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

Following up on my last posts (here and here) questioning the value of law firm video, I'm concerned we may have let the crazies out when it comes to law firm video. Or maybe it's just legal vendors preying on law firm marketing lemmings who love being 'on the cutting edge with Web 2.0.'

Whatever, here's a report into Above the Law from last week.

'Howrey is doing a film shoot in the lobby of its DC office... Multiracial attorneys in suits everywhere... Looks serious.'.....'A few minutes ago, I walked through my building's lobby to go out and get lunch. On the way, I was surprised to find the lobby lit up like a movie set. A few dozen young folks in suits -- many of them holding cell phones -- stood in a big group, listening to some guy shouting some directions. I chatted up the security guard at the front desk, who told me that Howrey was shooting a commercial.'

'From what I can tell, the whole scene will make for a fairly lame ad: 'Hire Howrey -- we stand around in suits, smiling and cell-phoning.' Perhaps the worst-case scenario would be Howrey trying to play off of the Verizon cast-of-thousands ads....'

'On my way back, I noticed that they have stacks of life-sized photos of people up against the wall. Maybe they decided to replace their associates with cardboard stiffs? (Some would say that, at Howrey, they did that years ago.)'

You guys at large law may think video is giving you an edge, but it's entirely possible, your target audience is laughing at you behind your back. Above the Law is probably the most widely read blog or news website in the profession.

And despite Martindale-Hubbell telling you online video is Web 2.0 (whatever Web 2.0 means), online video has been around for a while. It's just not been vogue enough for legal vendors to sell video production to law firms for big dollars.

Online video for law firms has its place. But the video, like other relevant resources on the net, is going to need to focus on the value to your target audience. A focus on the law firm and it's wonderful people is misguided.

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That's the word from Joe Campos, a Seattle lawyer, who walked through Hubbard One's booth at the Legal Marketing Association Conference last week. Hubbard One, a law firm website development company for large law firms, was holding a contest asking for ideas and concepts about using video for law firm websites.

I agree [with Hubbard One] that web video can be extremely compelling. Sadly, Hubbard's video advocating the use of video is of such low quality it will probably discourage a lot of prospective clients.

For law firms, web video has to be extremely well produced and must deliver something of real value to clients and prospective clients. It can't just be eye candy. The law firm has to deliver really compelling and useful information and create a reason for website visitors to return, learn and ultimately hire the firm.

Video on law firm websites needs to offer useful information to lay people about the legal issue facing them. Otherwise, Hubbard One and Martindale-Hubbell, also hawking law firm video for websites, are just generating incremental income for themselves from their unknowing law firm customers who believe video will generate more legal business.

At least Martindale-Hubbell, which has not produced informational video that I know of, agrees with me that law firms benefit much more from video relevant to the law firm's clients needs.

Give advice; answer basic questions; describe what typically happens in relevant matters; provide value with timely commentary. As with all good marketing, if you can put yourself in the shoes of the buyer and empathize with them and give a little value, you're more likely going to win the business.

My guess is that if we're going to see informational video, it's going to come from the firms themselves using YouTube, as opposed to companies like Hubbard One and Martindale. Hubbard One and Martindale are likely to charge a hefty price for video. The result being not much video, video which will stay on the website for months or years, and video being focused on the law firm and its lawyers.

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Jeff Jarvis raises an interesting question today. How are we to index and search the live web?

As the web turns live — with broadcasters streaming and with anyone carrying a mobile phone broadcasting — the next big challenge for search will be how we can find what's going on while it's going on.......No longer will CNN tell witnesses to send things to them that they then vet, package, and present to the world. When a Qik or Flixwagon user sees live news and broadcasts it on the web, it won't be through CNN. CNN's challenge will be to find it and its choice will be to link to it or embed it or not. That changes the role of a news organization in the ecology of news. It might even take them out of the flow of much of live news unless they can come up with systems to find and recommend what's happening now.

Google is not prepared for the live web. Google values pages that grow links and clicks over time. It understands the permanent web. Of course, that is a protean thing, a growing brain. But it's not live. Technorati likes to think that it gives us the live web but I'd say that instead it gives us the dynamic web, the latest static pages. It also doesn't give us live.

.....There will need to be a new system where, Twitterlike, he who's broadcasting live can alert the world about what he's sending and others — audiences or armies of interns monitoring these feeds — help the good stuff bubble up and quickly.

There's no such thing as live coverage of local legal events with timely commentary from knowledgeable lawyers. That's all going to change with the shrinking cost of bandwidth and video equipment. Any lawyer with a blog, some time on their hands and a desire to get known will be able to report from a courthouse any day of the week.

