How Legal Blogging Has Changed in the Last Fifteen Years

How has legal blogging changed in the last fifteen years?

That was one of the questions a veteran blogging lawyer asked me in a consultation this morning.

He started blogging on a employment law related niche awhile ago. He had good success, as measured in growth in business, from blogging.

Enough that as he told me when we met for lunch back in Boston five years ago, he put a large addition on his home. Their kids are younger so the blog pays for college later on. ;)

My answer to the question, ”Not much.”

A good blog focuses on a niche, identified strategically based on what you want to do and who you want to do it for.

The blog is still written in a real and authentic conversational tone.

And most importantly the blog liberally references the writing and reporting of influencers. This way you build a network of those who write about you and demonstrate to clients and prospective clients that you stay abreast of developments in your niche.

What has changed is that legal blogs are looked at as credible sources of legal information and commentary. Enough so that lawyers read blogs in their research and occasionally cite them.

Fifteen years ago it was darn near, “What’s a blog, and why would I need one.”

Social media is the second change to the blogging environment. We didn’t have LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook back then.

While some folks think social media has decreased the relevance and impact of legal blogs, that’s not the case.

The lawyer who writes a leading legal publication is looked at as highly credible. ”They wrote the book on it.”

The blog is the foundation of the house. Social media enables a legal blogger to take their blog out and engage people with blog posts being the currency of conversation.

Finally, an awful lot of legal bloggers are not good in developing business from blogging.

They don’t know how to blog in a strategic fashion so as to, in effect, network through Internet.

So just like fifteen or twenty years when we started all this legal blogging, the competition is weak.