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

Pacific Northwest-based law firm Lane Powell, is hosting dual Social Media seminars I'll be speaking at next week.

Billed as 'Social Media: Expect the Unexpected,' we'll be in Seattle at the Washington Athletic Club on Tuesday, July 7, and in Portland at the Portland Hilton & Executive Tower on Wednesday July 8. Running from 8 to 10 AM with 1.5 hours of CLE, topics include:

• Social Media - What is It and Why You Need to Consider Using It; Kevin O’Keefe, CEO, LexBlog Inc.
• Technology and Intellectual Property Issues – How to Manage Risk; Craig Bachman, Intellectual Property and Technology Attorney, Lane Powell PC
• Issues for Public Companies and First Amendment Rights; Mike Nesteroff, Chair of Lane Powell’s Sustainability and Climate Change Team, Lane Powell PC, and Former KOMO-TV Journalist
• Employment Issues that Follow Social Networking and Practical Guidance to Help Minimize Risk; D. Michael Reilly, Director of Lane Powell’s Labor and Employment and Employee Benefits Practice Group, Lane Powell PC
• Panel and Audience Discussion: Sea Change or Flash in the Pan; What is Really Going on Here and Why is it Important to You and Your Company

You may register for the Portland program here and the Seattle program here. I hope to see some of you there.

Hosting social media educational programs such as this offer law firms an excellent opportunity. Not only does the firm put itself at the forefront of innovation, but large corporate audiences starved for credible information on the topic provide excellent relationship building opportunities.

I participated in an event with a Manhattan firm that brought an excellent turnout. I'm honored that Lane Powell thought enough of what I could offer to invite me for their program.

Looking to host a similar event? I'd be honored to take part.

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Just when you think you've seen it all from lawyers who have not a clue how to use social media or how to network through the Internet, I get this.

An email from someone apparently associated with a Seattle law firm inviting me to become a 'fan of The Ten Biggest Mistakes That Can Wreck Your Washington Accident Case on Facebook.' I'm not joking. Look at the below.

It gets crazier. Look at this Facebook 'fan page' the lawyer posts links to. Posts such as a car accident location where a teen was injured in a rollover.

Nice. Take text from a police report or news story referencing someone's child being seriously injured with the apparent goal of getting more face time on Google or Facebook. I wonder what law school or CLE program teaches you that.

Marketing like this is why I've decided not to handover LexBlog's social media marketing to the 7th grade class at Sakai Junior High on Bainbridge Island.

Fortunately, 90% of people will see this type of stunt for what it is. An over zealous lawyer who is in over their head when it comes to social media.

Unfortunately for our profession, this type of lawyer marketing is just feeding the public's perception of lawyers as the least trust worthy of any profession. That's a shame as it means injury victims and their family members are less likely to seek help from a good plaintiff's trial lawyer - they don't trust us.

I practiced as a plaintiff's trial lawyer for the better part of 20 years. Being a board member of my state's trial lawyers' association and active in ATLA I came to know trial lawyers as some of the finest and most caring people in the world.

When I got active on the Internet while still practicing I was blown away by the opportunity trial lawyers had to show what we were made of. I answered 4 to 7 questions a day posted on AOL legal message boards by injury victims and their family members. I hosted AOL legal chat rooms a couple nights a week answering more questions.

I saw the Internet as a great equalizer for plaintiff's lawyers. Without having powerful lobbying groups and PR campaigns we could influence public opinion. Good lawyers without huge advertising budgets could get the best work by word of mouth generated by helping people. Wow!

Seeing this lawyer use Facebook like this is terribly, terribly disappointing. Maybe he's a great lawyer. Maybe he has tremendous care for injury victims and their family members. But please learn how to use the Internet and social media.

Other lawyers doing things the right way deserve better. The people we seek to protect and serve deserve better.

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I ran across the same shocking legal commentary as American journalist, Jeff Jarvis, this morning. Legal commentary from a judge and a lawyer who look ill equipped to counsel anyone on the future of copyright laws.

I agree with Jarvis when he posts 'First, kill the lawyers - before they kill the news.'

Following the frighteningly dangerous thinking of Judge Richard Posner - proposing rewriting copyright law to outlaw linking to and summarizing (aka talking about) news stories - now we have two more lemming lawyers following him off the cliff in a column written by the Cleveland Plain Dealer's Connie Schultz.

First note well that Schultz is married to U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown as she calls on her newspapers and employer (my former employer, Advance Publications) and fellow columnists to influence Congress to remake copyright. She should be registered as a lobbyist. No joke.

