Law.com needs comment feature added to stories

American Lawyer Media’s Law.com publishes articles/stories from ALM’s family of legal periodicals. Some of the stories are written by paid reporters, some are written by consultants and the like looking for exposure. Some are good, some are lacking. One thing they all have in common is that there’s no way for readers to comment on the story published at Law.com. In today’s world, that’s lame.

For example Jill Winder, vice president of ALM’s Law.com, has a story up this morning entitled ‘How to Increase Traffic to Your Web Site.’ She makes some good points and a few that are a little lacking. But how do I and others like me reach Jill and Law.com with our commentary and generate further discussion benefiting other Law.com readers? We can’t.

Last October, PR professional Stacy West Clark published an article in ALM’s Legal Intelligencer (published online at Law.com) on ‘law firms turning virtual.’

In the article Stacey was fairly critical of blogs, saying among other things, the following.

• Are here, for now (implying just a fad).
• Lawyer Web diaries (apparently not realizing blogs are quite a bit more).
• Raise a host of ethics, defamation and IP issues (not commenting on how such issues are being easily managed by thousands of good lawyers who are blogging).
• Can be huge liabilities if the lawyer takes a position unknowingly adverse to someone else in his or her firm (again not commenting on how many lawyers in the largest firms blog without causing such a problem).

I emailed Stacy asking why the harsh critique of blogs and asked whether blogs used properly could enhance a lawyer’s reputation. I got no response.

Wouldn’t ALM want its Law.com readers to get the best information possible? It’s not going to come from articles without commentary sometimes written by ‘experts’ with less than first hand experience on the subject on which they’re writing. That may have been good enough in the past but no longer. Internet readers expect more.

The Washington Post and USA Today already allow comments to stories. The New York Times has started adding reader comments to selected news stories. For trade periodicals, like Law.com, allowing comments is becoming the norm.

If Law.com wants to become more relevant in legal professional’s lives as a valuable resource for innovation and insight, commentary is required. We all learn more as a result – authors, editors, and readers.