4 Ways to Make your Law Blog Stand Out from the Crowd

There’s nothing worse than cooking for an empty dinner table and similarly, blogging without followers can seem a little futile. There’s nothing worse than flogging a dead horse so banish the blogger blues, increase your follower list and make your publication stand out from the crowd in 5 simple steps.

Lights, Camera, ACTION

Just as you wouldn’t spend weeks rehearsing for a play withoutadvertising tickets to see the show, blogging without promotion is a fruitless pursuit. Even before publishing your first blog post, start building a twitter account and hone your unique voice ready for launch.

Twitter is the best social platform for lawyers as it allows you to engage with the law community, share tips and advice, retweet and gather inspiration from like-minded professionals.

Ensure that you have share buttons installed on your blog and that they are clearly visible. Also it’s worth bearing in mind that for every piece of content written, it’s advisable to spend just as much time promoting it whether it’s through social interaction, legal PR distribution or email marketing.

Groundhog Day

One thing which is certain to repel potential followers is the same old bland content written over and over. Readers will see straightthrough a blog written for the sole purpose of endorsing a product or service, so avoid this approach like the plague.

Do some research, identify your target market and create a content calendar based on what your audience are looking for. Look at what your competitors and don’t just copy them, find a gap in the market and strike while the iron is hot.

Not from Concentrate Copy

The first rule of quality content is quality copy. Without a talented wordsmith you’re probably going to end up on the dung heap, and in a saturated market concentrated copy just isn’t going to cut the mustard. If you don’t have a way with words yourself, invest in a copywriter who can drive the business forward through the power of language.

Keeping up Appearances

Is there anyone in this world who doesn’t make a quick first impression based on appearance? Sadly, even with the very best intentions, blogs need to look good to be engaging and gain attention. That doesn’t mean you need to take out a loan and hire the best graphic designer in town, just be smart about it.

Blogger and Wordpress platforms offer a large variety of free templates which you can install yourself and customise to suit your needs. Learn some basic HTML to layout your content and imagery correctly and a good looking blog can easily be yours.

Author Note: Byfield Consultancy is a team of reputable management consultants who know a thing or two about Legal PR. Based in London and proficient in all things PR, this established firm work behind the scenes to raise the profile of businesses using a variety of cutting-edge techniques. Take a look at their website to find out more or to make an enquiry call 0207 092 3999.

Image source: anniemole

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

US Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan on using an iPad and Kindle

"In some of these cases there will be 40, 50 briefs - so there's a lot of reading. That's a big part of the job. And if a Kindle or an iPad can make it easier, that's terrific."

It wasnt that long ago that the Law Society of E&W banned firms from publishing brochures

It wasnt that long ago that the Law Society of E&W banned firms from publishing brochures via @legalcheek  http://t.co/sGk9SvjI7U

Law Society poll: More lawyers using social media

Law Society poll: More solicitors using social media

http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-25929123

Glenn Greenwald the Lawyer

Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) is a key player in the new breed of digital-native journalists and bloggers. A leading figure alongside the likes of Nate Silver, Ezra Klein and Andrew Sullivan. A trailblazer who has broken the rules and is reinventing the very concept of how we receive news and ingest information. He started blogging in 2005, went with Salon, then the Guardian and has now started his own site for fearless and adversarial journalism, The Intercept (@the_intercept).

There’s A Huge Latent Legal Market For Legal Visionaries, Ctd

For Michele Colucci, CEO of MyLawsuit.com, it's not that there are too few lawyers, but that there's a communication gap between clients and the legal advice they seek. She said:

"The real problem is connecting lawyers to people who need them. I have 50 people right now needing lawyers.

The legal system is fragmented and it's hard for people to wade through. But I think there are just too many lawyers without access to clients who need them the most, rather than too many lawyers and no jobs."

http://www.cnbc.com/id/100569350

Read my earlier post on Defero Law (@deferolaw), 'People on Main Steet Can’t Afford Access To Legal Guidance - There’s A Huge Latent Legal Market For Legal Visionaries.'

http://www.deferolaw.com/m/blogpost?id=5999820%3ABlogPost%3A60744

@MEKowalski: 'Law Schools’ Fear of Social Media Is a Disservice to Students'

Canadian lawyer Mitch Kowalski (@MEKowalski) explained that law students are failing to use social media with their career in mind because of law schools’ fear of the social networks and online space. http://t.co/Fkf9gsfuCX 

I've written about this many times before including on this blog here: http://thetweetinglawyer.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/kevin-o-perils-of-being-law-firm-social.html?m=1 

And on Defero law more recently I explained my Digital Law Student series:

"I wanted to then tell that story through the Digital Law Student series. Especially because, as Brian Inkster, Pat Ellis and Kevin O’Keefe have said (here, here and here respectively), law students and young lawyers are absolutely not using social media with their career in mind.

