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

The focus of Chicago civil litigator Michael Rigney's blog emerged at the intersection of several of his interests and goals. He wanted to raise his profile in the local community, he had started following other bloggers, and he had begun to track the decisions of his local federal court of appeals. 

The result was his blog, In Their Opinion, where he reports on civil appeals decided by the Seventh Circuit. Michael, an attorney with Kelley Drye & Warren, has become empowered to communicate with anyone and everoyne who wants to learn and discuss what's going on in the local courts.

"It has contributed to my discipline to follow the decisions — and I frequently refer to the briefs or the oral argument in a case when I have some question about the way the case was decided," Michael says. "In fact, I download the Court's oral arguments onto my iPod and listen to many of them. It has given me even greater insight into the workings of the Court and the judges than I had before."

We caught up with Michael to discuss more about his style of blogging and what he's learned about "bloglationships".

See our email exchange with Michael, after the jump.

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One of the interesting things about blogging is that even lawyers who work international and high-profile cases can see its impact right in their own backyard.

New York-based litigator William Ruskin, a member of AmLaw 200 firm Epstein Becker Green's Litigation, Real Estate, and Health Care and Life Sciences practices, blogs at the Toxic Tort Litigation Blog about news and trends in products liability and toxic tort actions.

He started blogging to capture the immediacy of news and alerts in his field.

"I first became interested in blogging when I came to understand that the process would free me of the bureaucratic process of preparing client alerts that had to be vetted by the Firm and the marketing department before they were issued," Bill says. "Often, the subject of the alert was out-of-date by the time it left the firm."

What he didn't expect going in was that his work would lead him to start a second blog, this one for a group of local newspapers in his home in Fairfield County, Connecticut. There, Bill touches on his experience with environmental law to write about Health, Safety and the Environment.

This blog, too, is helping expand his name and reach.

"I am hearing from friends and neighbors that they read these blog posts because they deal with southern Connecticut issues, not national issues, and are tied to the local print media as part of its blog forum web page," Bill says.

We reached out to Bill for this LexBlog Q&A to discuss more about his two blogs and what he enjoys about blogging.

See our email exchange with Bill, after the jump.

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San Diego small business attorney Joseph Dang started his blog — and his solo practice — after reading thought leaders in the legal blog community discussing how blogs could be a way to establish an online presence, even for a solo or small firm.

The promise of his early research has held true in every way, and now his San Diego Small Business Law Blog consistantly brings in clients and is helping get Joseph's name out there.

"I have not yet put out a traditional 'ad' in any sense of the word," Joseph says. "Yet I've had prospective clients find me through my blog. They did a search for whatever question they had, and that led them to my blog. After reviewing some of my posts, they decide to call me. Everything I heard about blogging was coming through."

Since launching his blog, Joseph has started to tailor is content to a more local niche as opposed to a broader national perspective.

We caught up with Joseph for this LexBlog Q&A to discuss more about his brainstorming techniques and why his blog impresses prospective clients.

See our email exchange with Joseph, after the jump.

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There are unique blogs, there are niche blogs, and then there's Florida estate planning attorney Danny Meek's Pet Trust Law Blog.

His area of expertise, in estate planning for pet owners, is so distinctive that even other lawyers are often unaware of this field of law. But it works out perfectly for his blog, which is an incredible resource for questions of pet trusts, will provisions and other queries that likely would not be answered anywhere else.

"While there are virtually millions of blogs and websites on pets and companion animals on the web, there are only a very few that even are indirectly involved with pet trusts," Danny says, adding that this makes it easier to differentiate his blog from the others.

As a result of his blog, Danny has also been approached both for legal advice and for interviews by numerous media outlets on this subject.

We caught up with Danny for this LexBlog Q&A, in which he shares some more of the opportunities that have come out of his blogging.

See our email exchange with Danny, after the jump.

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As a result of his blog posts on the GM and Chrysler bankruptcies, Chicago bankruptcy attorney Steve Jakubowski will appear on the CBS Evening News. Steve, a LexBlog client who blogs at The Bankruptcy Litigation Blog, taped an interview which is scheduled to air tonight.

"I talked for about 10 minutes with Anthony Mason, CBS's veteran correspondent, which should translate after editing into about 15 seconds of fame," Steve wrote in his blog post announcing the airing.

All joking aside, it's always great to see a member of the LexBlog network experience success through their blog, especially when the power of the network helps make that success happen.

Steve started blogging avidly about the Chrysler Chapter 11 bankruptcy after we reached out to him and other LexBlog clients with bankruptcy practice areas when the story first broke last month. Over two days, we put together roundups of blog posts on the Chrysler bankruptcy on LexMonitor, distributed links through Twitter, and passed on the links members of the mainstream media.

