Law Firm Growth Management Seminar Recap
On Tuesday, I had the pleasure of speaking at the Law Firm Growth Management Conference at the Harvard Club in New York. I was part of the panel on "Legal Blogs and Other Technology" with fellow bloggers Arnie Herz, Jim Hassett, and Peter Marx.
You may know Arnie Herz from Legal Sanity or Legal Blog Watch. He’s an attorney in New York who also runs a successful training business which focuses on the art of relationships. (As a side note, Arnie’s Legal Sanity blog hosted Blawg Review #108 this week.)
Jim Hassett provides sales training for attorneys and blogs at Law Firm Business Development. His company, LegalBizDev, provides business development workshops and coaching for larger law firms.
Peter Marx is the president and co-founder of Legal Insight Media, Inc., which helps law firms create multimedia marketing and recruiting presentations. His blog is the Law Firm Media Blog.
We addressed a number of blog-related issues of interest to attorneys and law firm business development directors and, while we didn’t always agree, it was interesting to tap into the combined legal and marketing experience of the panel. Highlights of the session included discussions of:
- The legal risks associated with blogging and the protections afforded by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996. Section 230 affords online publishers fairly broad protection against liability for content authored solely by third parties. With that exception, Internet publications, like blogs, have the same risks associated with them as any other form of mass communication.
- The benefits of legal blogging: primarily credibility and visibility.
- The current state of legal blogging and its prospects for the future. Legal blogs still make up a small minority of existing blogs, though more and more attorneys are entering the blogosphere. Of course, attorneys blog more than the general population.
- The logistics of legal blogging. Although the panel noted that most current legal blogs are authored by a single attorney, we generally agreed that it would be most beneficial to blog as a practice area or department. Arnie was particularly supportive of involving younger associates in the blogging process, in both the research and writing, noting that it saves the time of more senior (and, therefore, higher billing) attorneys and helps to promote the associate.
All in all, it was an interesting and educational experience. If you happened to be in the audience on Tuesday, drop us a comment and let us know what you thought.
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