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Law Librarians and Legal Marketers Raising the Reputations of Lawyers, Together

Law librarians and legal marketers working together to raise the reputations of their firm’s lawyers.

I wish this were true, but I am not seeing much of it, when it comes to publishing.

Law librarians are at the center of the law – and especially legal publishing and legal knowledge management – when it comes to law firms.

At the same time, lawyers write – publish – to raise their reputations and build a book a business.

Writing may be the single most important thing that lawyers do to grow business.

Historically, lawyers wrote in bar association magazines, niche legal treatises by large legal publishers, journals and the like.

The Internet democratized publishing for lawyers. The gatekeepers who decided which lawyers would be published were gone.

Today, a lawyer can publish a blog on a niche and build relationships and a reputation they could have only dreamed of twenty years ago.

Seems that lawyer should be working with the law librarians and the knowledge officers in a firm, as much as the legal marketing and business development professionals.

Going to law librarian conferences I hear discussion of the law, legal areas that need more attention, innovation in the delivery of legal information and innovation in the delivery of legal services.

As the founder of a legal blogging company, I get invigorated hearing this discussion – the law. I went to law school to make a difference, a difference using the law and being learned in the law.

A couple legal librarian conferences have asked me to speak this year about the aggregation and curation of legal blogs in America.

They are looking to see how the valuable insight and commentary of legal bloggers can play a role in the law.

The librarians are looking to offer feedback on the aggregation and curation of legal blogs – to improve search across the aggregation of all legal blogs and to incorporate legal blogs into mainstream research channels including secondary law.

Imagine, lawyers – and their blogs – being recognized for the role they play in the advancement of the law in various niches. Building reputation big time!

Legal marketing conferences have not shown any interest in looking at the subject.

Not dismissing the marketing and business development folks, they’re some of the more talented and hard working professionals I know.

But they’re unlikely to be researching across legal blogs as part of their job, reading the law, presenting on the law at conferences, discussing the organization of the law, talking on innovation in legal research and working on legal knowledge management.

There’s a good number of law librarians who even keep lists of legal blogs. Crazy, but they dig the law and legal blogs, just as the lawyers looking to publish legal blogs do.

Knowing this, why not get the law librarians involved in the process of legal blogging – and in the aggregation and curation of the firm’s blogs – on the firm’s site and across the net.

Opportunity awaits to those willing to do something different.