Set in Style

I recently asked John Gillies, the director of practice support at Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP, for his thoughts on lawyers, how they write what they write, and what attorneys — especially the least experienced among them — can do to improve their writing skills.

If you’re a young associate, listen up. John’s been at it for a while, and he’s got style.

Tell us a bit about the work you do.

The primary focus of the work that my colleague and I do is to help lawyers practice more effectively and efficiently by finding ways to eliminate the barriers that prevent them from doing that. So, while a part of our work involves traditional knowledge management (KM), it’s broader than that. (Our concept of “practice support” is, therefore, quite different from how that term is used in U.S. firms, where I believe the term is used more in connection with practice group support at the tactical and logistical level.)

Our KM activities have, until recently, focused on two primary activities: developing precedent banks and creating repositories of annotated lawyer work product. (There is often an expertise location aspect to KM activities as well.)

The major drawback to this approach, in my view, is that it focuses on a just-in-case model of content delivery, where time and effort are devoted to capturing content without knowing exactly who might use it or under what circumstances, as well as how valuable it might be to the ultimate user.

While there is still a role for these traditional activities, our focus has been much more on trying to address the obstacles that lawyers actually face in getting their work done effectively and efficiently.

The first thing I did when I arrived at my firm was to hold focus group meetings with a large number of lawyers, paralegals, students, and assistants to ask them what those obstacles might be. (We ended up talking to about one third of the lawyers at the firm.) From their responses, we developed a practice support strategy, aligned with the firm’s strategic plan (obviously!), to address the priority items we discovered from that process.

Given the rise of social media, will writing skills be more or less important in the future?

On the one hand, I would like to be optimistic and think that the proliferation of writers, particularly on the Internet, means that readers have greater exposure to a wider variety of articles. The quality of that writing is going to vary from excellent to execrable. That should mean that high quality writing can distinguish itself more easily from the dross. So, assuming that readers will tend to migrate to well written content, that might imply that the good will tend to drive out the bad.

On the other hand, if I’m pessimistic, then we’re actually moving towards a “twitterization” of communication, so that what is valued most is brevity. It’s almost impossible to demonstrate your superior writing skills if you’re limited to 140 characters. If that’s the case, then readers won’t be able to distinguish the good from the bad because it will all look the same.

Having said that, I know from experience that there are always those for whom good writing and proper use of grammar is important; for them, the bad stuff is an immediate turn-off. (I know; I’m one of them.)

I would like to think that discerning readers will tend to be more highly concentrated among decision-makers, so the investment in good writing that impresses them can potentially pay dividends.

Having said that, I must acknowledge that I have absolutely no scientific basis to back up my speculation.

Law firms, especially the larger ones, function as publishers. Why do so few firms have editors?

For starters, lawyers (and the firms they work in) tend not to see the business development benefits of writing for a non-legal audience. Even the business development benefits of traditional personal marketing (such as joining the Lions Club) are hard to quantify. So a perhaps unstated question is, what’s the payoff for my doing this sort of writing?

As well, most non-professional writers (not just lawyers) can be extremely prickly about suggested editorial changes to their drafting, perhaps because of insecurity about the quality of their writing.

So, if the payoff for writing for a non-legal audience is far from obvious and the clearest result of hiring an editor would be that you’re being told that your writing isn’t good enough, why would you choose to add another person to the payroll (in other words, the editor) to perform that role?

Why are so many lawyers such bland writers?

I should clarify that, while there may indeed be bland writers amongst lawyers writing for a general audience, there are a good number of very accomplished writers who write for a legal audience.

From the first day of law school, the focus of one’s career is, in fact, on legal writing, which is clearly a different beast from “normal” writing. The audience for legal writing is other lawyers, whose writing (not surprisingly) is in a similar style.

So, just as different magazines (like The New Yorker or The Economist) have their own house style, lawyers too have developed a house style, except our “house” extends to all lawyers who have ever existed (“together with all those who may from time, now or in the future, exist, including without limiting the generality of the foregoing,…”).

When those same writers turn to writing for a non-legal audience, though, it becomes more difficult to turn off the house style. As well, it is easier to write about legal issues using the same intellectual framework and language that you use to analyze those issues.

Finally, as any good novelist or non-fiction writer will attest, good writing is just plain hard work. Since there are no clear incentives to writing for the non-legal market, it’s hard to justify spending the time going through numerous drafts to arrive at something that reads well for that market, particularly if you don’t do it on a regular basis.

What can a lawyer do (what should a lawyer do) to further develop his or her writing skills?

