Law Technology News included on its cover a story about blogging and the law firm.
While I agree with some of what the article says. Such as find a niche. Very important. Even if you have a practice where you do more than one practice area. You can target a different blog to each practice area.
I don’t agree with some major points made in the article.
The article states that “a blog can be set up in minutes using simple templates.” But in the next sentence it says, “[b]ut while the physical set-up wasn’t expensive, the real cost was in attorney time.”
I set up my first blog using Typepad in about an hour. From start to finish, I was live in an hour. The firm mentioned in the article stated that “we probably each put in more than 100 hours in one month.” And they go on to state, ” [g]etting the blog off the ground was time-intensive and took up a lot of non-billable hours…”
Don’t listen to them. It does not take “100 hours” to set up a blog and it is NOT time-intensive to do so. At least they say, “it was worth the investment.”
I guess the biggest disappointment I have with the article is that its focus is on that of a large firm. One firm mentioned has “about 100 attorneys.” Where is the mention of the small firm or even the SOLO? If you truly look at the blogs, (NOT blawgs) on the internet that are done by lawyers, I would venture to guess that a large percentage of them would be done by solos.
My biggest concern with this article is that I don’t want it to cause anyone to NOT blog because it takes a huge amount of time. It doesn’t and you should do it.
Why is it that no matter what I pick up and read that is about anything dealing with a law firm, it almost always is about a FIRM? Come on LTN, lets get an article about a SOLO that is out in front of the crowd in how they use technology or market their firm.
Hi Grant. I totally agree. It shouldn't take 100 hours to set up a blog. Although tweaking & customizing the template can be an ongoing process.
And unless you're Dennis Kennedy with an 'A list' readership, I don't think a 100 hours per month is appropriate either. Writing great posts a little less frequently, and then adding hours, justified by the value one's blog brings (increased profile or new files) would seem more prudent.
Grant, I agree with your points. I set up The Mac Lawyer blog all by myself in about an hour and with little expense. As I have discussed in my presentations, blogs are easy to set up and easy to maintain.
They spent 100 hours per month on their blog? A statement like that makes me wonder what they were thinking. Perhaps if the blog were extremely scholarly (like a law review article) and required a large amount of research it could theoretically possible to spend that much time, but even then I doubt it.
Maybe the author of that article was actually trying to DIScourage others from starting blogs, despite his purported purpose. You are much more honest about the time, effort, and expense required than that shown in Law Technology News. Keep up the great work.