Hello readers!

I’d like to introduce myself as the new webmaster of Lawfirmblogging.com.  I’d like to thank Nathan for the opportunity to take over a great site.

My name is Stephen Palmer and I’ve been building and marketing websites since 1998.  It’s hard to believe it was almost ten years ago when I realized that working exclusively on the internet and ACTUALLY making a living from it was what I wanted to do.

It will be my goal here to provide my personal insight and methodologies on internet marketing and development that I’ve spent the last 10 years learning.

Things to come:

A new site theme- I’ve already started a new design template which I think everyone will enjoy.
Additional Services- Time permitting I will be available to select clients for design, development, SEO and law firm marketing consulting.
Law Firm Directory- The addition of a search engine optimized law firm directory will not only help this site grow, but all of our readers, clients and partner’s websites grow.

You may have noticed some tweaks I’ve made to the site already, In my next post I’ll explain what I did and why it’s so crucial to your success.

-Steve-

Popularity: 16% [?]

I just got an email about the 11th Annual Webby Awards, which has a category for Law. From the Webby Category:

Law

Web sites for law firms, legal service providers, pro-bono legal services, litigation support, and self-help legal information. Sites that feature content on legal issues, trials, law and business issues, court decisions or legal advocacy.

From the email I received:

The awards, hailed by the New York Times as “the online equivalent of an Oscar”, officially launched their Call For Entries last week. Justice Learning took home the top prize at the 10^th Annual Webby Awards, while sites from Court TV, Jurist, and FindLaw were among the nominees.

If your firm has a site that you think is Webby-worthy, I would definitely encourage you to enter. While designing your firm’s site with an award in mind is an absolutely awful idea (you’re trying to get clients and make money….not have a pretty site), the converse is also true: If you’ve got a great site that is really working well for you, maybe you deserve an award!

And as any law firm knows, a little bit of nationwide good publicity never hurts.

Popularity: 17% [?]

I’m sure most of this blog’s readers have heard of the recent controversy over the SuperLawyer designation. In short, a committee appointed by the New Jersey Supreme Court decided that calling yourself a “Super” lawyer violates the professional code of conduct.

So, I think I’ve got the answer.

This morning, I created an award. I’ll give it out each year, and the selection process is absolutely a no-brainer. There are just two qualifications:

1) You need to be an attorney.
2) You have to post a comment on the Adequate Attorney page.

All adequate attorney honorees are encouraged to display the following graphic on their blog:

Popularity: 16% [?]

Google’s popular Blogger service has announced a new beta. Finally blogger is giving users new features, such as the ability to categorize posts and a drag-and-drop template editor.

As Google always does, this beta is only available to a limited number of people (invitation only). If you’re using Blogger and want to try the beta, sign in and you’ll need to indicate that you want to switch to the new beta. Maybe you’ll be one of the lucky ones.

Popularity: 7% [?]

I want to try something different here.

We all know that legal blogging is getting very popular and is changing the way law firms market, the way attorneys share their opinions and expertise, and how blogging changes the “conversation.” So, given the fact that legal blogging is relatively new, we can be sure that there will be some fallout or issues that result from blogging.

So, I’d like to open the floor to speculation. Let me first give some examples of things that have already happened:

1. Because of blogging, well-known attorney bloggers will leave their firms and go solo.

2. Because of blogging, a large law firm will receive an incalculable amount of bad publicity for firing a prominent legal blogger.

I don’t want to limit this to the attorney blogging world. I’d also like to include legal issues that arise because of blogs.

3. Because of blogging, companies will fire their employees for pictures posted on their blogs.

4. Because of blogging, cases will be retried after attorneys realize a juror posted disparaging comments about the defendant before the trial.

So, here are a couple of predictions I have. Let me know if they’ve already happened and I’ll put them on the “checked” list:

1. Because of blogging, investigators will be able to identify a murderer who assumes their blog is anonymous.

2. Because of blogging, an employee will disclose details of illegal activities within their company, resulting in a book deal.

Please add your predictions in the comments section. I plan to keep this post updated regularly.

Popularity: 6% [?]

I just saw another post on Denise Howell’s departure from Reed Smith after writing the last post, and had to point to it: Blogging World Abuzz as Attorney Mom is Fired.

So there’s another angle to the story. Now, not only is Reed Smith known as the firm that fired a prolific and influencial blogger…..they’re also known as the firm that doesn’t support working mothers.

So is it true that Reed Smith doesn’t like bloggers or mothers? That’s absolutely irrelevant. Regardless of what happened, that’s the perception right now. I would hate to be the person responsible for putting a positive spin on this PR nightmare.

Popularity: 6% [?]