Coaching Lawyers To Blog, a Gift Revived

Jayne Reardon, Executive Director of the Illinois Supreme Court Commision on Professionalism, interviewed me a couple weeks ago on the topic of legal blogging.

The interview was inspiring (more than she knows) as we talked of blogging as a means of contributing to the law, providing lawyers and the public greater access to the law, raising one’s repution as a lawyer and building relationships.

Inspiring for me for a couple reasons. One, lawyers and legal marketers mostly talk of blogs as a cheap marketing gimmick. Many will unethically have ghost writers imply the “blog” was written by the lawyer. Reardon’s interview took legal blogging to another level – why legal blogging is important to lawyers and the public, and how so.

And two, it felt good to discuss with someone what legal blogging is all about – how it works – how lives change, both the blogging lawyers and the public recipients of the information. I don’t get that opportunity every day.

For eighteen years, I’ve been talking about legal blogging as a way for lawyers to help people and raise their reputations as a lawyer. Eighteen years is a long time.

I’ve been thinking I’m too tired and too old to keep waving the legal blogging flag – and to keep teaching lawyers what blogging means, the same way over again.

But people don’t quit sharing a gift they have, and for whatever reason I a have gift for helping legal professionals blog – for themselves and the the public. Kind of crazy.

Coaches don’t just stop coaching players how to play defense, run a route or play the pivot. Bill Bilicheck is a on run of 30 years as coach of the Patriots, and Greg Popovich (Pop), 25 years as coach of the Spurs.

There’s also a lot of lawyers out there today I can help who were ten, fifteen or twenty years old – a far cry from being a lawyer – back when I started coaching on legal blogging.

Reardon’s interview along with some encouraging words from a couple friends, a couple inspiring recent visits to my alma mater, University of the Pacific – McGeorge School of Law, and a couple coaching sessions with solo practitioners last week have fueled me.

“With a little help from my friends”

And the interview…