Schultz says that David Marburger, an alleged First Amendment attorney for her paper, and his economics-professor brother, Daniel, have concocted their own dangerous thinking, proposing the copyright law be changed to insist that a newspaper's story should appear only on its own web site for the first 24 hours before it can be aggregated or retold.

Incredible. So if the Plain Dealer reported exclusively that, say, the governor had just returned from a tryst with a Argentine lady, no one else could so much as talk about that for 24 hours. A First Amendment lawyer said this.

Jarvis goes on to explain how nutty thinking like Marburger's is. The death of Michael Jacksoon spread like wild fire across social media (mostly Twitter) with people linking to TMZ' report. Marburger would give TMZ an exclusive on the report for 24 hours. But TMZ is not a newspaper so they don't get the Marburger/Plain Dealer protection?

I'm not a copyright law expert representing newspapers. I don't know how copyright law issues will play out. I don't know how social media and the Internet will continue to change everything.

But actively taking part in social interaction on the net for the last 14 years (first as a practicing lawyer), blogging for the last six, and Twittering for the last couple, I wonder if I have a far better view of what's going on than some lawyers who profess to be experts on the subject.

I'm not certain anything has changed in the way news spreads. It just spreads faster. Newspapers, Radio, and TV historically broke the news. We spread the word. We told people to turn on the radio, watch TV right now, and get a copy of the newspaper. Newspapers didn't complain then when we sent them traffic and new subscribers.

Because news spreads faster we're supposed to give newspapers a monopoly on the news? That's crazy.

Jarvis makes a compelling point which lawyers advising newspapers ought to think about when counseling newspaper clients.

Schultz and the Marburgers complain about what they call the 'free-riding' of aggregators, et al. But they simply don't understand the economics of the internet. It's the newspapers that are free-riding, getting the benefit of links.

The framers of our Constitution, including the First Amendment, intended it to endure and cope with the effects of the anticipated changes of our nation.

Things have changed - changed quickly. But let's be careful when thinking of following lawyers and Judges who may not understand the nature of the change.

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I run across a lot of 'people' in the legal profession who blog, publish websites, twitter, and the like who do so with anonymity.

The foundation of social media and social networking is trust. We share information from those we trust. We build relationships with people we trust. I have a heck of a hard time trusting people who will not tell anyone their name.

• What are they trying to hide?
• Are they a kid in the basement?
• Did they do some bad stuff in their past life and are now trying to resurrect themselves by pseudonym?
• Are they a competitor where it's only human nature to be 'on guard' when building a relationship?
• If I cite or share their commentary and they're wrong, can't they just walk away with no damage to their name?

Those are the things that go through my mind when I see their stuff on the net. I think the average person feels the same way.

As I learned the art of blogging and blog design over the last 6 years, I found the most important link on each blog page to be the link to the 'About' page.

The most trafficked page on my blog is my About page. My 'About' page tells people who I am and why I do what I do. It's only polite when asking someone to read my content that I pay them the courtesy of telling them who I am. It allows readers to decide if I have enough 'street creds' to merit following. Readers can decide if they trust me enough to share what I have to say.

A habit of mine, going back to when I got on the net in 1996, is to first click on the 'About' section of any website. Who are these guys? What are their names? Where are their offices located? Do they have a phone number if I need to call them? What have they done in the past?

These days I go a step further, I Google individual names - whether they are the founder, principal, officer, employee, publisher, editor, reporter - whatever. I look at LinkedIn profiles. I look at who has cited them by name.

As much as any human can, I try not to be prejudiced by what I find. But in a few minutes I draw some conclusions that often stick with me for a long time. Conclusions formed by a gut decision that tells me whether I can trust this source or company.

Ask yourself who you can learn to trust more. An avatar with a company logo on Twitter? An avatar with a pseudonym for a lawyer on Twitter? Or an avatar with a person's picture accompanied by their real name?

The Internet for the legal profession is all about networking and building relationships. Relationships built through true engagement with others we grow to trust.

The law is a profession, not just any other business. Our profession is based on reliability and trust.

So while it may feel cute to be anonymous and you may get some short term buzz, it's a losing proposition in the long run. Trust me.

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We're back with another update from the LinkedIn legal blogging group, where group members chime in with questions, comments, critiques and discussion on blogging, social networking, and social media in the law.

• Suggestions on starting an internal blog?: Toronto practice support lawyer Kathleen Hogan reaches out for tips on starting up a blog for her firm or practice group.
• Are legal Q&A sites effective?: San Francisco marketing & PR manager Lisha Fabris asks how well legal Q&A sites bring in business and referrals in today's internet.
• What is the best way to avoid information overload?: UK management consultant James Dunning wonders how to manage the volume of information coming at him and still make time for blogging.

