Lawyer blogs and trust : The discussion continues

The ‘experts’ findings that the public does not trust bloggers is drawing real life stories from bloggers that conflict those findings.

I posted a couple days ago referencing Bill Ives’ post about how people do trust the person whose blog they read. Bill continues the discussion this morning referencing a couple situations.

One is Associate Harvard Professor, Andrew McAfee, writing on the value of a blog, who credits his blog for his reputation in the IT field that led to his selection as number 38 on the top 100 Most Influential People in IT by Ziff Davis.

Andrew also highlights another example, that being his Facebook friend, Paul Levy, the CEO of Boston’s Beth Israel Hospital.

He (Paul) brought up the same point – that he can blog on issues he cares about as much as he wants. If the topic is of broad interest and his posts are good, they’ll continue to be read and can help shape thinking on the issue. It occurred to me that without a blog, his ability to do this is greatly reduced. Because of his position he might get to write a single opinion piece in the Boston Globe, and I guess his staff could continue to send out PR releases, but that’s about it. His blog greatly amplifies his voice.

And from New York criminal lawyer Scott Greenfield, who’s become a trusted legal commentator (whether he’ll admit or not):

…It’s all about credibility. Who has it and why. There are three primary types of credibility, attributed, ascribed and attained. A snitch, for example, is endowed with attributed credibility, because a cop somewhere says that the snitch is trustworthy. The credibility of the cop is attributed to the snitch, even though the judge doesn’t know the snitch from a hole in the wall.

Lawyers have ascribed credibility. We are licensed professionals, having passed a bar exam and been given the imprimatur of the state to be competent to represent people. Our legal opinions, therefore, are theoretically credible by virtue of our education, licensure and status.

But the best credibility is attained. It means we’ve earned it through our efforts to be credible, to be worthy of someone’s belief. After scrutiny of our actions, comments, thoughts and analysis, readers have come to the conclusion that we can be trusted to be accurate and thoughtful. To borrow from John Houseman, we obtained our credibility the old-fashioned way; We earned it.

Sure there are going to be blogs published by folks offering little of value and who don’t know what they are doing. For all I know they may be the majority of bloggers.

We even have lawyers and legal marketing professionals who think blogs are nothing more than a tool to achieve high search engine rankings. They don’t give a dam whether they’re offering anything of value or whether they get their work from a sign on the urinal wall or a blog – ‘Just make my phone ring.’

But we have some wonderful lawyers who over a period of time have built up a relationship of trust with their readers. A relationship that is going to serve the lawyer and the public for years to come.