There are several possible steps. It’s most important to realize that writing for the general public is fundamentally different from writing for an audience of lawyers. In other words, the style and approach of writing a legal update is nothing like what is needed when drafting a contract, a litigation document, or a law journal article. To help get there, it’s very useful to read and analyze business-related articles in leading publications that cater to an educated readership (such as The New York Times or The Economist).

It will be very quickly apparent that the authors for those sorts of publications don’t do all sorts of things that lawyers are used to doing in their legal updates, such as using case citations, having large numbers of Capitalized Terms for even the Most Obvious Things, or using convoluted language. Those authors take pains to make their points clearly, concisely, and logically.

Next, I would recommend reading good quality content of any type that interests you. If you like novels, then read good novels. If your preference is more for non-fiction, then read good-quality biographies or histories, or periodicals such as The New Yorker or The Atlantic Monthly. Pay particular attention to especially well written passages; take some time to analyze what makes them work.

Finally, there are books that can help guide you, and several legal drafting blogs, like Ken Adams’s Adams Drafting, and Ben Oppipari’s Literary Legs.

What about law schools? What could they do to better equip their students for the real world?

Their focus is on an academic discipline, to turn out law profs, and only incidentally to graduate people who choose to practice law.

I’m not sure most law schools are interested in developing writing skills so their graduates will communicate clearly. (Indeed, if you took a cross-section of academic writing generally, I don’t think you’d conclude that academics strive for clarity and comprehension in their writing!)

You say many lawyers are insecure about their writing skills. How does that affect their work?

Most people enjoy working at developing the skills they are strong at and tend to avoid what challenges them and makes them feel inadequate. Writing good, “pure” legal content (such as contracts or pleadings) is something on which we focus a huge portion of our energies. But good writing is hard work. And, as I said, writing for a non-legal audience is significantly different from legal writing.

Particularly with so many other needs pressing on their time, it’s a tall order to ask lawyers to devote time to doing something that many know they don’t do well.

Does it do a lawyer any good to write a client alert or an article for a newsletter? Does anyone really read that stuff?

Absolutely! It’s valuable to write for a non-legal audience, for at least three reasons. First, writing for that audience forces you to understand your content well enough that you can explain it to someone who doesn’t have your legal background. Ironically, it can end up making you more knowledgeable about your subject matter.

Second, the skills that you develop in improving your writing for this audience will necessarily transfer over to your legal drafting. The goal in both cases is to make your writing clear and understandable.

Third, and this addresses your second question, surprisingly, people do actually read this stuff. The increasing reliance on Internet search to find relevant content means that the potential scope for your item is much broader than in the “old days,” when print was the only way to reach your audience. Plus, as I’ve said elsewhere, while clients and potential clients are unable to judge the substantive quality of the legal documents that we produce, they can judge how well we write the articles addressed to them. So, your good writing gives potential clients a good reason to choose you over someone else.

I think that it’s very easy for lawyers to get trapped by their legal writing, which they generally do very well, and end up writing everything as if it were for a legal audience. In a sense, those writers assume a very high level of understanding and analysis on the part of the reader, but it’s often over the heads of the general audience, who have not generally gone to law school.

You said earlier that good writing is hard work. What do you mean?

If you read interviews with people who write for a living, they almost all say that good writing is hard work. They will devote hours to ensuring that they have chosen the right words, put together the best way they can, to bring to life some sort of a picture in words.

Certainly there are some exceptions, but as a rule, particularly if one accepts the premise (described most recently in Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers) that it takes at least 10,000 hours of dedicated practice to develop expertise, most lawyers have not been able to devote that amount time to this activity. That shouldn’t stop you from trying, though, but you need to recognize that skillful writing does not simply come from writing a few legal updates.

What’s your advice to those now entering the profession? Should they be blogging to increase their visibility, or are they better off working the more traditional business development avenues?

I wouldn’t start a legal blog if I were just starting to practice law. I think a legal blog should pick a niche and focus on providing useful information to people who are interested in the topic and then engaging readers. When you’re starting out, you won’t know enough about a particular niche to speak about it with confidence and authority.

But that doesn’t mean that you have to wait years before you start writing. On the contrary, you should seize every opportunity that presents itself to write for a general audience (and create as many additional opportunities as you can). Hone your craft while your writing is still under the radar, as it were. Then as your technical legal skills have developed to the point where you can start blogging about your particular passion, you will be much further along in your writing abilities.

The two most important things, though, are to write in a way so that readers will want to come back, and to engage with your readers. (Kevin O’Keefe has written a lot about engaging with your blog readers.)

Fundamentally, you are doing the same thing if, say, you join the Lions Club: meeting with people, finding out what they’re interested in, and doing what you can to give them some general advice that they might find helpful. You need, of course, to respect the rules of professional conduct that govern communications by lawyers and, if you’re with a firm, whatever your firm’s social media policies are. But all the successful legal bloggers are able to do that.