In fact the blowback is breath-taking. At the recent Bar Conference in Northern Ireland, not a single barrister was using Twitter and all the new pupils were fanatical adherents to the totally out-dated legal doctrine of no risk, no comment, no change.

As Richard Susskind says, this is “irrational rejectionism.”It’s“institutional bewilderment”. To that I simply cite Gary Slapper (@garyslapper) who said“LAWYERS MUST CHANGE” and John Cooper QC who said that lawyers who were once snobbish and dismissive of Twitter are now active tweeters. Oh and Karl Chapman of Riverview Law who said that the days of the legal technocrat are over. Oh! And how they told Richard Susskind he was mad in the 1990s when he suggested that lawyers would us email (see here)!

http://www.deferolaw.com/m/blogpost?id=5999820%3ABlogPost%3A63415

Colin Scott (@ColizScott) - Legal innovator

Colin Scott (@ColizScott) dean of the UCD Sutherland Law School is leading the way in new methods to teach law. 

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/new-school-of-law-at-ucd-reflects-shift-in-legal-teaching-1.1674954

Legal blogging and legal tweeting

Won't be long. But for legal comment follow: @AdamWagner1 @JoshuaRozenberg @carlgardner @Familoo @copyrightgirl @Lyndon_Harris @DBanksy
— Jack of Kent (@JackofKent) January 29, 2014

@NickCohen4 I know! @DavidAllenGreen is just for posts to my own stuff. @Preiskel is simply my law firm's account.
— Jack of Kent (@JackofKent) February 2, 2014

In the first tweet David Allen Green gives his pick of the best legal thinkers online. In the second tweet he explains his multifarious Twitter and online presence.

CFR Renovation Unveiled

https://twitter.com/newbelfast/status/424933417596116992

James Harding - "We are singularly vulnerable if we kid ourselves that the rules of this technological revolution in news do not apply to us"

"We are singularly vulnerable if we kid ourselves that the rules of this technological revolution in news do not apply to us. If we are complacent, defensive and flat-footed, then we will be sunk. We will have let down our audiences and they will go elsewhere.

 "

James Harding, WT Stead lecture, (http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/speeches/2014/james-harding-wt-stead.html)

http://tmblr.co/ZTxVUt14GnIt7

Adam Wagner, David Allen Green and Andrew Sullivan on Legal Blogging

• Andrew Sullivan (@sullydish)

Non-law blogger Andrew Sullivan (@sullydish) is the founder and editor of the blog The Dish (@dishfeed). He is venerated for his writing and thinking and regarded as the pre-eminent online journalist of the 21st Century. He explained what blogging is to him here, and that blogging has enormous depth:

"My own approach is I'm just a thinking out loud person. I'm a conservative who is attacking [George] Bush which is putting me in a strange position. The limitation of a blog is that it has to be instant; which means it can't be a terribly considered judgement. But it's also deep because you can have hyperlinks that link the reader to original sources and original texts. So readers, unlike TV, or even unlike newspapers, readers can look at my opinion and then they can go to the original source and make their own mind up. That is enormous depth."

Read Andrew Sullivan in full here.

• Adam Wagner (@AdamWagner1)

Legal blogger, tweeter, human rights barrister, founding editor of the UK Human Rights Blog and "very definition of a modern full-service barrister" Adam Wagner (@AdamWagner1) explained the power of legal blogging during his representation to Lord Brian Leveson here:

"The primary reason UKHRB was set up was to act as a corrective to bad journalism about human rights, and in under two years it has become a trusted source of information for journalists, politicians, those government and members of the public. UKHRB operates alongside a number of other excellent legal blogs, run by lawyers, students and enthusiasts for free, which provide a similar service in respect of other areas of law. I would highlight, for example:
a. Nearly Legal housing law blog;
b. UK Supreme Court Blog;
c. Inforrm- media law;
d. The Small Places - social welfare law;
e. Head of Legal - general legal commentary
f. Human Rights in Ireland
g. Law Think
h. Jack of Kent
i. Charon QC
j. Pink Tape - family law commentary by barrister Lucy Reed
k. Eutopia Law
I. Panopticon Blog 

Human rights is an example of an area of law which is often misrepresented by the mainstream press. This can be the result of a lack of legal expertise amongst journalists, but also represents some newspapers’ editorial positions which are if not anti-human rights, then certainly anti-Human Rights Act. It is no coincidence, in my opinion, that the Human Rights Act is also widely considered to have bolstered privacy rights and as such threatens the celebrity news-driven business model of most newspapers."

Adam Wagner in full here.

