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.

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."

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.

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.

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

Alex Aldridge Talks Legal Blogging

In this Law Tour podcast by Charon QC with Alex Aldridge, editor of Legal Cheek, the discussion covers many topics. Including legal blogging. At 19 minutes Alex Aldridge responds to Charon QC on the role of the blog to the modern lawyer and law firm.

Hear the podcast in full here.

Also of interest should be the podcast by Kevin Poulter and Alex Aldridge again who chat to Leon Glenister about blogging in a broadcast by the title, 'Write a legal blog, mind your Ps and Qs and get a job?'

Hear the second podcast in full here.

Coffee with Tech Lawyer, Tim Summers

I recently caught up over coffee with Tim Summers (@TimSummersUK), the plain speaking technology lawyer and co-founder of the exciting Temple Bright law firm. This catch-up came 3 months after our Zero-140 encounter of March 4 2013 – and coincidentally, 3 months since his firm’s move into Tech City, London. And thanks to a lot of intensive work and acclimatisation, a lot has changed for the good for Tim and Temple Bright in the 3 months past.

And of important note, Tim has made it clear that a lot has changed and developed by his way of thinking. I began (my questions are in bold):

"So Tim, back in March you appeared keen on social media as a tool for the modern law practice. Asked if social media played an important role, you said: “Yes, as in every other kind of business.  As with anything, you gain in proportion to how much effort you make."

How have things been on the social media front since our last chat?

“ Since opening our London office in Silicon Roundabout, I have become a convert to the use of social media and blogging for business purposes (although, as I now appreciate, the idea of having separate “business” and “personal” identities/aims is increasingly in question.).”

Law Firms with Blogs grow faster, according to US research

Over to Kevin O'Keefe of LexBlog here and in the stats and video below:

- Blogging adoption. 156, or nearly four in five AmLaw 200 firms are now blogging. 

- Growth in number of blogs. The number of blogs, 660, has grown exponentially, up 71%   since our last study. 

- Employment blogs being the most popular with 91 blogs, alone. 

- Correlation between blogs and firm revenue.

Understanding Legal Blogging

As Andrew Sullivan said in his essay 'Why I Blog', the blog is the new literary form of our age. And as Matt Mullenweg, the creator of the ubiquitous blogging platform WordPress said: blogging has given 'equality of access' and therefore utterly utterly democratised the ability to publish. Everyone now has a soapbox and a real voice that can reach a global audience. Matt said:

"Before the widespread rise of the Internet and easy publishing tools, influence was largely in the hands of those who could reach the widest audience, the people with printing presses or access to a wide audience on television or radio, all one-way mediums that concentrated power in the hands of the few."

The same applies to lawyers. Lawyer can use the new form to give expression to their ability and expertise. By doing so they can build an audience, a following and a reputation as the go to authority on a given matter. Nowadays it's not enough for a lawyer or law firms just to carry on with their affairs in the offline world, they need to get online and carve out a space in the online world. And a blog is at the heart of this.

As Kevin O'Keefe of LexBlog said:

'A lawyer's home base on the web is their blog.'

The Blog, Home of the Modern Lawyer

Kevin O'Keefe of LexBlog penned a great piece back in December 10 2012 which captures both the power of the blog and the central force of the blog for the modern lawyer and law firm.

Make sure to read his post which features references to Matt Mullenweg, creator of WordPress, and is entitled, 'A Lawyer's Home Base on the Web is their Blog'.

"A blog may not look sexy and, like all things worthwhile, takes a little time. But if you’re looking at vehicle to serve as a hub of your online networking, there’s nothing better than a blog."

The Most Comprehensive Blog on Why You Need to Blog

Michael Gass (@michaelgass) has penned what I regard to be probably the best blog on why businesses need to blog. I could write about an essay on why businesses need to blog but in this instance it's best to make note of his Eweighty authority. Michael gives 10 core reasons why to blog. Here they are: