Do you think lawyers need a seprarate LLC for ownership of their blogs?

A lawyer back East emailed last evening inquiring whether any of LexBlog’s lawyer clients had set up an LLC just for the corporate protection for their blog – or even considered doing so.

Reason for asking was that with the firm’s permission she was going it alone on the blog. Though her relationship with the firm would be disclosed on the blog, the blog would not be branded in the firm’s name and the individual lawyer would own the blog.

The situation of ‘going it alone’ is not an uncommon one for lawyers. Even in large law firms. But we’ve not had any clients, that I know of, set up a separate corporate entity for their blog.

Though I’m a lawyer I can’t give legal advice. But I am not sure that setting up an LLC would be necessary on the liability side. In the unlikely event, someone came after the lawyer, plaintiff’s counsel could make a compelling case that the lawyer was doing the blog to generate work for the lawyer (going through the firm) and the corporate veil may be able to be pierced.

One area where a corp may, I guess, be nice (hedging like lawyer) is to make clear the ownership issue. When the blog becomes a strong asset as far as a reputation enhancer and business generator, you do not want to have any grey area as to who owns it. The blog would be branded as the individual lawyers and copyrighted as theirs, but this could provide additional protection.

But even then, it’s best to get ownership cleared up right from the start. A quick email exchange with a copy signed by each party (to override corporate bylaws or partnership agreements on firm owning everything) may do the trick. With many administrative partners holding blogs in such low esteem, getting such a sign off ought to be as hard as agreeing to your ownership of a rally monkey you picked while using the firm’s tickets for an Angel’s game.

What do you think of setting up a separate corporation for your lawyer blogging? Know of any lawyer who’s done so?