• David Allen Green (@DavidAllenGreen) (@JackofKent)

David Allen Green (@DavidAllenGreen) (@JackofKent) is a media lawyer, journalist and blogger, named by Nick Cohen as "one of the best bloggers in Britain." In his representations to Lord Brian Leveson, David Allen Green gave an elementary analysis of what blogging is. He said:

David Allen Green explains why and how he blogs and the power of blogging

David Allen Green (@DavidAllenGreen) (@JackofKent) began blogging in 2007, was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for blogging in 2010 and longlisted in 2010. He began blogging for The New Statesman on law and policy and most recently moved to the FT, which I marked and covered here. During his representations to the Leveson Inquiry here, David Allen Green addressed the matter of social media and blogging. He sees himself as a modern-day pamphleteer:

"The elements of speed and self-publication in blogging make it, in my view, akin to pamphleteering... blogging is akin to pamphleteering, then it is pamphleteering with electronic footnotes."

He then explained how he blogs. He said:

"Jack of Kent is hosted on a straightforward and easy to use blog host website called "Blogger". I have no idea where the servers of Blogger are located. Anyone with internet access is able to create such a biog. The other main site for blogs is provided by "WordPress". Most bloggers who have not built their own website or blog on a commercial or group site tend to use either Blogger or WordPress. 

In essence, all I do is type into a field to create a "post" (or "blogpost") and, when finished, I press publish. The post is then published to the world and can be accessed by any person able to reach the Blogger site. It used to be that some minor technical knowledge of HTML code was required to blog, but increasingly one can prepare posts on "What you see is what you get" (or WYSIWYG) basis.

Scientists use social media and blogs, so should lawyers

Casey Bergman, senior Lecturer in computational biology at University of Manchester explains:

"Many journals and their staff now take part in the scientific process through social media. Scientists need to be aware that this enables journals to monitor our discussions and activity in ways that were not previously possible. Social media also presents new opportunities to shape the dialogue between scientists and journals."

Casey also explains the effect that social media is and will be having on scientific journals:

"Just as scientists are deciding the best ways to include social media into our own work, we should think about how journals can use social media to contribute to the scientific process. This is an open topic that I hope more scientists consider, since the influence of social media on scientific publishing is likely to increase with the rise of altmetrics, an alternative way of measuring the impact of scientific publications."

Casey then lays out some guidelines for scientists new to Twitter, see here. Legal blogger Kevin O'Keefe has previously explained how law blogs will replace and make legal journals and reviews obsolete, here and here. In the Atlantic Magazine here, Walter Olsen actively called for the end of law reviews in favour of easy web publishing. Even John Roberts of Scotus is sceptical about law reviews. The Chief Justice here told judges last year:

"Pick up a copy of any law review that you see, and the first article is likely to be, you know, the influence of Immanuel Kant on evidentiary approaches in 18th Century Bulgaria, or something."

Paul King reimagines law

Design plans for the 'offices' of Legal Force @LawInspiring How all law firms should be!? Lawsomeness!! pic.twitter.com/deDt9tHFDK
— Paul King (@PaulKingCEO) November 10, 2013

“@jbell_counsel: @PaulKingCEO we can often learn a lot from law firm 'graphics'..... pic.twitter.com/o23vSzrzeo” Quality!! :0)
— Paul King (@PaulKingCEO) September 22, 2013

Advertising in the Sunday Times

Previous posts on traditional media for law firms here, here and here.

Lucy Reed, the first law blogger to be cited in a High Court judgment

A barrister at St John's Chambers, Lucy Reed who blogs at Pink Tape, has becomes the first law blogger to be cited in a High Court judgment (see paragraph 27 here). It's also covered here with blog titled, Blogosphere in the Judgosphere.

Adam Wagner - The very definition of a modern lawyer

In his own words:

@tim_forte I am the very definition of a modern full-service barrister
— Adam Wagner (@AdamWagner1) December 11, 2013

Michael Bloomberg on technological disruption driving innovation

Michael Bloomberg delivered an address at Stanford University's 122nd Commencement Ceremony. During the speech, the former mayor of New York explained the critical role of new technology. He said:

"I started as a clerk at a Wall Street firm worked my way up to partner and loved every minute of it – right up until the day I was fired. But getting fired was one of the best things that ever happened to me. I had tried to convince the firm to develop new technology to deliver financial information faster and more efficiently. But companies, governments, unions, and schools tend not to like disruptions to their business models. And that’s exactly why new technology is so important. 

Technological disruption drives innovation. And the more disruption there is, the better markets perform and the harder it is for monopolies to survive. The idea that you can find a way to do something better, faster, and cheaper has driven American innovation for centuries."

Northern Ireland Bar Conference 2013

Richard Susskind with Brian Spencer at Titanic Belfast.

The Northern Ireland Bar Council conference 'Transforming Legal Practice Through Innovation' (preview here) was headlined by the eminent legal futurist Richard Susskind (@RichardSusskind). Ahead of his keynote address, a number of other esteemed speakers addressed the conference. Here they are in order:

Attorney-General John Larkin began by his address by admitting that he had not been at the forefront of transforming practice. He noted two errors that he and others have made:

One: That technology doesn't matter and we can get along with it. 