Heck, why not a roundtable discussion with leading lawyers discussing this weeks events at your local courthouse? You've got a local 'On The Record With Greta Van Susteren' on your hands. You know how people love hearing about locals in trouble.

And Jeff's right, we're going to need a means of tracking and searching such legal coverage. Good opportunities await the organization who gets on top of new media coverage of the law.

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I'm getting a lot of questions from reporters, prospective clients, and new clients about podcasts. A few things come to my mind when you're thinking about adding podcasts to your law blog.

I used to think a podcast was a way to sex up your blog: if you've got more frills, you're going to draw more attention. But different people want to receive information in different ways. Some folks want text, others audio.

Some people want to be able to just have their iPod plugged into their computer, and whenever a podcast comes out, it's automatically fed through iTunes or comparable audio player and onto their iPod. When they're riding in the subway, they can just go and look and see what's there. So you're making your content available to more people. Some clients will do the same thing when on a long plane flight - I do that with audio and video I subscribe to via RSS feeds.

I do think, though, that it's important how you're presenting yourself. People are used to listening to Larry King or radio announcers, they're listening to musical intros, maybe a deep voice that is introducing the host. Those things are worth spending a few bucks on.

There's one LexBlog client, Stark & Stark at the New Jersey Law Blog, for whom we had somebody prepare what are called bumpers for their podcasts. Like on a radio show, where there's some intro music with a deep voice DJ introducing "Stark & Stark presenting New Jersey updates on the law." The lawyer then talks, and on the conclusion of the lawyer talking, there's the music and the closing by the DJ going out. It's very effective.

The thing you have to be careful for: it may sound great going in, but then you have a lawyer who is better equipped to write than to be on a podcast. Some lawyers are better conversationalists than writers. Maybe they're better for podcasts. Some lawyers are better writers than conversationalsists. They should stick to writting.

It's the same thing as some folks having a face made for radio. They'll stay away from television.

You also need to be cognizant of the fact it's not just the recording that's sitting there at your blog or your website that's critically important. It's setting up the RSS feed, because for the person that comes to your blog and says, "This is interesting, I think I may listen to these podcasts in the future"…they're not going to remember to come back.

You want to have that RSS feed so they can click the link and then be automatically subscribed. They may be on a subway, they may be on an airplane. They'll go in and look at their iPod or MP3 player just to see what's automatically been downloaded every time their computer has been hooked up to the Internet. Your podcasts are there.

It's very, very powerful to set things up that way. But I've seen some very large firms that have gone to the expense of setting up some elaborate podcasts that didn't even go to the extent of setting up a RSS subscribe feature. Dumb.

The other thing you'll want to do is put your podcasts over on the iTunes Music Store, which stores business podcasts and is fully searchable. You may not have many people browsing for law podcasts there, but it's nice to be able to say on your blog, "You can subscribe here or go to the iTunes music store where our podcasts are stored." It almost makes it look like you've cut a deal with Apple, even though it's free.

Podcasts can work. But make sure they're appropriate for you, and if so, set things up the right way.

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Welcome to 2008, and our first LexBlog Q & A of the new year. After a brief hiatus, our ongoing interview feature returns today, hopefully setting the stage for a wave of epic Q & A updates for the next 12 months.

The first guest in the hot seat this year? Colette Vogele, a San Francisco-based intellectual property lawyer who is well-known in the technology savvy legal community for her podcast Rules For The Revolution. I spoke with Colette in late December, discussing mostly her experience podcasting and how creating a podcast stacks up against writing a blog.

1. Rob La Gatta: Podcasts are very similar to blogs in many ways, most notably that both allow an individual to establish themselves as an expert on a specific issue. When did you first start podcasting, and what got you interested in it in the first place?

Colette Vogele: My first podcast that was my own production was at the beginning of [2007]. But I had been involved in the legal side of it for a couple years before that. Finally, after realizing [that] I really needed to use media to really understand what’s driving a lot of it, I decided it would be fun to try and put something together.

But I appeared on a lot of podcasts in the last couple years: some with Denise Howell, some [with] other podcasters who had legal questions and wanted to bring me on.

2. Rob La Gatta: Since you started doing your own, do you develop them for the general public, or for other lawyers? Who are your podcasts geared towards?

Colette Vogele: My podcasts are geared towards the public, more generally. I think I get lawyers listening, and I do get comments and other questions from them, but it’s really geared towards other podcasters who are out there trying to do stuff: to help them understand the implications of copyright and publicity rights, things like that.

3. Rob La Gatta: There are quite a few lawyers blogging, though it doesn’t seem like nearly as many offer podcasts. Why do you think blogs have caught on relatively quickly, while podcasts still seem fairly limited in their scope?

