Will law firms have no other alternative than to blog?

For decades law firms have leveraged the intellectual capital of their lawyers for client development purposes. The goal being to establish the firm’s lawyers as thought leaders and trusted authorities in their areas of practice.

Other than lawyers speaking and networking at legal and industry conferences, the primary means of sharing this intellectual capital to establish brand expertise and word of mouth reputation was through the traditional media.

Public relations professionals got media coverage, either highlighting law firm accomplishments or having lawyers serve as sources and be quoted as experts for reporters. Lawyers wrote articles for mainstream or trade publications.

With the rapid deterioration of newspapers and mainstream media, can law firms realistically expect traditional media to be there much longer as a means to share the law firm’s intellectual capital? Add to that the declining number of Americans who read magazines, newspapers, and the like or watch traditional news shows on television.

Just yesterday, the New York Times David Carr, who covers the business media, lamented that business news, as we have come to know it, is over.

So you might expect the business press to be striking up the band and restocking the cigar cabinet. Instead, Forbes, a magazine that sells a beau idéal of capitalism, announced last week that it was cutting a quarter of its already decimated staff. The Wall Street Journal’s Boston bureau — historically a hothouse of game-changing business coverage — is being closed.

Fortune magazine had already cut back to 18 issues a year from 25 and this week will be whacking anew at staff along with other Time Inc. magazines. BusinessWeek was sold for parts to Bloomberg a few weeks ago.

So, while the business of business may be back, the business of covering it with heroic narratives and upbeat glossy spreads most certainly is not. And probably never will be. ……Writers and editors who cover business now know that the jig is up, that those bespoke suits are put on one leg at a time by men that seem far less Olympian than they once did.

A recent survey of bloggers commissioned by Technorati and conducted by Penn, Schoen & Berland is also ominous news for traditional media.

• 73% believe blogs are taken more seriously as source of news and information.
• 60% believe most people will get news and info from blogs in next 5 years, with 40% believing newspapers will not survive the next 10 years.
• 63% say that blogging has led them to become more involved in things they are passionate about.

Admittedly the survey is limited to bloggers, but there’s little question the public’s consumption of news and information from blogs is rising geometrically while traditional media and print viewership and readership is on the steep decline.

Businesses, including sports teams, have turned to blogging to get their message out. There were no longer reporters around to do so.

With the advent of the Internet a decade ago law firms began to archive articles and related content on their websites. But getting the firm’s target audience to read that content on the firm’s website has met with very limited success.

Already, nearly half of the largest 200 law firms in this country are blogging. Their blog content, in addition to being consumed directly by clients, prospective clients, and referral sources, is being automatically syndicated to mainstream media such as the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. Such syndication taking place without any effort from the law firm or the need for a reporter.

By citing and commenting on lawyer’s blogs, other business, legal, and industry blogs are further syndicating law firm blog content. Law blog content is also being shared via other social media such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

With the decline of traditional media and the growing number of current business leaders and the entire next generation of business leaders consuming their news and info via new media, do law firms have any other alternative than to blog?