Stroock & Stroock & Lavan communications director getting lesson on large law firm blogs

I recently posted that the communications director at Stroock & Stroock & Lavan was off base in a comment to Law.com’s Legal Technology that blogs may not be appropriate for large law firms. Others following the post are in agreement.

Michelle Golden, President & CEO of Golden Marketing, Inc., an organizational consulting and marketing company exclusively serving professional service firms throughout the U.S., in a comment to my post questioned James Ponichtera’s point that law firm blogs need a unified voice:

Why? Law firms are notorious for being single houses for diverse-minded attorneys. No one believes any firm (even 2 lawyers) has a single, unified voice!

Golden went on to comment that Ponichtera did not even understand how Internet users read blog content. He had told Law.com’s Legal Technology ‘People check blogs on a daily basis. If you’re not going to update every day, you’re not going to be a good resource.’ Golden responded:

Not exactly. With RSS feeds, updates are fed TO people as they are posted. Halfway sophisticated users don’t ‘check blogs,’ they subscribe to feeds. I use freebie Bloglines and I couldn’t even tell you the frequency of the posts to the blogs in my feed lists.

Francis Pillegi, publisher of Delaware Corporate and Commercial Litigation Blog and a partner in Fox Rothschild LLP, one of the country’s largest and oldest law firms, added his two cents on blogging and large firms saying my post that Stroock’s Ponichtera missed the boat is a must read “for anyone interested in the interfacing of blogs and large law firms…”

I really agree with Golden who says “Hopefully the word will continue to spread as to the enormous value of blogs both for marketing and for informing clients on important issues.” At this point, people, even communications experts, do not understand the medium.