Colette Vogele: Well, blogs have been around a lot longer. The earliest blogs that I was aware of were back in like 2002, 2003 (and I know there were some before that).

So it has been five years, and now they’re getting to be quite popular, and more accessible...the user friendliness of setting up a blog is quite easy. So I think that hurdle – the technical hurdle – is very low now [for blogging].

I think for podcasting, it takes a bigger time commitment. I bought a recorder, and a microphone that was good. You have to [...] try to make the quality of the podcast listenable. And that just takes time.

And, the commitment to setting aside time on any kind of a regular schedule to have a program is a little more intensive than blogging is, even though the overall barrier to having an audience is quite low, compared to history. I think that’s probably the biggest issue.

Lawyers – and I don’t mean this in any bad way – I don’t think were the first to adopt the technology normally. I mean, if you’re a tech lawyer you will be [blogging], but there are so many practice areas where this is just not as important as it is in a tech practice.

4. Rob La Gatta: What do you see as the biggest challenge you’ve encountered podcasting…the aforementioned time issue, or is there some other hurdle?

Colette Vogele: It really is [the time issue].

In my head, what I’d like to have and what I’m able to really do with the time I have are two different things. I started off thinking I would try and do something weekly, and that kind of trickled to every other week, and now if I’m lucky it’s monthly. I think [in 2008], I’m just going to say, “Whenever I can, I’m going to do it,” and not put all this pressure on myself. So it’s really keeping a schedule.

From the podcasts I listen to, I’m really grateful knowing that they’re there...I can go and say, “Oh, there’s a few more episodes, that’s great.” It feels reliable, like we were all taught to watch television: our show was on a certain time, every week. I feel like I’ve completely bombed on that front (laughs). But I still think it’s a valuable resource, and when I can, I do it.

5. Rob La Gatta: You’re obviously one of the more tech-savvy lawyers around today. Do you think that in coming years, a knowledge of new media and technology – be it blogging, podcasting, etc – will becoming increasingly important in giving lawyers a competitive edge? Why or why not?

Colette Vogele I think so. Even if your practice doesn’t have anything to do with the Internet or technology, people are using the Internet – and these technologies – to learn about what they need; consumers are using the web, regardless of if they’re looking for something techy…they’re looking for something.

For example, maybe they need a family law lawyer. Or maybe they need a construction defect lawyer. They’re going to go and look for a website, and then they’re going to see, “Oh, this person writes a blog. What have they written about? Are they an expert? Oh, look, they have some audio files! Lets listen to those…let me see if I like this person’s demeanor, what I can gather from that kind of a setting.”

I think those types of questions for consumers are going to be more and more important for them to be comfortable with picking up the phone and calling that lawyer and asking if [that lawyer] would be able to represent them. So I think, over time, it will be important regardless of your practice area.

In a lot of cases, practices grow through referrals, and so whether you have a great website or not may not matter in a huge way. But I think consumers are finding the Internet to be a great place to do some of their research, and it’s a good way for a lawyer to have a credible existence to potential clients.

Interested in hearing more? Check out some of our other featured guests...Colette is just the latest in our ongoing series of legal blog interviews for the LexBlog Q & A.

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The State Bar of Texas has launched a contest 'Lone Star Stories: Texans on Justice,' inviting all Texans of all ages, lawyers and lay people alike, to submit three-minute-or-less original videos to YouTube that illustrate their vision of the promise of justice for all.

Per an article in Texas Lawyer, entrants under 18 can win a $2,500 scholarship, while those over 18 are competing for a $2,500 cash prize. The Bar will be informing teachers around the state about the contest to encourage more video entries from students.

I agree with State Bar President Gib Walton, who launched the Bar's YouTube contest at the suggestion of Crane MetaMarketing, who sees 'this as a new venue for the citizens of Texas to express their opinions on the justice system in Texas and to do it in a fun environment.'

YouTube, used as a community of user generated videos, is using YouTube the smart way. Contrast Texas' approach with the Pennsylvania Bar Association whose advertising company used YouTube to run a Bar television advertisement to emphasize the good that lawyers accomplish.

No one at YouTube gives a darn what a Bar Association has to say about the wonderful things the Bar's members do. (I am not discounting lawyers' contributions to society) YouTube viewers want to see what other people say and Bar Associations should promote themselves and the law through what non lawyers think about the law. As Walton says 'We know Texans have opinions, I'm looking forward to what Texans have to say.'

Update From Carolyn Elefant: I'm impressed by the Texas Bar's initiative -- and excited by the prospect of bar associations using video for another reason as well. Now that the bars realize that they can harness the power of YouTube, perhaps they can combat what they perceive as tasteless TV ads not through heavy-handed regulation but simply through a counter video campaign.

