ABA Lawyers Behind the Times
Only 9% of ABA members are aware of someone in their firm maintaining a weblog, or blog, while over half (55%) said no one in their firm was maintaining a weblog and 36% did not know. These statistics from the 2006 American Bar Association legal Technology Resource Center Survey Report show that ABA lawyers are stuck in the last century when it comes on online marketing.It's a sad state of affairs. Many of today's smart lawyers are actively blogging. According to Blawg.org there are 1,391 lawyer blogs in 214 categories. According to an article by Jim Calloway and Tom Mighell in the ABA's own Law Practice Today e-newsletter, a new blog is created every second of the day. 8,000,000 people have started blogs as 32,000,000 Americans are blog readers. But apparently few ABA lawyers are doing either.
"As in previous surveys, e-Lawyering initiatives still are not taking off; self-help legal guides (12%) are the only online legal service offered on more than 10% of respondents' firms' websites, while other services, such as client intake questionnaires (just shy of 10%), real-time consultations with prospective clients (2%), online form preparation (5%), online dispute resolution (less than 1%), expert systems (1 %), showed no significant gains over previous years," the report states on page 13.
Respondents to the 2006 survey represent a wide cross section of firm sizes:
- Twenty two percent of respondents are solo practitioners
- 27% work in small firms (2-9 attorneys)
- 20% are in firms with 10 to 49 attorneys
- 7% are in firms with 50 to 99 attorneys
- 23% are in large firms (100 or more attorneys).
This year more large firms and fewer firms with 2 to 9 attorneys are represented than in the 2004-2005 survey, by about 5% each.
If you're not familiar with blogs and online marketing, please join the ABA Law Practice Management Section, and start reading their publications and start attending their meetings.