Two: Some have idolised technology and technological innovation for its own sake. 

John Larkin elaborated. On the first error made, he said: Those who ignore tech advance will soon realise the error of their ways in the exhaust fumes of their competitors. On the said error made, he said: The second is a subtler risk. Technological advancements for lawyers cannot be an end in itself. It can only be better so long as we can use it to better serve our clients. There is little value in wielding a technological masterpiece if we cannot be sure of its reliability. 

He said finally that: "We lawyers should also be solvers of problems. Seek better solutions. I commend this conference heartily as it takes its first step in that direction."

QUB alumnus and Supreme Court Judge Lord Kerr took to the podium. Lord Kerr began by confession. Until recently he said, "I couldn't think without a pen in my hand, I was a complete Luddite." But Lord Kerr is now a convert and advocate of technology as tool for enhancing justice and the work of legal practitioners.

The Irish Times - The sky's the limit for Irish legal eagles on Twitter

The Irish Times ran an interesting article by Fiona Gartland in the Monday 11 November 2013 edition of the paper under the title The sky's the limit for legal eagles on Twitter here. Fiona featured the experiences of three legal tweeters. Here's what they said:

Fiona de Londras (@fdelond) is a professor of law at Durham University and is a founder member of group blog humanrights.ie. She said:

"And it’s a way I can still contribute to debates in Ireland as well as in the UK, even though I am now institutionally located in the UK. I can engage with a Minister, or a TD or a Senator so easily through twitter and connect them into my research in a way that was previously almost impossible for academics to do,” she says. But she adds “you have to be quite good in figuring out how to boil a message down”."

Limerick solicitor Rossa McMahon writes on clatterofthelaw.wordpress.com said:

"I used to work in Dublin in a big firm where I had a lot of colleagues and now I’m in a much smaller situation and I find it quite a good way of keeping in touch with other people. Sometimes you know someone through it and then privately bounce ideas off them or see what they think about particular things."

Rossa McMahon commented on the business development potential of social media, saying: "From a marketing point of view, I couldn’t necessarily say that I gain anything specific, although I have gotten bits and pieces of work out of it."

Law professor at Trinity College Dublin Eoin O’Dell (@cearta) has written about law, education and policy on cearta.ie since 2006. He said:

"I consider that it is a very important part of my academic work to make my research and arguments available and to engage in discussion and debate online is just another means of disseminating research and engaging in discussion."

Eoin O'Dell explained that his blog posts tend to be “considered discussions” of 500 or 600 words in length. He also explained that his Twitter account is used to share interesting items with his 2,200 plus followers and to  respond to comments. He also said: "I think it’s a good thing and I think it is increasing the direction in which we are going."

Read the article from the Irish Times in full here. Read my blog post on Defero Law on the article here.

We humans must upgrade our skills as regularly as we upgrade our technology

Ireland's 'Digital Champion' David Puttnam recently said:

"We as humans must upgrade our skills as regularly as we upgrade our technology." 

He continued: 

"Digital technology has fundamentally reshaped the world in which people of all ages make sense of, connect with and engage with society each other. Although the pace and speed of change can be bewildering the need to up our game is absolute."

More: 

"We are and always have been change resistant. This is troubling because I believe the world is shifting on its axis and because of the impact of digital technology this is happening significantly faster than most people seem to be prepared to acknowledge."

Opening Shop in Silicon Valley

Change will not come from within a law firm. It'a up to law firms to look to the train head of innovation. To look, learn, reach out and even establish a bridgehead at the point where innovation is most concentrated. As the Harvard Business Review said:

"How can you build your organization’s ability to sense and respond to rapid improvements in technology? Many large, successful companies are creating offices in California’s Silicon Valley to spot big new trends and learn how they can transform their organization in ways they couldn’t otherwise imagine. It’s no longer good enough to wait for change to come to your industry; you need to be out there where it’s happening. And a lot is happening in Silicon Valley."

Read the original article in full here.

Guest Post - How Google+ Is Invaluable For SEO

[This is a guest post written by Marcela De Vivo, a freelance writer and online marketing professional in Southern California.]

Many people running small businesses don’t realize that Google+ very well might be the most powerful social media platform available to them. Google+ has nearly 350-million active members as of early 2013, and that number looks like it’s going to keep growing in a very significant way.

Right now, only Facebook has more users. Google+ even has more active users than Twitter. I bet that’s a statistic that surprised you!

But the real power of Google+ isn’t just in the number of users. The reason that Google+ is so important for SEO-based business should actually be really obvious – it’s owned by Google! Google is the world’s largest, most popular search engine hands down. In reality, it has no competitors.

