Legal Blogging: How to Craft the Right Strategy

For the better part of a decade, law firms have successfully used blogs to bring in high-quality work. Now, there is new industry research that measures the impact of blogs as business development tools.
A recent survey by communications firm Greentarget measured how in-house counsel use and perceive blogs. The findings have raised some eyebrows:

• In-house attorneys exhibit widespread trust (84%) in blogs.
• They read attorney-authored or firm-branded blogs more often than they read blogs written by actual journalists.
• More than half of respondents said they think a prominent blog will influence clients to hire one firm over another.
• While daily blog readership dropped 10% from 2010, weekly and monthly readership more than made up for it, shedding new light on the quality versus quantity debate.

Decision makers are relying on blogs for critical business information and in deciding which law firm to hire.
Law firms, in turn, are increasing the number of blogs they publish. Recent analysis found that 68 of the top 100 firms are publishing a total of 272 blogs. This is up from 156 blogs in 2010 — a 74% increase.
Given the increase in the number of law blogs, the question becomes, what makes one blog successful and one not? The answer is developing a strategy based on engagement.
Relationships and a strong word-of-mouth reputation are how lawyers have always found their best work — the Internet doesn’t change that. It is a relationship and reputation accelerator.

Outline for a Winning Strategy

1. Identify the type of work and clients you want. The top blogs focus on specific practice areas and vertical industries, not firm brands.
2. Identify your target audience. While clients and prospective clients are important, influencers and amplifiers are more important. Engaging reporters, association leaders, publishers, conference coordinators and leading bloggers gets you seen and referenced as a thought leader.
3. Listen. Listening to what is being written and shared on the Internet is more important than content. The quickest way to earn someone’s attention is by listening to and sharing what they have to say.
4. Network. Blogging is all about networking, not marketing. Be it interviews, quoting the work of others or even comments, use the blog as a way to introduce yourself to new people.
5. Invest the time. Like any business development effort, blogging takes time. Unlike advertising, for which people expect immediate results, networking through the Internet to build relationships and a strong reputation can take a year or two — though, that’s faster than doing so offline.
6. Complement blogging with short-form social media. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and even a website are all roads leading to a lawyer’s true identity: his or her blog.

Lawyer Role Models

Looking to other lawyers who’ve experienced business development success is a good place to start. Relationships and engagement are the keys to a blog’s success, per New York attorney Peter Mahler of Farrell Fritz, who publishes a blog covering business dissolution matters titled New York Business Divorce.

“My blog has not only been a powerful business generation tool for a niche practice like mine, but it has also opened the door to a host of professionally rewarding relationships with other lawyers, law professors, judges and experts. My blog’s success comes from consistently posting about interesting topics in an engaging style that tells the reader not only what happened in this or that case, but why it happened, how it fits into the bigger picture and what the reader’s takeaway should be, all of which allows me to demonstrate my expertise as a business divorce lawyer.”

In addition to making his legal practice more fulfilling, Chicago attorney R. David Donoghue of Holland and Knight, publisher of both the Chicago IP Litigation Blog and the Retail Patent Litigation blogs, reports that his blogs have been a powerful source of both reputation and business generation. “While it took time for my blogs to begin generating business, over time they have helped generate significant patent litigation matters,” he says.

Execution of Your Blogging Strategy

Like any business development effort, execution is key. Some law firms will have individual lawyers blogging, while other law firms will blog by practice group or industry.
Philadelphia attorney Sean Wajert publishes his own blog, Mass Tort Defense, regarding defense of mass tort cases and large scale product liability claims. At the same time, Wajert is chair of the mass torts and product liability practice group for Dechert, an 800-lawyer multinational law firm.
The Privacy Law Blog, published by the Privacy and Data Security Group of Proskauer, another global law firm, has 16 lawyers contributing as writers with one lawyer serving as editor.
Though quality over quantity is key, good law blogs publish two to four times a month, with many choosing to publish more often.
Developing a social media policy which complements the firm’s existing communication policy helps guide lawyers on issues such as taking a strong position on a law blog and conflicts of interest.
The blogs that in-house counsel want to read give them information and insights they can’t get elsewhere. In revealing that in-house counsel read firm-branded blogs more often than blogs by professional reporters, the Greentarget survey respondents signal an important trend: They see value in going directly to unfiltered sources of information from true subject matter experts. Journalists are no longer the primary conduits to a mass audience. Self-publishing means attorneys can go there directly.
Even with a strategy in place, attorneys want to see the blog’s impact, that it isn’t falling on deaf ears. Greentarget’s report indicates that may not be the easiest thing to do, but it’s still happening.

Is it Resonating?

The Greentaret survey touched on an interesting “invisible user” phenomenon. The research reflects that 68% of respondents use social media to “listen” exclusively. So, if a blog isn’t generating comments or tweets aren’t being retweeted, that does not mean in-house counsel aren’t depending on these platforms for information and hiring decisions. Social listening campaigns to measure the effectiveness of a blog’s content strategy — compelling metrics for consumer-oriented blogs — don’t necessarily apply to the in-house legal community.
Lawyers and firms need to focus on the right set of measurable objectives when it comes to blogging.
Rather than focusing on data-based metrics, a mistake that many law firms make, the real ROI for blogging and social media activity should be measured in the following ways:

1. Is your reputation being enhanced?
2. Is your network of relationships growing?
3. Are you establishing yourself as a subject matter expert?
4. Are you getting not just clients, but high-quality clients?

Law firms have access to valuable information and perspective and should view blogs as a way to leverage this information to build and deepen relationships with clients and allied organizations.
Lawyers and firms are arguably in the greatest of positions to self-publish and produce compelling content because they are at the intellectual apex of most legal, regulatory and economic developments impacting business worldwide.
In capitalizing on this, lawyers and law firms have the potential to bring in high quality work with a level of efficiency and interpersonal engagement they have never experienced before.


by Kevin O'Keefe
mashable.com