My Volkswagen isn’t a blog and neither is this…

What does my 2001 Volkswagen Beetle have in common with a FindLaw law firm blog? At least one thing, both are not blogs.

To my credit I have not tried to sell my beetle to a law firm as a blog – even though it’s only got 25,000 miles and is in pretty good shape. To FindLaw’s discredit, they’re passing off to reputable lawyers something as a blog that’s as much a blog as my Volkswagen.

Bob Ambrogi, commenting on a law firm website designed and hosted by FirmSite, a division of Thomson FindLaw, called FindLaw on it yesterday.

A Long Island, N.Y., IP lawyer recently sent out a press release announcing her new Web site, called Intellectulaw.com. Like many sites these days, it includes a link to what it calls the Intellectulaw blog. At first glance, it looks like a blog. It has headlines and several items of text and a sidebar with various buttons for subscribing to its feed. But this is not a blog, it is a page of static text. Even worse, the entire page of text is a promotion for the FirmSite service, disguised as an interview with the lawyer.

Even more ironic as Bob noted, here’s a quote from the lawyer on this supposed blog page:

So it is very important that when creating their Web sites with FindLaw, lawyers take the time to understand the added value they receive and the leverage they can enjoy both personally and professionally.

Law firms may have gotten away with under performing Web sites without doing much damage to themselves. But buying law firm blogs from FindLaw, which from the looks of this does not have a clue what a lawyer blog is, is going to end up holding the law firm up to public ridicule on the net.