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Shel Israel, a pioneer in blogging and co-author of Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers, believes, in time, more people will be using video cameras than posting text to blogs. For one reason, he believes it's easier.

Shel's no fool. And as a journalist and writer he'd be reluctant to acknowledge the role of video. So I'm watching a few episodes of Shel's new 'Up Close' video shows at Your Truman Show.

I'm already picking up a few gems in his videos that I may not have picked up in text. One, the title of the post coming from something Shel said, 'a million well chosen words may not be enough.'

Shel tells the story of years ago of when a young video news reporter covering the same story as Shel in New Bedford, Mass climbs out of TV station van with satellite dish. No matter whether Shel did Pulitzer quality writing, his story was not going to be in the paper until the next morning. The Bozo with the camera and makeup was going to have the story on news at 11.

My guess is that video on the net will become much bigger. And though I do not see video replacing text altogether at anytime, Shel has peaked my interest. I am looking at video cameras. And you may see me with 120 second tip of the week videos coming soon.

As way of background and disclosure, Your Truman Show says it's '...committed to helping great storytellers to share their stories on video. It provides a free platform that enables anyone to create their own personal channel, share their stories and review other people's lives.' Shel's on their board. I'm not.

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That's on the slide behind Luria Petrucci (aka Cali Lewis), speaking with her husband, Neal Campbell, this morning at Gnomedex. They do a daily video podcast, GeekBrief.TV.

The point of the presentation is that you too can podcast, no matter your level of expertise. In November 2005, wanting to quit their day jobs, they knew nothing about video recording, production, or online streaming. Heck, they didn't own a video camera.

But they had passion. And though Cali and Neal readily admit they were producing crappy video in December 2005, they were not going to quit. They had a dream they could do something special. They did - within a few months GeekBrief.TV was drawing 120,000 viewers.

Bottom line message from Cali and Neal is to 'just start.' Too many people ask them how to do what they do and how to get started. Sadly, when Cali and Neal follow up, they'll find out the inquiring party never started.

Sounds like one secret is to pick up some of the online videos from Ira Glass explaining that crappy is what you'll see to start with your videos, but to stay at it. Ira is an NPR host and producer of 20 years, doing This American Life since 2005.

Side note for lawyers looking to add video to your blogs. These guys, like a lot of net entrepreneurs, went for it hook, line, and sinker. They worked long hours and were not working other jobs.

But Cali and Neal needed to be a big draw to join a podcasting network, get sponsors, and create ad revenue. Lawyers have an independent stream of income and some like what they do. A 3 or 4 minute video a week covering highlights in your area of law presented by you in a down to earth friendly fashion could be a good fit.

Update: Sat with these guys at lunch just now. Got some good insight on we can use video at LexBlog. Cali and Neal all about giving of themselves - good things do happen to good people.

Technorati Tags: GeekBrief.TV, Gnomedex, video podcasts

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For lawyers, blogging is all about marking. It establishes credibility and creates a web presence while driving information towards colleagues and potential clients. Few marketing mediums can do what blogs do. That doesn't mean one should rest at blogging alone. Some lawyers have turned to podcasting while others wonder what they need to do to get started in this medium.

The Business Podcasting Book explains how to launch and market a podcast. The book has five contributing authors: Michael Geoghegan, Greg Cangialosi, Ryan Irelan, Tim Bourquin and Colette Vogele.

Here is how lead author Greg Cangialosi described the book:

The book is broken into three parts and is roughly 400 pages. We first drill into an overview of podcasting, examples of corporate podcasting, podcastings role in the social media landscape, and what organizations needs to consider before jumping in.

The second section, which was written mostly by Ryan, is an overview of the podcast production process. He covers everything from planning decisions, all the way through to the production of your podcast and the power of RSS. Also in this section, Colette offers an excellent chapter on the potential legal issues organizations must consider as well before they delve into a podcasting initiative.

The third section of the book is focused on getting your podcast out there, building your audience and community, monetizing your content, and measuring your success. In this section I am joined by Tim who contributed an incredibly detailed chapter on monetizing your podcast. 

Podcasts can be daunting to those unfamiliar with the medium. This book, which is available for pre-order at Amazon, aims at explaining the concept and uses of podcasting while making it all less intimidating. It goes through each step towards familiarizing the reader with what podcasting is, how to do it and how to get the podcast greater exposure.

Some lawyers have already taken advantage of this tool. One example of a LexBlog blog with podcasts is the New Jersey Law Blog. Podcasting is by no means a necessity for every lawyer who blogs but it is a valuable addition providing similar positives as blogging.

As a way of full disclosure, it should be noted that co-author Ryan Irelan worked as project manager for LexBlog before Mark Melief took over.

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