Skip to content

Blogs > can make lawyer instant authority on hot news topic

December 24, 2003

When you absolutely positively need to have it overnight, blogs are the answer.

There are occasions when a lawyer would like nothing better than to be the immediate trusted source for information on a hot news topic. Maybe it’s new tax legislation, an environmental accident or a product’s recall – whatever. If the public, media and prospective clients find you on the Internet the next day reporting news, information and insight on the issue you’ve got a good chance of being that trusted source. Heck, you will have become CNN news 24 hours a day on the issue. A blog can do this.


With blogging software you can add a new blog in a minute. This is not a new blog page or a new Web site page. It’s a whole new Web site built on blogging software with a new name and new url address. This new Web site is going to have separate sections for posts on each news, law, comment, what the law firm is suggesting and what role the firm is playing, if any, on the issue. This new Web site is going to be retrieved in search engine results the next day.

Best of all the cost is next to nothing. Adding a blog is free. A trained staff person can collect news from the net and publish info to the blog in an afternoon. Try to do that with a Web site – you must be kidding.

Think of the impact of being able to do an instant Web site. Over 60% of people use the Internet as the ‘go to’ place for information. That is dramatically higher when it comes to journalists, fellow lawyers and academia. When a hot topic hits, these folks are going to find this new blog created Web site at the top of search engine results.

The blog created Web site is going to be ‘chock full’ of helpful information on the issue. Not promotional information about lawyers but the kind of news, comment and information people are looking for to understand the implications of the incident or issue at hand. The law firm and its lawyers are going to be contacted by the media for quotes and more information. Prospective clients are going to contact the firm as to possible representation.

The blog platform has it all over the Web for a couple other reasons. First, folks already receiving news from your existing blogs by syndication via RSS or email will receive notice of the new blog and its posts. Second, site viewers will be adding comments to your blog posts. This creates more content and makes your blog the Web community’s gathering place to collaborate on the topic.

Look at an example. A food poisoning outbreak arising from ‘Mrs. B’s grocery chain based in Atlanta. A firm specializing in such cases sees the news and the strain of bacteria. The firm starts a new blog in a minute on ‘Mrs. B’s salmonella outbreak.’? The firm begins to do searches at google news and publishes references to that news in the new blog. The firm incorporates the information the firm already has on salmonella poisoning, its causes, how it spreads and the health injuries it causes.

Immediately the subscribers’ (public, media, colleagues etc) to other blogs of the law firm receive notice of these new posts. Anyone turning the Internet to search for information on the topic and this incident is going to find this new blog at the top of search engine results. Site viewers are commenting on the news and asking questions via the comment feature on the blog. The law firm is now one of the nation’s most trusted experts on this outbreak – not in a month or a week but the next morning.

So when you absolutely positively need to have it overnight, blogs are the answer.

Posted in: