ;)

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Sitting here blogging in a coffee shop on Bainbridge Island this afternoon when emails start pouring in saying folks have started following me on Twitter. That screenshot on the left shows you how fast. Some of the followers I know, most I don't. They're from all over the world.

I'm thinking someone wrote a script that's causing 'spam followers,' if you will. I'm getting ready to set up a filter in my mail app to send all emails saying someone was following me on Twitter into spam. I was just thinking the last week that Twitter is a cool tool that I'm figuring out how to use. Then this.

So I 'tweet' that 'I am getting hit by 'spam followers,' has anyone had that happen to them?" Saad Kamai replied that 'Somebody recommended you in Twitter, so i guess its natural to get a couple of new 'followers.'

Couple new followers? More than that. And who has that type of draw? That type of influence to recommend an unknown (I am one) and get folks to start following what you are saying?

Then the answer from Phil Ferris in West Cornwall, UK: "Scoble recommended you a few minutes ago in a Tweet. I call it the Scoble Effect."

Quick look back in Twirl, my Twitter application, and sure enough.

Scobleizer: I love reading @kevinokeefe who today linked to a thing about lawbloggers doing journalism. He's a lawyer and a blogger and smart too.

Robert apparently picked up via a tweet of mine that I had posted about lawyers and investigative journalism.

Wow Robert. I'm honored. Seriously. But you'll need to give folks a warning of what's coming - when you're ready to Scobleize them.

Like Jerry Yang when he called Jeff Bezos 12 years ago and said Yahoo was going to name Amazon the 'site of the day.' Bezos thought sure and couldn't figure out why Wang was asking. But Yang wanted to warn him of what's to come. Bezos had bells on each employees computers (a few only) that rang with each book purchase. Guess the next day when Yahoo did the site of the day the bells rang all day.

Good thing I have the bell notifying me of new emails on mail app turned off. Otherwise the folks in this sleepy little coffee shop would, like me, wonder what the heck's going on.

Let there be no question as to the influence one person can have on others through blogging and social networking.

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Blogger and podcaster liability was the subject of this WEEK in LAW with Denise Howell. It was a pleasure to be a guest with Karl Susman, who offers blog insurance from his agency, Debbie Weil, a corporate blogging and social media expert, and Victor Cajiao, a podcasting veteran.

May be worth a listen as we covered a range of issues including defamation, insurance coverage for bloggers, anonymity, corporate blogging, and blogging policies.

You may download a MP3 file which has been edited down to 21 minutes.

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Trip to Boston is going great. A free day before flying back to Seattle this evening. Anyone wanting to get together for a cup of coffee, just holler. Email or cell (206 321 3627).

Presented at Legal Marketing Association yesterday. Large crowd of about 80 folks. Reviewed state of blogs and large law and the social networking tools law firms may want to use - and which ones that don't require their attention.

Followed with more informal briefing and discussion on similar topics with large law firm I hope to be working with. They've got excellent group of marketing people working with lawyers driven to use blogs and other social networking.

Out for a run along on the Charles earlier and now up towards financial district or Cambridge to hopefully meet with some folks.

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Last night's Beer for Law Bloggers event was a success, with 20-25 members of the Massachusetts legal community gathering for drinks and conversation at Emmet's Pub here in Boston.

From folks who author law blogs of their own to those just interested in what lawyers are doing in the blogosphere, it was a good group that turned out to celebrate with a pint of Guinness.

Thanks to everyone who turned showed up to introduce themselves offline, and to Amy Campbell for the photo.

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Today's guest for the LexBlog Q & A is Anita Campbell, an Ohio-based lawyer with a wealth of knowledge on technology issues currently serving as CEO/editor-in-chief of Small Business Trends.

Her blog, which launched in 2003 and has been going strong ever since, recently added more authors and has been further expanding its coverage of small business-focused issues. In our interview we chatted about how blogs can be used productively by lawyers (and any entrepreneur looking to expand their reach, regardless of the industry) as a community building tool. The specifics are after the jump.

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As Bob Ambrogi posted earlier, we're having a law bloggers meetup this Wednesday the 16th in Boston.

Emmet's Pub at 6 is the plan. Emmets is located at 6 Beacon Street. Bob says to email him to confirm details (his last at gmail.com).

In that I'm coming all the way from Seattle, Bob said the least Bostonians could do was buy me a beer. But in the LexBlog tradition started last month in Chicago, beer for bloggers is on us. Don't any tell Weston, LexBlog's CFO.

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