You already know that your search rank is important when it comes to people finding your business and website on the internet, and you know those two things happening are vital for making your business grow. Building and maintaining an active Google+ profile can improve how easy your business is to find through search.

The NewLaw business model

George Beaton, director of Beaton Capital and Beaton Research + Consulting wrote:

"The NewLaw business model for professional services is now the subject of intense interest. The Schumpeter column of The Economist on September 21, 2013 addressed ‘The future of the Firm’ with the upper case ‘F’ reserved for McKinsey. Schumpeter cited an October 2013 Harvard Business review article, Consulting on the cusp of disruption, by Clayton Christensen and others. For Australian start-ups challenging parts of McKinsey’s business, have a look at Vumero  and Expert 360, both following in the e-steps of the Gerson Lehrman Group, a premium virtual platform for connecting clients to experts and their insights." 

As I wrote in ‘Factories’ and ‘Brain Surgeons’ last year, firms like McKinsey are “self-generators of IP and have alliances with leading academic institutions; they don’t need scale”. But crowd-based providers meet many of the same needs at lower price points. And there’s excess capacity. These are the antecedents of disruption. 

Like butterflies in the Amazon, virtual and crowd-based professional services firms are starting to disrupt. They are leading the rise and rise of the NewFirm business model."

Further reading:

If you found this post of interest, you can find more on related topics from Bigger. Better. Both? here:

- BigLaw at sea. Red Ocean or Blue Ocean?

- Firms need reinvention in tough times

- For most law firms the pyramid has to change

- Is anything really changing in BigLaw?

And also on the highly recommended Adam Smith Esq blog. In full here.

Andrew Sullivan - Blogging has enormous depth

Andrew Sullivan said in 2006 on what blogging is:

"My own approach is I'm just a thinking out loud person. I'm a conservative who is attacking [George] Bush which is putting me in a strange position. The limitation of a blog is that it has to be instant; which means it can't be a terribly considered judgement. But it's also deep because you can have hyperlinks that link the reader to original sources and original texts. So readers, unlike TV, or even unlike newspapers, readers can look at my opinion and then they can go to the original source and make their own mind up. That is enormous depth."

In full here. Previous blog on Andrew Sullivan and legal blogging here.

Karl Chapman - "You tut if you want to, the [legal] market is for turning"

Karl Chapman slam dunks it in an interview with the legal tabloid Legal Cheek here. He said: 

"You tut if you want to, the [legal] market is for turning."

Gary Slapper - Lawyers Must Change

Law columnist with The Times online,  Professor at the New York University, Director of NYU London and Chambers door tenant at 36 Bedford Row, Gary Slapper said on Twitter recently:

LAWYERS MUST CHANGE message from lawyer. Lawyers should stop being "long winded" and "brim full of trickery and foolishness" Cicero, 63 BC
— Gary Slapper (@garyslapper) October 14, 2013

Kevin Plank - Dictate the future

Kevin Plank, CEO and founder of Under Armour recently said on Bloomberg TV:

"The best merchants are the ones who dictate the future, not the ones who predict the future."

From the world of Kodak to Instagram

Kodak used to have "140,000 really good middle-class employees. Instagram has 13 employees, period." Here.

Rocket Lawyer UK loves art

Talk about being different and letting your personality shine through.

RT @LDN: (on the) street art in #Shoreditch http://t.co/3lPXeymWvB pic.twitter.com/d1HVovgADh
— Rocket Lawyer UK (@RocketLawyerUK) August 30, 2013

Ben Wilson cheers up our street in @TechCityUK on a rainy day with his chewing gum @UKStreetArt. Thanks Ben pic.twitter.com/bvB8nDQjZb
— Rocket Lawyer UK (@RocketLawyerUK) August 22, 2013

 

Kevin O'Keefe - The Perils of being a Law Firm/Lawyer/Law Student social media holdout

Kevin O'Keefe, attorney and head of LexBlog, spelt it out in plain English why lawyers not only should be on social media, but why they can't afford to not be on social media:

"How do you appear, as a lawyer or law firm, if you fail to embrace the methods other businesses are using to network, nurture relationships, and build reputations? Not only are you making it difficult for those whom you’d like to do business with to connect with you, but you are also looking old and behind the times.

If every lawyer in your law firm lost their cell phone today, you’d have them replaced by tomorrow, no questions asked. I’d act with the same sense of urgency in getting your lawyers using social. It’s just as important for long term success as a cell phone."

Pat Ellis of Michigan State School of law responded with a slant on how it is for law students, he said: 

"This idea applies with equal weight to law students. Sure, we don’t have to worry about being the “go to” lawyer (yet), but we must be tuned in to what is happening in our industry; now more than ever. Ultimately, students need to assess their own situation and the opportunity-cost of forsaking social media and blogs. For me, the cost is too high and it is a risk I am not willing to take."

