Posted by Dan Slater
That was the question posed Friday by Dechert’s James Beck and Jones Day’s Mark Herrmann, co-authors of the well-read Drug and Device Law blog. Given that, for instance, Drug and Device scores 25,000 page views per month, “wouldn’t you expect at least a few of your colleagues to wander down the hall and ask two questions: (1) How did you do it? and (2) How can we replicate it?” ask Beck and Hermann. “Our firms surely benefit indirectly from the attention that this site receives. Wouldn’t our firms also benefit if they were affiliated with (or even sponsored) the most widely read securities law blog on the internet? Intellectual property blog? Tax law blog?” So why, ask Beck and Herrmann, are so many firms indifferent or unsupportive of their lawyers’ blogging efforts?
They propose four possible answers:
“Most widely read product liability blog” = “World’s tallest midget”: 25,000 pageviews is a drop in the bucket, and there’s essentially no institutional benefit to blogging. If the two of us — Beck and Herrmann, the blogging morons — want to waste our Saturday mornings feeding this beast, we should go ahead and entertain ourselves.
Power of blogosphere eludes firm management: Management is basically folks over 50 who start their days sipping a cup of coffee and reading the Journal. Only people under 40 start their days sipping a cup of coffee and checking [legal blogs].
Blogs attract the wrong eyeballs: The target market for big firms such as ours is the general counsel and C-level management of Fortune 500 companies. With all due respect to our visitors — and we love you guys; really! — you folks are younger and less important.
Where’s the money in this? It takes many hours of effort each week for the two of us to provide regular, fresh content to this site, and the amount of business generated doesn’t justify the effort. If the two of us get some personal satisfaction from blogging, no one will interfere, but firms do cost-benefit analyses of marketing initiatives, and this one flunks the test.
What do the leaders of Dechert and Jones Day have to say about the commentary? We’ve reached out to both firms and will let you know if we hear back.
Ok, LB readers, are firms missing big marketing opportunities by not encouraging more lawyers to blog? Internet marketing companies would say otherwise - but are they right?
Popularity: 82% [?]
April 4th, 2008 at 6:21 pm
Using blogs as a marketing tool is great for law firms. Even though you may not make money blogging, you’ll certainly provide a source to better expose your law firm in search engines and bring in new clients.
April 12th, 2008 at 8:25 am
Sorry, those guys might have a point for now. I find that lawyers, law students and other members of the legal fraternity are the main readers of blawgs.
But this doesn’t mean that they are justified in being indifferent. Blawgs could very well be a great marketing tool depending on the focus of the material and how they target their intended market. If law firms don’t grab the reins of this latest medium they will miss out on the opportunities to sell themselves to a wider market. The law is dynamic and so is marketing but BigLaw on the other hand - stuck in the past.
October 2nd, 2008 at 3:09 pm
I have found that blogging other lawyers is an easy way to get feed back on creative ideas. Better to embarrassed in relative anonymity than in Court or in front a room you addressing.
Blogging is also a great way to expand your reach, as an estate planning attorney I often have the need for counsel in the states my clients had resided in. When you read other’s writings and communicate back and forth you can get a feel for who you may and may not want to work with.
As for over fifty’s using the Blogosphere there are lots of us. For more info go to Estate Planning Blogger
I find most news is old news by the time it hits the papers. However, since I am a solo practitioner, I don’t have anyone to justify my blogging to other than my client’s and Landlord.
October 10th, 2008 at 11:32 am
Couldn’t agree more with Milton’s comment, we’ve been using our blog to drive traffic to our firm’s website for the last 6 months and have seen our business increase tremendously!
October 25th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
You might be interested in this series that examines how Technorati rankings can be manipulated:
On Getting Noticed — Part I
November 6th, 2008 at 5:32 am
hi i would like to know if someone were to post on a blog offensive information about a person or organisation. Is it allowed ? And is legal action the only way to make the person remove the information.
If the content sounds as if the person who post is purposely defaming the other party. What can be done to make this person take off the post.
December 16th, 2008 at 7:33 pm
Unfortunately, the legal sector is notorious for being “behind the times” in regard to technology.
Law firms need to understand that the dynamics of marketing has fundementally changed. Social Media is here to stay, and the need to interact with and generate conversations with online audiences is essential for both the firm and their clients.
But blogging isn’t for everyone..
Here are 5 reasons NOT to start a law firm blog…
http://karasmamedia.blogspot.com/2008/12/not-every-legal-firm-should-have-blog.html
May 3rd, 2009 at 7:18 am
The society is facing problems with such laws. This has to go legal and it’s needed to be sorted at the earliest
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thanx
brad pitt
Lawyer Directory
July 3rd, 2009 at 5:55 am
I worked in legal marketing for a long time before heading on to do something different in web/web 2.0. It’s nice to see that some lawyers are maybe at least catching up a bit with with times. I agree that a stand alone blog may not do much for a firm to directly get business but used as a profile raiser could really work if integrated as part of the firm’s web site news section where clients (or whoever) could access the blog and subscribe to an rss feed. Afterall, law firms send out newsletters to a mail list all the time so a blog could give people an opt-in way to choose a topic of interest.
March 3rd, 2010 at 3:58 am
Dan,
Great post it really gets us thinking. I think that this is a big question that everyone putting together a blog has to answer for themselves.
June 22nd, 2010 at 1:05 pm
Good post. We have been considering a blog to help promote our law firm, but we are concerned that ultimately the value of the posts would not be up to the standard to be truly valuable to the reader and any potential clients. In the future we might consider it again, and use some of your tips.
July 13th, 2010 at 12:14 pm
The interesting thing about blogging is the fact that people expect immediate results. Like with any SEO project, it takes a lot of time to build up your following. More often than not I see a law firms blog with a year old post date attached. If you just go through the motions and do not pay attention to the content, consistency (posting often) and your SEO, it will not work… Again it is all about patience, nothing happens over night. Having worked with over 85 Law Firms I can honestly say, those that do pay attention to their blogging and stay consistent have acquired cases from the medium. I will be posting a piece about this very topic tomorrow. Take a gander and give me some feed back, http://attymarketing.com/ !