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

Innovative lawyers, law firms, and legal professionals know they need to monitor the blogopshere as part of the their strategic intelligence efforts. Subscribing to an RSS feed of Google blog searches of their names, competitor's names, subjects of litigation and transactional work, expert witnesses, and keywords relating to their practice niche is now routine.

But with the growing use of Twitter by those active in social networking and social media, monitoring the blogosphere alone is not enough. You need to monitor what people are 'micro-blogging' at Twitter. A lot can be said about you - good and bad - in 140 characters of text broadcast to hundreds or, in some cases, thousands of a person's followers on Twitter.

I subscribe to an RSS feed of keywords and key phrases mentioned on Twitter via Summize.

Summize is a search engine for Twitter that, like Google Blog Search for blogs, allows you to subscribe to searches. You don't browse searches ala a standard Google Search, you subscribe to an RSS feed of your search so as to read updates in your RSS newsreader.

Take a look at how I followed feedback on Twitter to LexBlog's launch of LexMonitor last Friday. This represents the most recent 'tweets' from today (Sunday). I noted how recent those 'tweets' were with arrows on the left.

As you'll see, it's a 3 step process. 1) Key in the word or phrase you want to follow; 2) Click search; and 3) Click the RSS feed button to add the ongoing search results to your RSS newsreader.

Two other tools people use to monitor Twitter conversation are Quotably (powered by Summize displaying threads of 'tweets') and Tweetscan.

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What started as a snowball has become an avalanche. That's lawyers using LinkedIn as their preferred directory and the evangelism of LinkedIn by marketing and PR professionals serving the legal profession.

The latest comes from Oliver Picher, president of Visible Influence, speaking about LinkedIn and social networking to the Delaware Valley Law Firm Marketing Group.

Jason Lisi and Julie Meyer highlighted Picher's presentation in an article in The Legal Intelligencer.

• LinkedIn is for business connections much in the same way that Facebook creates personal connections.
• Philadelphia firms, such as Fox Rothschild and Reed Smith, have as many as 45 percent of their attorneys and staff holding active LinkedIn accounts.
• Legal professionals should import business contacts to identify those with LinkedIn accounts and invite them to connect.
• LinkedIn allows you to connect with others with similar interests by connecting with users who are secondarily connected to an original LinkedIn connection.
• LinkedIn's answer feature provides an additional tool for effective networking and marketing of practice areas. LinkedIn answers provide for LinkedIn members to tap -- or add to -- the knowledge of their professional network by answering questions posed by others or recommending another member as a source of information: a virtual referral.

The following point by Picher should also not be lost on Martindale-Hubbell.

Much like a free publication or commercial television, social media sites such as LinkedIn generate their own revenue from the number of users they attract as potential viewers for the advertisers who pay to market on the site. To that end, it is in the interest of the social media purveyors to provide increasingly effective tools to both retain current users and regularly attract additional new ones.

LinkedIn is adding feature after feature so as to facilitate networking between business professionals, hundreds of thousands of lawyers included. And while Martindale-Hubbell is charging thousands of dollars for directory listings and losing law firm customers as a result, LinkedIn has a growing revenue base through ads and premium listings for what is basically a free service.

LinkedIn may now be Martindale's most serious competition. Something none of us could have seen coming a year or two ago

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Who would have thunk a professional social networking site could overtake a long standing lawyer directory like Martindale-Hubbell?

But look at the growth in traffic (unique visitors per month) to LinkedIn, Martindale.com, Martindale's consumer-small business lawyer directory, lawyers.com, and FindLaw.com (total traffic, not just lawyers.findlaw.com directory) over the last year. LinkedIn is blowing them all away.

Think LinkedIn is not a lawyer directory? Think again.

Legal marketing pro, Steve Matthews, reports 98,000 more lawyers have added profiles to LinkedIn in the last two months. Brings the number of lawyer profiles at LinkedIn to, as Steve describes it, 'an incredible 216,000.' Up from the 118,000 I reported in April.

Added to this is the fact that all major law firms have detailed law firm profiles at LinkedIn.

I'm a business person and the first place I go to find information on a lawyer is LinkedIn. Before the lawyer's website. And before a lawyer directory such as martindale.com. The profiles are complete, easy to scan, and let me know if the lawyer is on the ball enough to have a LinkedIn profile.

Looks like I am not alone. As of this May, LinkedIn site traffic was at 5.6 million visitors per month, and was growing at an annual growth rate of 351%. LinkedIn has more than 20 million registered users, spanning 150 industries.

With the features LinkedIn keeps adding and the growth in prospective law firm clients using LinkedIn, I don't know how traditional lawyer directories can keep up.