Kevin O'Keefe responded here:

"Powerful position. The cost of forsaking social media and blogs is too high, a risk this law student is not willing to take."

In order, here, here and here. My previous post on the low uptake of career-minded social media use among students is here.

Karl Chapman - The Days of the Legal Technocrat are Over

Karl Chapman of Riverview Law, the non-law firm legal services provider and star performer at the FT Innovative Lawyers 2013 spoke with Legal Cheek about the need for law students and young lawyers to radically shift their plane of regard and perception of how legal services should be delivered. Here's some excerpts:

"Some of the big themes from business and commerce that are most relevant to future lawyers have nothing to do with law, but they have everything to do with the successful practice of law in the new market emerging. They are common-sense principles that have been applied in most other sectors of the economy, excluding much of the public sector, for decades. The future will see legal businesses and large organisations pay a premium for pragmatic, IT literate, numerate and commercially aware advisers who can communicate succinctly, play as part of a team and problem solve…oh, and who just happen to have a legal qualification (not necessarily achieved via university!). The skills they will need include: 

1. An ability to be proactive and pre-emptive:

lawyers tend to be reactive, responding to client requirements. But increasingly they will need to take the initiative too, demonstrating that their input pre-empts future risks and costs.

 2. IT and social media savviness:

Legal businesses and in-house functions will need to invest significantly in automation if they’re to drive efficiency, improve processes and transform their relationships with their customers.

3. Management information capabilities:

Lawyers will need to be able to capture, interpret and apply data and trend analysis to their clients benefit. Customers take it as read that lawyers know the law, so lawyers need to ask themselves what other value-add can they bring.

4. A customer service ethos: 

Lawyers really will need to pay more than lip service to building customer-focused service delivery and pricing models."

Very similar to what Forbes Magazine said here that, "The days of when students need just MS Word are long gone." Karl Chapman then spoke on the specific need for young lawyers to raw an active on social media:

"Returning to the 1980s for a moment: I really wish I’d known that many of my friends would end up as senior and managing partners in law firms. Given what we’re doing now I’d have kept in even closer contact with them than I have. Which brings me to one further really big point of advice for aspiring and young lawyers: even in a fast moving, social media-enabled world, never ever underestimate the power of relationships and personal networks. It’s amazing how often these come into play and, with hindsight, I wish I’d invested more time in maintaining my legal network."

In full here.

The Main Street consumer - "That's the prize"

Ajaz Ahmed of Legal 365 spoke with the Financial Times and reflected on the latent legal demand from the man and woman on Main Street:

"The market will change, and when it does it will change fast. There are a lot of people who do not use lawyers because they cannot afford them. That's the prize."

'Reinvention takes lead at law practices', here. My previous article on the latent legal market on Main Street here.

Anne-Marie Slaughter - The changing parameters of law and business

In the Harvard Business Review here, Anne-Marie Slaughter said of law firms and the law of change:

"This fracturing and reorienting is happening in the corporate world as well. Turn to manufacturing and note that supply chains first shifted from vertical to horizontal, in-house to global. Then they moved from chains of contracted suppliers to networks of peer producers. Boeing refers to its global "value webs," an approach that turns managers into systems integrators. Large factoring companies assemble networks of designers and producers; they look for "network orchestrators." And as many companies begin outsourcing at least parts of their R&D, they are creating space for professional "inventers" operating through websites like Innocentive. 

When I was in law school in the 1980s one of my favorite professors pointed out that the entire world of law was being turned upside down by the advent of Lexis/Nexis and Westlaw on line. For generations West Publishing Company had published all U.S. cases and had decided how to organize them in meta-categories such as torts, contracts, civil procedure, criminal law, property, etc., and sub-categories within each of those. Those were the fields of law — as taught, practiced, studied. With the advent of Boolean online searching, however, a researcher could suddenly find all cases of every type pertaining to horses, or basketball, or diamond necklaces. Law could be divided and sub-divided in an infinite number of categories, depending on what was actually useful to lawyers, judges, clients, and anyone else creating value out of legal texts. 

Something similar is happening to all our professions. Information and communications technology is blowing the old categories into bits. But countless new jobs will be created connecting those bits in unexpected but useful ways. And who better to name them than you?"

Beware, Your Twitter history could haunt you

Crude but a powerful metaphor that captures just how destructive social media can be:

"With twitter, once its out there & you try to remove tweets, it's like trying to taking piss out of a swimming pool."

There's just no hiding. The social analytics company Topsy now offers the entire history of public tweets on Twitter. Even deleting a tweet won't cover your back. If someone retweets the offending or questioned tweet it has been cast in concrete. As an Irish politician found out. Find out all about that here.

