Ignore blogs at your own peril
Brian Pitts, the public relations manager at Kirkland & Ellis in Chicgo, has a nice recap of my presentation to the Chicago LMA on why law firms should have blogs:
"Blogs can be a great tool for establishing a law firm and especially for building awareness of a specific practice group or individual lawyer," Bodine said. "Another way to look at a blog is to consider it a 'niche magazine' published by an attorney or firm."
They are easy to use, cheap, and are highly visible, driving traffic to the Web site. Search engines such as Google and Yahoo rank blogs highly. Once a blog is set up, it's easy to keep it fresh with new postings that you have commitment from the lawyers to contribute their thoughts.
Another selling of having a blog gives the firm and authors instant credibility and "expert" status. From a public relations perspective, blogs can be invaluable. Bodine mentioned that he has been interviewed by numerous reporters who heard of him through his blog. Savvy journalists navigate the blog world to find story ideas.
Patently-O -- a patent law blog by McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff LLP -- gets more than 30,000 visitors to blog each week to read the latest patent law news and information. The firm has gotten some many new business leads, including an inquiry from a FORTUNE 100 company. See http://patentlaw.typepad.com/patent/. Author Dennis Crouch said the blog patent prosecution and litigation work, and referrals from lawyers he's never met - but who have read the blog.
The No. 1 Law Blog according to Blawg.org, is Butler Rubin Saltarelli & Boyd, written by litigator Patrick Lamb. See http://patricklamb.typepad.com/perfectservice. He says his blog is the best marketing tool he's used in his 20 years of law practice.
For the full story, see http://www.lmachicago.org/news/news.asp?news_id=454.