Follow on posts:

• Bastrop, Texas Attorney, Joe Grady: Martindale-Hubbell is the definitive lawyer directory. True or false. Well, false. The correct answer is LinkedIn.

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Martindale-Hubbell issued a press release last week claiming 'Individuals, Companies Rely On Martindale-Hubbell Most Often to Find an Attorney.'

The basis of Martindale's claim is the 2007 comScore Media Metrix monthly reports measuring traffic patterns at competing online attorney directories. Per the press release, 'comScore reported more combined unique visitors to Martindale-Hubbell sites martindale.com(R) and lawyers.com(SM) than competing directories when seeking a lawyer.'

Nicholas Karrat, Sr. Director, Traffic & Alliances for Martindale, went on to say:

Consumers, small business professionals, lawyers, and corporate counsel seeking a lawyer or lawyer referral rely on online resources designed specifically for their needs, and the results of the comScore reports show that when these individuals go online to look for legal assistance, they turn to martindale.com and lawyers.com.

Google is the biggest competition Martindale-Hubbell has. I emailed LexisNexis PR Manager, Holly Michael, last Saturday asking if Google was one of the competing online attorney directories included in the survey results? No answer yet. Perhaps someone from Martindale will comment here providing an answer.

If Google is not included in the results, you have to question Martindale's assertion that when individuals go online to look for legal assistance, they turn to martindale.com and lawyers.com. The goal in issuing such a press release should be to provide lawyers an accurate picture of online searches for a lawyer, not to demonstrate you get more traffic than Findlaw.

If someone truly wanted to show lawyers where individuals and corporations go online to look for a lawyer, including Google in your report is a no brainer.

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May come as a surprise to law firms and lawyer directories, but LinkedIn, the largest and most popular professional social network, has detailed firm profiles on each of the largest law firms in the country.

LinkedIn company profiles for each of the 20 largest law firms in the country include the following info:

• Firm synopsis
• Career path of lawyers before joining the firm
• Career path of lawyers before joining the firm
• Who law firm employees are most connected to
• New hires
• Recent Promotions and position changes
• Popular firm member profiles
• BusinessWeek profile and related news
• Top locations of firm
• Top schools lawyers graduated from
• Median age
• Gender breakdown

Here's a list of the LinkedIn law firm profiles for AmLaw's top 20 largest firms with the number of their LinkedIn members in just my LinkedIn network. The total number of LinkedIn members for each firm I am sure is much higher. Click on the firm's name to see their LinkedIn profile.

• Skadden Arps: 478 LinkedIn members in my LinkedIn network
• Latham & Watkins: 500+ LinkedIn members
• Baker & McKenzie: 500+ LinkedIn members
• Jones Day: 500+ LinkedIn members
• Sidley Austin: 330 LinkedIn membersk
• White & Case: 337 LinkedIn members
• Kirkland & Ellis: 500+ LinkedIn members
• Mayer Brown: 215 LinkedIn members
• Weil, Gotshal & Manges: 316 LinkedIn members
• Greenberg Traurig: 470 LinkedIn members
• DLA Piper: 500+ LinkedIn members
• Morgan, Lewis & Bockius: 429 LinkedIn members
• Sullivan & Cromwell: 239 LinkedIn members
• Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr: 203 LinkedIn members
• O'Melveny & Meyers: 302 LinkedIn members
• McDermott Will & Emery: 307 LinkedIn members
• Shearman & Sterling: 257 LinkedIn members
• Paul Hastings: 334 LinkedIn members
• Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton: 183 LinkedIn members
• Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher: 271 LinkedIn members

How are the profiles being constructed? Via social networking.

Lawyers in the firms are creating individual lawyer profiles at LinkedIn. There are 118,000 LinkedIn profiles listing their profession as a the practice of law.

Those profiles are constantly being updated. Not only by the lawyers themselves, but more importantly by LinkedIn's social networking features.

Don't look now, but LinkedIn may over the next couple years become a more effective way to get a 360 degree view of a law firm than a law firm's own website and any of the major lawyer directories.

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Steve Rubel posted this week an 'An All Too Convenient Truth: Many Marketers Pollute the Web.'

In honor of upcoming Earth Day, Steve points out that it's just not the environment that's filled with toxins. 'The all too convenient truth is that it's very easy for advertisers to pollute the web with their garbage.'

Lawyers, law firms, and legal internet marketing companies are among the worst polluters.