Daniel Hannan - The Lawyer's Cognitive Dissonance

Daniel Hannan explains here why we as humans, and thus lawyers, are instinctively skeptical of anything new:

"The phenomenon of cognitive dissonance... When presented with a new discovery, we automatically try to press it into our existing belief-system; if it doesn’t fit, we question the discovery before the belief-system. Sometimes, this habit leads us into error. But without it, we should hardly survive at all. As Edmund Burke argued, life would become impossible if we tried to think through every new situation from first principles, disregarding both our own experience and the accumulated wisdom of our people."

Harper Reed - There’s not a business out there that doesn’t require in this age a lot of technology

In an article I wrote for Defero Law here, I quoted the CTO for Obama 2012, Harper Reed, who in an interview with Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight made a powerful observation on the role of technology in politics, business and in every area of life. He said:

"I do think that there’s not a business out there – politics, marketing, commerce, whatever – that doesn’t require in this day and age a lot of technology. And so like in the US, it just turned out that the US was no different."

Institutional Bewilderment and the three types of technology

On Saturday 21 September Radio 4 featured 'Bremner's One Question Quiz - What Does the Future Hold?' On that show, Mark Stevenson, possibilist, futurologist and author of 'An Optimists Tour of the Future' made some interesting observations. Of those, one segment stood out. Mark Stevenson made reference to Douglas Adams, a man who said that there were three types of technology. It's very interesting and here's how Mark condensed it:

1. Technology invented before you were born which you don't think of in technology. Like sewers and paper. 

2. Technology invented between the ages of 0 and 35 which you get super excited about. For many, this is the Internet, mobile phones, etc. 

3. Then there's the technology developed after you're 35 which you see as pointless and which makes you angry. 

Mark Stevenson gave his thoughts on the third category: "For my generation that's things like 3D tv and Twitter; I've got friends who are literally furious that Twitter even exists." Mark further said: "The people who determine the strategic direction of a nation or an organisation are usually in the last category. Yet most of the population are in the second category and so you get institutional bewilderment."

Guest Post - Social Media 101 for Attorneys

[This is a guest post by Chelsea Wilson, the Community Relations Manager for Washington University School of Law’s online LL.M. degree program.]

You may have a J.D. and LL.M., but how much do you knowabout online marketing and social media? Blogging, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and other social media platformsare providing new channels for attorneys to build their reputations and attract clients. Although some law firms arestill taking a traditional approach to professional networking and marketing, recent survey statistics show that social media engagement in the legal profession is gaining momentum and showing no sign of slowing down. Attorneys who don’t have asocial media presence are ignoring an increasingly important communication tool.

Despite these statistics, outdated rules with respect to online communication are hindering the adoption of social media by many large firms. Solo practitioners and small firms have a greater chance of success since they can avoid bureaucratic restrictions. Although there are very real ethical issues toconsider, as evidenced by examples of cases placed in jeopardy by social media postings by a juror, judge or prosecutor, adhering to some established best practices can help avoid the most common social media pitfalls.

15m UK Twitter users

Twitter claims 15m active users in the UK, thats one quarter of UK Population. Via The Telegraph here.

Emmanuel Carrère - "I know some big words, but I try my damndest not to use them”

“Like everyone, I know some big words, but I try my damndest not to use them.” 

           - Emmanuel Carrère

On the art of nonfiction, fall 2013 edition of The Paris Review.

 

Traditional Media for Law Firms, Ctd

Thanks to Legal Cheek we heard here that legal tweeter and podcaster Kevin Poulter (@kevinpoulter) has leveraged his social media nous and graduated onto a leading traditional media platforms, BBC News as you can see from the YouTube video above.

Previous posts on traditional media for law firms here and here.

David Allen Green - The FT's Legal Blogger

The journalist and lawyer David Allen Green who tweets at (@DavidAllenGreen) and from (@JackofKent) is routinely cited as a the leading legal tweeter and the man who inspired other legal heads to jump into the Twittersphere.

As well as being active on Twitter Mr Green has complimented these efforts with consistent and comprehensive blogging, both on his personal blog (here) and on The New Statesman. Regularly commenting on the law and leading policy questions.

He has been a leading light, blazing a trail where others have followed. Myself included. And now it seems his online energetics have not gone unnoticed. Besides becoming a regular on traditional media outlets he has now landed a regular slot as legal and policy blogger with the FT. Impressive and really quite something. A milestone for sure in the history of legal blogging.

I have left @NewStatesman to join the @FinancialTimes to blog on legal and policy matters. First post will be on 16 September.
— David Allen Green (@DavidAllenGreen) September 3, 2013

I will be doing a regular in-depth fully linked post on a legal or policy topic at @FinancialTimes, usually on a Monday. Am delighted.
— Jack of Kent (@JackofKent) September 3, 2013

My post at Conservative Home on the awful lobbying bill being debated today: http://t.co/WgcGTBYeqS very bad legal drafting here.
— Jack of Kent (@JackofKent) September 3, 2013

John Cooper QC on Twitter for Barristers

The mark of Twitter is that many at the Bar who were dismissive & snobbish of Twitter 3 years ago are now tweeting like Nightingales.
— John Cooper (@John_Cooper_QC) September 3, 2013

Big hat tip to Legal Cheek.

