Lawyer blog growth : LexBlog plays key role

Tom Mighell, Senior Counsel and Litigation Technology Support Coordinator at Cowles & Thompson and one of the pioneers in lawyer blogs, posts over at Between Lawyers that he expects 2005 to be a banner year as far as the number of new lawyer blogs.

I’ve been tracking blawgs over at Inter Alia for over three years now, and if there was a year for a ‘gold rush’ in lawyer blogs, it was 2003 — by my highly unscientific count, over 260 blawgs were created that year; just over 200 were created in 2004. 2005 stands an excellent chance of beating the 2003 total, however.

And in the ‘I am not worthy’ category, Tom believes my company, LexBlog, is playing a role in the growth of lawyer blogs. Note it was guys like Tom who turned me onto lawyer blogs in the first place.

I suspect that the numbers are increasing for a few reasons: 1) blogs are now considered much more ‘mainstream,’ and the average Internet-using lawyer is getting in on the act; and 2) lawyers are realizing (thanks to folks like Kevin O’Keefe) that blogs are good marketing tools.

What does Tom see for the future of lawyer blogs? In addition to academic blogs by law professors, law students and lawyer collaboration efforts, Tom sees an increasing number of solos, small firms and large firms using lawyer blogs as a marketing tool.