• Spam. I'm deluged with emails from people who have never read my blog asking me to exchange links with law sites and blog about legal stories, conferences, and products totally unrelated to what I blog about.
• Splogs. Blogs with gibberish law content or content stolen from legitimate law blogs are rampant. These blogs are supported by lawyers buying Google Adwords and SEO services setting up splogs to link to their unknowing law firm customer.
• SEO. Many lawyers are addicted to search engine rankings like crack cocaine. They get their fix from snake oil salespeople getting them unscrupulous links from link farms and spam blogs.
• Sponsored links. Bankruptcy, DUI, and personal injury lawyers pour money into Google Adwords leaving unseemly billboards all over Google and other sites that display ads.
• Companies selling exclusive blog territories to personal injury lawyers in return for 25% of the lawyer's fees.
• Legal directories providing 'blogs' to lawyers without disclosing that what is being provided is not a blog.
• Law firm website companies producing websites rivaling the worst on the net, but making sure the 800 number is an inch tall.
• Lawyer and client matching service misleading lawyers with promises of clients lined up for them.
• Personal injury lawyer blogs naming injury victims in hope the victim calls them or cutting and pasting news stories in entirety offering no value and violating copyright law.
• Banner ads. Many just litter the web and get in the way of what you want to do. Click-through rates remain abysmal. Eye-tracking studies have revealed 'banner blindness.'
• Video. Law firm videos about lawyer exploits and services offering nothing of value to potential clients produced by law firm website vendors looking for increased revenue.

As Steve says, 'The web is facing it's own global warming crisis as marketers continue to pollute it.' But he n that 'Consumers are voting with their clicks and eyeballs by engaging with authentic content thaotest adds value, while ignoring the rest. That's good news that shows maybe we'll solve this crisis...'

Though there's always going to be lawyers and legal vendors looking for the get rich schemes polluting the web, I'm seeing positive trends in the legal arena as well.

Many good lawyers who would shun unseemly net advertising are publishing blogs offering valuable info to the public and other lawyers. Consumers of legal services, whether they be corporate heads or consumers, are now looking for valuable legal information on the net.

Next Earth Day, may be we'll see a little less brown smoke and haze from lawyers on the net.

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Believe it or not I'm not trying to pick on Martindale-Hubbell. I just find some of the things they do or say amusing enough to share with you.

Read today on a listserv that Martindale-Hubbell, in trying to keep a 100-lawyer client in their directory, told the law firm that Martindale would be the new Facebook or LinkedIn for lawyers in due time.

Martindale is saying they will be the next LinkedIn? If that's true, it seems to be totally irresponsible statement.

LinkedIn:

• As of March 2008, LinkedIn had more than 20 million registered users, spanning 150 industries.
• As of December 2007, its site traffic was 3.2 million visitors per month, growing at an annual growth rate of about 485%.
• Founded by co-founder of Socialnet.com & leading exec at PayPal and funded by Greylock, Sequoia Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, and the European Founders Fund, all tier one VC's funding Silicon Valley companies.
• Reached profitability two years ago.

Martindale:

• No management team that I know of that has experience with building social networking sites.
• Unique visitors to Martindale.com down 13.4% over last year per Compete.com.
• Struggling with the launch of a corporate blog, something much simpler than software infrastructure and management team needed for successful social networking site.

As far as becoming the next Facebook? Seems rather silly. Makes as much sense as Martindale saying we'll become the next place where all young lawyers will hang out to socialize online. Does anyone really believe that will happen?

Martindale has been a great company as a lawyer directory. But to try and create something that's vogue today by boasting that we're a new company that's introducing Web 2.0 solutions is irresponsible and is only going to damage to reputation of the company.

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Read that in a comment from Ben Glass to a recent post of mine. '[T]he ONLY reason, in my view, to blog, have a website, etc. is to get your site positioned well in the search engines.'

That's nuts. I'm not sure Ben honestly believes that.

If there's lawyers and legal marketing professionals who honestly believe blogs are only for search engine rankings, I expect they're the ones who previously believed the only way a lawyer could get new clients was through large yellow page ads and other advertising. You know, the biggest and gaudiest ad with call the 1 800 lawyer thing.

They believe Google is replacing the yellow pages for people selecting a lawyer. God forbid you're not at the top of search engine results page of Google when someone searches your town and the type of lawyer you are. 'If I'm not at the top of Google, I'll never get any work. I'll go broke.'

The same thing that has allowed good lawyers, no matter their area of practice, to get good work over the years is why law blogs work so well. The ability to network with thought leaders in your field, influencers within your community, and prospective clients.

When I practiced in a small rural town in the Midwest a leading law firm ran only a very small in column ad in the yellow pages listing their 12 lawyers by name. That's it. Only advertising they did. And they got as much work as anyone in the area in everything - personal injury, divorce, real estate, corporate, estate planning, bankruptcy, probate and what have you.

How they'd do it?

