Our discussion has been out on the open in the comments on my blog post about the ABA survey.

Hornsby is on the ABA's Standing Committee on the Delivery of Legal Services, the committee that conducted the survey and that is studying the survey's ramifications on lawyers and the public we serve. He's also a good guy, someone I have a lot of respect for and, to his credit, he's willing to come online and discuss the survey.

Hornsby and I have been sharing our respective interpretations of the survey as it relates to blogs and social media. We both agree with what they survey found, the leading way people find a lawyer is to turn to a trusted source - trusted sources being friends, relatives, co-employees, business associates, and the like.

I believe blogs and social media accelerate relationships and word of mouth, meaning a lawyer will receive work by referrals from trusted sources. Hornsby has been looking at blogs and social media as places where people would go directly to find a lawyer.

I was struck by one of Hornsby's points regarding blogs.

The report clearly indicates that one possible explanation for [people not turning to blogs to find a lawyer] is that few lawyers who are in small practice settings and are likely to provide personal legal services are blogging or using social networking options as part of their practices. In fact, what we found is that a higher percentage of people are interested in turning to blogs to help find a lawyer than the percentage of solo and small firm lawyers who have blogs.

So the ABA believes people are interested in getting legal information from solo and small law firm lawyer blogs, but there are not enough solo and small firm law blogs. Interesting.

I responded to Hornsby that we at LexBlog also know how much work blogging solo and small firm lawyers are getting and how many people they are truly helping. We don't need a survey to find that out.

So O'Keefe and the ABA may be in agreement: "If more solo and small firm lawyers were blogging in a way that engages consumers and small business people in their towns, there would be greater access to the law."

I enjoyed the ABA Annual a great deal. Being a lawyer of 30 years and having practiced for 20 years, I enjoy sharing war stories and learning from the experiences of other lawyers. Plus, as most of you know, I think lawyers, by and large, are some of the finer people you'd want to meet and hang out with.

It was gratifying to see the role social media is now playing in our profession. No less than 12 sessions were on various aspects of social media - not just for marketing/business development, but for how to use social media for professional growth and how to advise clients on various aspects of social media. Countless lawyers were using Twitter to stay connected to happenings.

At receptions lawyers I had not met before were coming up to me saying they heard about my leadership on the social media front during this session or that. That felt a little strange being a snot nosed kid from rural Wisconsin. All I was doing was what came naturally to me, helping others by sharing what I was learning. Isn't that what being a lawyer is all about? Service to others.

What struck me though was the lack of engagement by the ABA's leadership. Who was the president of the ABA this year? Who's the executive director of the ABA? When I asked the later question during my presentation, only two people knew. One of whom was Ed Adams.

Why had the ABA's leadership chosen not to engage American lawyers through the fastest growing, and arguably the most effective relationship building tool around, social media?

Sure there are some ABA Twitter handles under the ABA moniker. But who were the people behind them? How could I build a relationship with these folks when I didn't know their name. Why weren't these ABA employees, who are probably great people working their tails off to serve others, out engaging people and building relationships online in a real and meaningful way.

Does the ABA not let employees use Twitter in their own name? Do ABA employees feel chilled from really being 'out there' in their use of social media? Are ABA employees adrift on social media when they don't see ABA leadership embracing the use of social media. I don't know. But the fact that I'm wondering is a problem for the ABA's leadership.

Social media doesn't begin with committees and studies. It begins with leaders understanding that social media (Blogging, Twitter, effective use of LinkedIn, Facebook) is nothing more than engaging your audience so as to develop real and meaningful relationships.

The ABA can't study where social media is going and how to use it while at the same time the ABA is becoming less relevant to every day lawyers across the country. Doing that means using members' dues to market and advertise the association in an attempt to get more members, while ignoring what 's becoming the business development tool of choice for leading non-profits and Fortune 200's - social media.

I asked on Twitter a couple weeks for the names of ABA leaders who were embracing social media or at least testing its waters as an example to other ABA leaders. I got no response. None of my 8,500 Twitter followers, most of whom are in legal profession, responded with one single name. Amazing.

When Bill Pollak, the CEO of American Lawyer Media, the leading publisher of legal periodicals, witnessed the advent of social media, he did what a leader would do. He tried it out and began to use a blog and Twitter to engage his employees, partners, and other business leaders. My guess is members of his team learned from him that social media is okay, it's not scary, and that you can build real and meaningful relationships through its use.

Pollak led by example, not by forming committees to study social media. That would have been shirking his responsibility to lead.

Where's the President of the ABA and Executive Director of the ABA on all this? I don't know. I've never run across their names online among all the news and information shared by leaders in our legal profession. And I consume a lot of legal industry news and information.

I do know their names now. I looked them up. Stephen Zack is the ABA President, Carolyn Lamm is Past President, and William Robinson is President-Elect. Jack Rives is the Executive Director.

If you guys are interested in learning how to use social media to engage your audience and build relationships with your ABA teammates, American lawyers, business leaders, and their influencers (other association leaders, bloggers, reporters, and publishers), just give me a shout.

I'm happy to meet with you. Chicago is a great city - and as I said, I like lawyers.

I thoroughly enjoyed my time at TechShow though this 52 year old body has a hard time staying up to bar time with the likes of Ben Stevens, Dominic Jaar, Adriana Linares, and Ben Schorr (there's many more whose names slip my mind).

Working the concierge desk gave me the opportunity to meet a ton of folks. Existing LexBlog Clients and fellow speakers were among the many I enjoyed talking with.

If you haven't been to TechShow in the past, start going. There's much to learn from presentations that are heavy on practical information that can be put to immediate use.

You'll receive plenty of inspiration to use technology in ways to make your personal and professional life more rewarding. And, perhaps most importantly, are the life long friends you'll meet and get to know.

I first attended TechShow in 1997. As I told Adriana Linares, but for the inspiration I received there and at a Web marketing conference in California, I'd still be practicing law (not that that's a bad thing). I would have never gone on to found Prairielaw.com and now, LexBlog.

Many lawyers accept their fate, foregoing greater heights within their reach. Going to conferences like TechShow can inspire you to reach for something more. I strongly encourage you to do so.

Thanks to Tom Mighell and the other board members who were kind enough to give me the privilege of presenting (with Greg Siskind, the Godfather of legal marketing even). I hope I didn't let you down. And I look forward to attending for many years to come.