What you will find is that, over the long term, your blog will serve as your own personal knowledge management repository. Doug Cornelius, who runs the KM Space and Compliance Building blogs, has written about how his first blog was simply a way to catalogue his own thoughts and content. It grew from there. That’s an important aspect that shouldn’t be overlooked.

Not everyone is cut out to write, though. But I think that those gregarious individuals who feel compelled to reach out to others will see blogging as an ideal medium to do just that.

So, do you have a blog?

Ha, I’ve been caught out! “Do as I say, not as I do.”

Despite what I believe, I have fallen prey to what is probably the most common excuse, namely, “I don’t have the time.” Not that other bloggers, like Mary Abraham and you haven’t encouraged me to start. Let’s just say that it’s something that I plan to do.

Any last words of advice?

Sure: focus on writing well every day, and the benefits will start to become more and more obvious to you. And good luck!

Today’s quote comes from John Gillies, director of practice support at Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP:

Since lawyers spend a large portion of their time writing, either directly to clients or in publications of some form, clients will necessarily come to a conclusion about a lawyer’s capabilities based on his or her written work.

— Source: The Lawyers Weekly

Keep this in mind: anything you write can inform a potential client’s (or employer’s) first impression of you. Make it a good one.

“I can write better than anybody who can write faster, and I can write faster than anybody who can write better.”
– A. J. Liebling

It’s big news — big, it is, around all those parts of the world that have TVs and high-speed Internet hook-ups. Michelle Obama is addressing some of the girls who attend the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson School, “a large inner-city girls school,” in London, and the world is watching.

The First Lady inspires the girls with a tremendous heaping of hope: You are jewels, she tells them. Echoing Oprah Winfrey (when she addressed the students of the Leadership Academy for Girls she opened two years ago), and reprising her husband’s campaign slogan, she gets them to feel it in their bones: “Yes, You Can.”

Seems to me that Cynthia R. Rowland, publisher of Leadership and Women Lawyers, shares a certain something with Obama and Winfrey, and that’s an impulse to help young ladies succeed. In Rowland’s case, the young ladies are lawyers, and what they get is encouragement and the sort of advice that comes from someone who’s been in their shoes — someone who’s strived to excel at family and career.

Now, don’t get the notion that Rowland’s blog is just for, or about, young lady lawyers. It’s not. According to Rowland, it’s for “women and men who have an interest in developing and supporting women in leadership positions in law firms and law departments.”

Why bother to mention this?

Rowland’s a great example of the attorney who can shift from the daily routine of writing things people have to read, to some other process that yields engaging, thoughtful, well written articles people want to read — from the most practical advice on how to dress for success to stories that can only be written by someone who knows what it is to serve as full-time mommy and full-time attorney.

I had the opportunity to share a cup of coffee with Ms. Rowland. She offered some of her thoughts on blogging and on how new social networking tools, like LinkedIn, blogs, and Twitter are affecting client development.

If you’re an attorney and you have a blog that’s not attracting an audience, or you’re thinking of starting a blog and want it to attract an audience, listen in.

How did you select the topic of your blog, Leadership and Women Lawyers?

I didn’t want to write about my legal area (which I love, but there are many other much smarter folks blogging on the relevant topics), and there isn’t much else that I know anything about.

I needed a topic that I was passionate about, and where the space wasn’t already crowded. I did a little research and was surprised to find that nobody was writing about women in leadership positions in law firms and legal departments  other than some academic sites, and some consultants, neither of which really viewed the topic from the same perspective as a practicing lawyer. So I figured I’d give it a try and see what happened.

What’s your process? How do you decide what to write about?

When I first started, I wrote every single day, which was really helpful to me because I forced myself to come up with a new topic every day. Now I have a little more of a pattern and I only post two or three items each week.

There are several things I try to write about once a month, and if nothing interesting presents itself in my day-to-day musing, I search for current events, and always find something.

A wonderful thing that has been happening lately is that my readers are starting to send me ideas and topics. I really want it to be relevant. 

Where do you see Leadership and Women Lawyers, say, a year from now? three years from now?

I can identify three things for the next year. First, I hope my writing improves. Some of the early posts were pretty rough and it took a while to find a suitable voice, but I think it is getting better.

I also hope to generate more comments; I’d love to get perspectives from other women and men and to have it be more of a resource.

Third, I’d like to improve the layout and learn more about the things I could do to make it more reader-friendly. Some of the blogs I read are awesome in the way they present information. But I am also trying to keep a clean and easy-to-use format; I hate those sites that are so busy I can’t focus.