• By striving to be good lawyers - staying up to speed on legal developments and news that effected their practice.
• By writing articles for legal publications and regional newspapers.
• By presenting at seminars and conferences for lawyers and relevant industries.
• By being well known by the press and being available when reporters need resources or a quote.
• By becoming leaders regionally and state-wide in bar and legal associations.
• By networking with good lawyers around the state.
• By networking with community leaders and influencers in various civic organizations.
• By being social and cordial with people who influence others in their selection of a lawyer - bailiffs, court clerks, judges, bankers, doctors, insurance agents, realtors, title company personnel, court reporters etc.

They further enhanced their reputation as good lawyers you could trust by networking. Word of mouth spread.

Blogging is a new way of networking with thought leaders, community leaders, the media, current clients, and prospective clients. It's how you further enhance your reputation as a lawyer who can do a heck of a job for people and companies needing legal services in your niche. It's how you generate a word of mouth reputation that's far wider reaching than offline.

Ask any lawyer who knows how to blog effectively. They'll tell you their blog is much more than search engine rankings. Don't get me wrong. Search engine rankings are important, but they'll come anyway through effective blogging.

Let's act like lawyers folks. We didn't go to law school so we could run the largest yellow page ad, billboard, or to rank at the top of something called Google - which in our wildest dreams we could not have dreamed of in law school 30 years ago. What's after Google? You'll be chasing that too with the latest gimmicks.

Rise above the pack. Be the lawyer you want to be in the area of law for which you have a passion. Become a lawyer's lawyer. Establish a reputation that's not fleeting. It can be done via online networking through effective blogging - not by just being at the top of Google.

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I've held back on posting about the Martindale-Hubbell blog. I figured that despite the blog's many shortcomings that others have blogged about, the company should be lauded for blogging. In addition, they just started blogging so I thought things would improve.

Then yesterday, Jonathan Lin, Martindle-Hubbell's Director of Product Management, links to a spam blog in his post responding to my post asking 'Will Google offer better search of lawyer directories than lawyer directory websites themselves?'

By spam blog, I mean a blog that just copies other people's content (in this case, mine and other law bloggers) and republishes it. It's done in hopes to generate a few bucks for law related Google adsense ads run on the spam blog.

Linking to spam blogs is as lame as it gets. I'd give Jonathan more credit if he was doing it to get my ire up. But I'm not sure that's it. I don't know if Martindale-Hubbell understands blogs and what it even means to blog.

Today, Jonathan, responding to others' criticism of the blog concedes he just wanted to get the blog up quickly and would make needed improvements on the fly.

I made the call to get something out there quickly to begin 2008, even with known limitations, so we could at least start the conversation with you all and then make improvements as we go based on real-time feedback.

That’s the web 2.0 way right?

Ironically, I suspect that if we took the other route and did extensive research and development until we were comfortable that we got everything thing figured out, we would have ended up launching in December. And, I bet along the way, we would be equally criticized for being slow moving and “not getting it.

That slower method is how we used to do business, and it’s what we are trying to change.

That may be the 'new Martindale-Hubbell', but to me it's nuts. Martindale-Hubbell is a legacy product that's been around for 130 plus years. As a practicing lawyer for 17 years, the Martindale-Hubbell name meant a heck of a lot.

You hold yourself out as a first class company working with leading lawyers. If Martindale is going to get into something, it's got to get it right. Or least get close. If you don't know what you're doing, get some help. Companies launch good blogs in weeks and months, not years.

To his credit, Jonathan did ask for suggestions today. Here's my quick advice.

• The blog needs to be outside the Martindale website. Keeping it inside the website makes it look like advertising no matter what you do. You lack credibility using a medium that's all about transparency and credibility. Your blog posts are also going to get cited very little, if at all, in blog discussion when you put something up in a very heavily branded website you call a blog.
• Create a proper user interface for the blog. You don't get to the home page for any blog or website via a link that's number four in a side navigation bar of 20 other links.
• Create a proper comments field. There is a reason you are not getting comments. You should not require registration. And in no case should you be attempting to collect demographic information of interest to sales people.
• Get rid of all the ads & links to your other products. There's at least 25 links promoting various services of Martindale and LexisNexis. A blog is your mouth in a conversation, not a billboard.
• Set up proper management of your RSS feeds. Best I can tell your feeds are not getting indexed at Google Blog Search nor Technorati, the largest blog aggregators. No one can call when their name, their company's name, or their url is mentioned in your blog. Until you do that, you are shouting in the middle of the forest, as opposed to engaging in a conversation.
• Create a proper software architecture for SEO. The present set up for title tags, headers, and more is not getting your content indexed properly at Google. Your posts will never be found on search.

You guys have other suggestions? Appears we have Martindale's ear.

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