Justin Green on the power of Twitter

Justin Green on the right pictured during another interview.

The Nebraskan native and DC-blogger (at the Washington Examiner) Justin Green (@JGreenDC) sat down with fellow blogger Matt Lewis to discuss a range of topics including Twitter and blogging (listen here). Here's some interesting snippets. On the power of Twitter Justin said:

"For young journalists it's the greatest networking tool in the world. It's how I got my start in DC. You follow someone and interact with them; if they like what you're doing they'll follow you back."

Justin then explained how exactly Twitter has served him personally. He said:

"It's how I started with you [Matt Lewis]. It's how I got started working with my current boss David [Frum] (Justin is no longer with the Daily Beast)."

Seth Godin on fearing social media

Seth Godin on man's resistance to change, used the common mirror as the example and explain social media aversion. Interesting. He said in the blog post here:

"Mirrors and cameras each took a generation or more to catch on as widespread foundations of our culture. It's not surprising, then, that so many people fear social media. It's about us, and when we're on the hook, in front of people we can't know or trust, we hold back. For a while. And then we don't."

Looking back on the Summer's Legal Commentary

Below is a round-up of some of the latest and best observations made on the state of the legal industry in the UK and US.

Legal Innovators and Entrepreneurship:

"Law firms composed of visionaries have the ability to rise to become leaders of a new industry."

Lawyers and law firms are stuck in a steam bath of trouble. For lawyers and law firms to get out of this pickle and succeed in a world of excess capacity, they need to change. This has been the prescription I’ve heard time after time.

Including from the Wall Street Journal here, from the Hildebrandt Institute here, from the ABA Journal here, from the Global Legal Post here, from the Managing Partners Forum here, on the Lawyer Magazine here and on the American Lawyer here.

And of course I always refer to the following reports by: Deloitte (UK), PWC (UK),the Law Society of England and Wales (UK), Citi-Hildebrandt (US), Wells Fargo (US), Georgetown-Reuters (US) and the FT. 

Eminent Former Judge, Henry Brooke Joins Twitter

#legalaid I was asked to write an article expressing some of my views on the JR legal aid reforms. Here it is. http://t.co/xEMYrxJkEU
— Henry Brooke (@HenryBrooke1) August 8, 2013

The Lawyer's Email Hysteria of the 1990s

In an interview with litigator-turned-presenter James D. Zirin, Richard Susskind spoke of how his mid-1990s suggestions that lawyers would use email were rubbished and silenced by the settled legal establishment. Backing-up the discussion a bit, Richard Susskind explained the context in this way:

“I look at the tax profession. I look at the way they handle tax risk, the way they identify, control, manage, hedge, monitor tax risk: they use sophisticated tools and techniques to help clients, not simply resolve their problems, but say, on the horizon are 4 problems you’re likely to face and here’s how you can manage and control these risks." 

 James D. Zirin then breached the email-hysteria topic. He asked Susskind:

"You’ve been working in this area for about 30 years. When you got started there was considerable resistance at the English Bar to your ideas, isn’t that true – that the Law Society (what we in the US call the American Bar Association) didn’t want you to speak in public?”

Richard Susskind discusses Twitter and Facebook, Ctd

Richard Susskind, legal technology specialist, continues with his discussion of social media:

"If my clients are sending out regular messages of about what they're doing, where they're going and what they're doing, I would want to be part of that; even if the mechanism of communication is a daft name."

Richard Susskind discusses Twitter and Facebook

At 23 minutes of the video above and here, legal technology specialist Richard Susskind discusses the usefulness and merit of social media as it relates to law practice. Susskind then said at the end of the discussion that in 5 years time, social media will become mainstream and ubiquitous.

"In 5 years time we'll have embraced [social media]... I'll just take you back to 1995 when people were sceptical about email..."

He also made an interesting point about how junior lawyers use social media:

"To be fair most junior lawyers don't use [social media] for business purposes..."

  

Maria Popova: "The law lags behind the culture; a good decade usually"

Maria Popova who writes at Brian Pickings and is renowned for for being a one-woman-discovery-machine has taken classes on copywrite law, she spoke of the relationship between the law and the space that it is supposed to govern. She said:

"The law lags behind the culture; a good decade usually."

 - Maria Popova 

At 53 minutes 45 seconds

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sY66PehOcYQ

The Ways are Changing, Yet Law and Lawyer is merchant of the olden days

I like poetry and verse. Here's my attempt to bring some poetry to the legal profession. My legal verse:

"The terms and ways of modern trade are changing, 

Yet lawyer and law firms are the modern day merchant of the olden days."