Blogging

Your blog is your brand

In two recent posts Kevin O’Keefe follow-ups on why a law blog does not belong inside your law firm website, on which I’ve already commented. He confirms his view, concerns about maintaining the law firm’s brand notwithstanding: A brand for a good lawyer is not about design, collars, logo’s and the like. If lawyers known […]

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Pushing the boat out

There’s a lengthy discussion on Real Lawyers Have Blogs on Why a law blog does not belong inside your law firm website. For me it boils down to this. Effective blogging is you – or a group including you – (as Kevin says) “providing valuable information, insight, and commentary to your target audience”, so don’t […]

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Blogging is normal – let’s move on

An article in this week’s Economist concludes: Gone, in other words, is any sense that blogging as a technology is revolutionary, subversive or otherwise exalted, and this upsets some of its pioneers. Confirmed, however, is the idea that blogging is useful and versatile. In essence, it is a straightforward content-management system that posts updates in […]

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Bilge pump

I’m not going to take the linkbait laid by Paul Boutin in Wired Magazine telling us to quit blogging because the blogosphere has been “flooded by a tsunami of paid bilge” and that time is “better spent expressing yourself on Flickr, Facebook, or Twitter”. This has got a lot of coverage … because it’s bilge. […]

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Behind the times

Alex Wade in Times Online looks at blawging: “only a handful of legal practitioners maintain blogs”. No way! Sure only a handful of law firms maintain firm-branded blogs, but as we on Binary Law all know, maybe half the hundreds of UK blawgs out there are by practitioners; and let’s not forget to mention the […]

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Blogs as a publishing platform

Dave Winer, pioneer of blogging, RSS and other publishing standards, recently posted about the importance of blogs as a publishing platform: Publishing keeps getting cheaper. That’s been the constant push, the practical application of Moore’s Law in my neck of the woods. I’ve always been a publishing guy, and that’s always been how I viewed […]

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Monitoring LexMonitor

There has been a fair amount of comment on LexMonitor, Lexblog’s law blog aggregation service in the last few days since its soft launch. Aside from straightforward reports of its launch and what it is, there have been some who have been quick to trash it – either the whole concept or because of current […]

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Real lawyers should network

Robert Ambrogi has written the first of two articles on social networking for lawyers for law.com’s Legal Technology News. In the first, Social Networking May Pay Off in the End he starts off by saying that “social networking web sites are just glorified directories”. However, he clearly doesn’t believe that – glorified Rolodexes maybe. The […]

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Something no one else has

From an amusing piece by Jeffrey Goldberg on advice he received on becoming a blogger: A blogger should only post, when he has “something new to add to something old,” and has “something that no one else has.” Do not “post for the sake of posting. Resist the temptation – and boy is it a […]

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Law firm newsletters – do or die

Jordan Furlong on the futility of most law firm newsletters. Law firms sometimes seem to think their newsletters, print or e-mail, are competing only against other law firm newsletters for clients’ attention. They’re not. They’re competing against every business and industry publication their clients read, usually produced by large publishing companies with decades of experience. […]

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Blawgs of note

I was asked to write an article for the Legal Executive Journal (April issue) on the best law blogs. I’m not into “the best” and conferring awards, but I did agree to write a piece on “What makes a good blawg”, mentioning a few of my “blawgs of note”: established law blogs that have made […]

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One more glass of Rioja, please

(The continuing adventures of Mike Semple Piggot) From before sparrow’s fart till late into the night Mike SP beavers away producing and publishing news, comment and analysis for our enjoyment and edification. He’s recently rearranged his furniture, and to help you keep up with his whereabouts, here’s a quick run-down. Consilio Nearly ten years ago, […]

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Blogs vs wikis

A chain of people in my orbit seem to agree that a simple test as to when to use a blog and when to use a wiki for collaboration is: one or two people providing content, use a blog; many people providing content, use a wiki (Mark Miller > Doug Cornelius > KnowledgeThoughts > James […]

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What makes a good blawg?

First published in Legal Executive Journal, April 2008 Law blogs (aka “blawgs”) are still unfamiliar territory for many lawyers. Though not a new phenomenon, blogging itself and even reading blogs is definitely not yet normal for lawyers. Space does not permit coverage of basics such as what a blog is and the mechanics of blogging; […]

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Law prof blogs

I’ve been meaning for some time to investigate the US law prof blog network as it’s a phenomenon that is not apparent in the UK. Carolyn Elefant on Law Blog Watch has prompted me to do so, pointing to Paul Caron’s study of law prof blog traffic for the period Feb 2007-Jan 2008. Here’s the […]

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