Kevin O'Keefe is the moderator of the Legal Blogging group on LinkedIn. If you're already a member of the Legal Blogging group, join the discussions or start your own. If you're not yet a member of the group, you can request to join.

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I'll be speaking next week at two events put on by the Northwest Chapter of the Legal Marketing Association. The topic is "Working a Room in the Digital Age: Social Networking for Law Firms".

I'll be in Seattle on Tuesday, May 19, at the Columbia Center, with registration beginning at 11:30 and the program at 12 noon. On Thursday, May 21, I'll be in Portland at the offices of Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt, during the same time.

Details and RSVP information are available at the LMA's website.

I presented to the LMA Northwest chapter in both cities last year as well. I enjoyed it and made some good connections.

If you'd like to get together with me to chat about blogs or social media while I'm in Portland on the 21st, either before or after the presentation, feel free to email me or call my cell, 206-321-3627.

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We had a great turnout at this morning's client webinar on using Twitter for expanding the reach of your blog and for client development.

If you missed it or want to re-watch, you can watch the recording here or on our Support site.

LexBlog CEO Kevin O'Keefe discussed how to use Twitter to connect to people you might otherwise not have met, as well as how you can use it to follow blog posts, news and hot discussion topics.

We had close to 200 attendees at the webinar, which is great to see. If you have any questions about Twitter or anything discussed in the webinar, feel free to contact Kevin (kevin@lexblog.com) or Stacey (stacey@lexblog.com).

And mark your calendars for next month's webinar, on Thursday, June 18, on Creating Effective Blog Posts.

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It's been a while since we checked in with the legal blogging group over at LinkedIn, but the discussions are flying fast and furious. The wealth of knowledge on blogging and social networking is invaluable, whether you're a veteran blogger or just starting out.

• How NOT to keyword optimize: Los Angeles civil litigation & trial attorney Aaron Morris gives an example of keyword linking gone terribly awry.
• Google Blogger or Wordpress?: Idaho trial attorney John Kormanik asks what platform he should use to start blogging.
• Share some mistakes and what you've learned: This is a great topic, and has generated dozens of comments. New York personal injury attorney Lawrence Berezin asks what mistakes bloggers have made and what they have taken from them.
• Networking: are you a giver or a taker?: Attorney marketing specialist Brian French discusses the reciprocity of social networking.

Kevin O'Keefe is the moderator of the Legal Blogging group on LinkedIn. If you're already a member of the Legal Blogging group, join the discussions or start your own. If you're not yet a member of the group, you can request to join.

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I was speaking to a reporter from Montreal on Friday afternoon. He wanted to know why social media, including blogging, was becoming so popular for lawyers.

I fell back on what's becoming increasingly more clear to me. I explained the best lawyers have always gotten their best work by word of mouth. To generate a word of mouth buzz about what you do as a lawyer (and that you do a nice job of it), you have to network with your target audience of clients, prospective clients, referral sources, and those people who influence those three groups.

I continued by explaining that with the Internet driving all commerce today, networking is done online as opposed to offline.

Good lawyers who have gotten their work by word of mouth need to move their networking online. Otherwise their word of mouth reputation is going to dry up. May take some time to lose their hard earned reputation being spread by word of mouth, but it'll happen.

Knowing these things, I explained lawyers and law firms who are still growing their reputations and their business are looking to network through the Internet. The concept of networking remains the same. It's just where that networking takes place has moved - from offline to online.

Blogging, Twitter, and popular social networking sites such as LinkedIn and Facebook are just a means of networking - a way to locate your audience, listen to them, and engage with that audience. The result being a word of mouth reputation which brings in new clients and keeps the clients you have. An added kicker is the fact that online networking is like networking on steroids compared to offline networking.

When your partners and law firm management question the use of blogs and social media, take them back to the future. Ask them if they've always gotten their best work by word of mouth. Ask them if that word of mouth reputation was earned by networking. See if they agree that the Internet is driving commerce today - or at least increasingly doing so.

Then advise, rather than sticking your collective heads in the sand and hoping that the Internet will pass, that your law firm must take the safe and prudent route to protect what you have. That's to continue networking to maintain that word of mouth of reputation. The only difference will be networking online.

Sure, there will be some learning along the way. Blogs, Twitter, social media, and social networking are foreign concepts to most law firms. But the concept of networking to grow that word of mouth reputation to grow business remains the same.

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