Lawyers.com blogs update

Had dinner last night with Joe Douress, SVP of LexisNexis Client Development, and Pete Previte, who works with Joe heading up some of LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbel’s business development initiatives.

Shared my take that Lawyers.com’s lawyer blogs are not really blogs. Pete offered that they’re just getting started and that much of what I posted about lawyers.com blogs they’ll have coming over the next year.

To LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell’s credit, they’re developing an opportunity for their lawyer customers an opportunity to publish content in an easy to use environment. They’re not trying to develop, at least for now, a full blown blog product which provides lawyers an independent blog viewable by Internet users outside the Lawyers.com environment.

Not sure I would have launched ‘blogs’ as Lawyers.com did without the features that make something a blog and with a few of the bugs being displayed. Lawyers.com ‘blogs’ is already drawing criticism from influential small firm law.

But in a large organization, things get done in smaller steps. Thats probably why I’m not there anymore. ;)

I expect Lawyers.com to have success in getting lawyers to participate in this content publishing. When you have 30,000 or 40,000 law firm customers, a 2 to 5% penetration rate is significant.

I also expect lawyers looking for a more complete turnkey solution offering an independent blog site to turn to a professional blog solution like that from LexBlog.

And despite some of my criticism of LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell’s products, Joe and his team are wonderful people. Wish them nothing but the best.