Steve's blog posts on the topic were some of the best and most detailed we saw, including a three-part series analyzing its significance: Part I: Assessing the Financial Carnage, Part II: Testing the Limits of Section 363 Sales, and Part III: Will the "Absolute Priority Rule" Kill the Sale? These posts received dozens of comments and encouraging feedback.

Kevin is in Chicago today for the Get a Life Conference, but he was able to chime in about how encouraging this kind of success is both for LexBlog clients and for legal blogging as a whole: 

"The power of the LexBlog network is something we're really starting to leverage to better serve LexBlog clients," Kevin said from Chicago. "By identifying breaking legal stories, we can cull commentary and insight from the nation's leading lawyers and syndicate the content to the lawyer's target audience including the mainstream media. And the media gets access to credible and trusted legal authorities who they could have never found before."

We're happy to see these blog posts have led to Steve's first television interview, hopefully the first of many. It's also further evidence of what a strong blog can do for a lawyer in terms of expanding name recognition and building one's brand.

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Law firm management consultant Ronda Muir's blog, Law People, occupies a unique space in the blogosphere. Ronda uses her blog to discuss challenges in the legal workplace and innovative people management strategies.

She's seen the readership and response to her blog grow over the last two years, and marvels at the extensive reach of her blog.

"The great thing about blogging, at least in my case, is that it is a marketing tool that actually helps build my expertise," Ronda says. "I write about what I am learning from breaking developments, which I am particularly attuned to in order to write about them.

"Also, at one locus, I am accumulating a very useful body of information on a very focused area that can be reached interactively by virtually everyone internationally who has an interest in this topic. Can't say that for many other marketing tools."

We caught up with Ronda for this LexBlog Q&A to discuss the response to her blog and her brainstorming strategies.

See our e-mail exchange with Ronda (after the jump).

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West Virginia business litigation attorney Jeffrey Mehalic has benefited from a lot of news about his blog's topic right in his home state over the last year, giving him plenty of fodder for the West Virginia Business Litigation Blog.

But he knows that blog topics don't always fall into your lap, and that anyone starting a blog should be willing to put the necessary effort and time into it.

"There’s nothing more disheartening than going to a blog and seeing that it hasn’t been updated for several weeks or months," Jeff says. "You don’t have to post four or five times a week, although a lot of bloggers do, but if you want your blog to be taken seriously, you have to take your blog seriously."

Jeff clearly takes his blog seriously, filling his posts with images and plenty of links to outside blogs and sources.

We reached out to Jeff for this LexBlog Q&A to discuss more about what makes a blog successful, among other topics.

See our e-mail exchange with Jeff (after the jump).

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You might know better know South Carolina attorney Ben Stevens by his moniker and eponymous blog, The Mac Lawyer, where he blogs about using Macs in the practice of law. What started out as a hobby has earned him national renown as a legal technology expert.

His first blog, though, was The SC Family Law Blog, and he still maintains both.

"The response to my blogs has quite honestly been overwhelming over the years," Ben says. "I never thought that I would have the type of national presence that I have achieved, and I know that it is due to my blogs."

Ben advises any lawyer with something to say to consider starting a blog, as long as they are willing to put the time into it.

"When looking at blogging from a cost/benefit analysis, it's a no-brainer that blogging brings the most bang for your buck," he says. "However, the lawyer should understand that it takes three C's (commitment, content, consistency) for the blog to be a success."

We corresponded with Ben for this LexBlog Q&A to learn more about his success and his advice.

See our e-mail exchange with Ben (after the jump).

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Can your blog be too successful? It's a good problem to have, as Cleveland corporate and health care attorney Jayne Juvan of Benesch, Friedlander, Coplan & Aronoff LLP can attest.

Her blog, originally named Juvan's Health Law Update, has been recently reworked as Juvan's Health Law and Private Equity Report to better reflect her practice, as the renown of the blog's previous incarnation as a health law regulation blog led to Jayne's expertise in private equity being overshadowed.

"I started off doing health care regulation, but I consider myself a corporate lawyer with regulatory experience in health care," Jayne says. "I wanted people to know I can move into other areas...regulatory experience differentiates me, but it doesn't define me."

Jayne initially started blogging not long after graduating law school out of a love of writing and the law. 

"It also gave me the opportunity to publish with regularity and give me more control over the content," she says. "Editing can take so long that by the time it publishes it's not as hot a topic. And I just think with a blog you get so much more exposure."

That exposure led to requests to speak at local and national conferences and Jayne being quoted in national publications. She was named to a list of Cleveland's Top 25 Under 35 Movers and Shakers and named "One to Watch" last fall by Cleveland's Inside Business magazine. And, of course, she gained attention and plenty of new clients.

As her practice has expanded, however, Jayne didn't feel it was appropriate to post about private equity or other corporate issues on her health law blog. With some small tweaks to the title of her blog, she now is excited to be able to blog on a broader range of topics.

"As my practice has evolved,"Jayne says, "it was important to make sure my blog evolved with it."

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