As for three years from now, I really hadn’t thought that far ahead! Blogs may be passé by then and everyone may simply be Twittering. A 140-character phrase is much easier to write than a coherent essay.

What’s been the biggest surprise you’ve experienced with Leadership and Women Lawyers?

There have been a lot of surprises. Initially, the biggest surprise was how easy it is to use the blogging tools. I’m also astonished at the information you can get from statistics counters (I use StatCounter) that log users who access the blog.

Every day I am surprised by something new in “Web 2.0″. Before I started writing I really had no idea what the medium was about, and now the more I know, the more I realize that there are so many amazing ways that the internet is changing our world. 

Many hold that blogging is immediate and informal, that you don’t need to dot your eyes or cross your teas. What’s your take on this?

I think blogging is like everything else you do: people will form an opinion of the kind of person you are from everything about your blog. If you are blogging about something and want to be taken seriously, the blog has to be consistent with that.

Even though I don’t think of my blog as a business development tool or a way to attract or retain clients, I am a lawyer. I know that readers have certain expectations from lawyers: we are expected to be able to write coherent sentences, to have a strong grasp of grammar and usage, and to be presentable at all times.

Blogging is immediate and informal in the way that other communication technologies aren’t, but that doesn’t mean that readers judge you any differently. If I blog about anything, it had better be as well written as any professional writing I do. 

In many ways that’s a big challenge for me: I’m often impatient and just want to hit “send” without revising the draft eight times. But my product is always better if I give it a break of a day or two and then come back and re-write the entry. I suspect that my regular readers can tell the difference when I do that and when I don’t.

You encourage people to ask, “every day, in every task, is my work the best it can be?” Does that apply just to work product, or to blogs as well?

When I was in high school, one of my teachers had a poster in her classroom that read, “If you don’t have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?”

For me, that applies to everything. The “best it can be” often depends on the time and resources available, so I don’t think of it as an unattainable standard.

Sometimes, I do in fact have to do something over because I got it wrong. But I still do hold myself to a high standard, for the blog and for everything else.

Consider the attorney who isn’t a terrific writer. Can he or she take advantage of new social networking tools? How?

Try Twitter: it doesn’t require the ability to write an essay. It does require other skills: immediacy, brevity, clarity, focus.

A good Twitterer doesn’t talk too much, but talks enough that he or she develops a following.

I think it will be really interesting to see how people are using Twitter next year. In the meantime, I’m having fun with it.

If so few attorneys have them, what leads you to write that blogs are “must-haves rather than novelties?”

Look at recent history. Or even not-so-recent history. When communication paradigms shift, business, social structures, and laws shift.

I remember it quite clearly — about ten years ago, an older partner in our firm confidently announced that no one would ever hire a lawyer based on a website; that may still be true, but I doubt any serious client would hire a lawyer who didn’t have a website.

I think the same shift is happening now. It is not so much the case that blogs are the paradigm shift, but blogs and the Internet are changing the way news is reported, and how our clients communicate and business gets done.

Lawyers must understand how blogs, Twitter, and social networks work, and there is no better way to do that than to experiment with them and experience the medium. 

When it comes to social networking — Twittering, blogging, etc. — what should new associates be doing, and why? What should senior partners be doing?

Young attorneys should be very, very careful about what they post, in every forum — from emails to Facebook to LinkedIn to Twitter to whatever.

Actually, everybody should be careful, but it is hard to appreciate how something can come back to bite you until you’ve experienced that sort of communication failure a few times. There is no substitute for experience.

Senior partners? If they are planning to wind up their practice in the next few years, it probably isn’t important to them. But for anyone who is still competing for new business clients, I think it is very useful — at the least — to follow a few bloggers just to keep up with the language, pace, and pattern of communication.

Even older lawyers can learn new things!

What do you see for the future of attorneys and their “on-line presence?”

More and more often, when talking to a new client or potential new client, I encourage them to google me to get to know my expertise, rather than directing them to my firm’s website. They probably will anyway. Since I find myself acknowledging that fact, I think I’d better be aware of what people find when they google me. This will be more and more often true for everyone in the profession.

Conversely, a lawyer whose name turns up few hits from a search engine other than her firm webpage is going to look pretty unremarkable to many clients. There are probably exceptions to that — some clients may want a lawyer who is not known to the world. But that’s the exception, I think, not the rule. 

You’re sharing a cup of coffee with some newly minted attorney. Talk turns to blawgs, and she tells you she’s thinking of starting a blawg. What’s your advice?

First, find out who else is writing in the area you like. It helps a great deal to have a very specific focus and to know who else is writing about the same topic.

Second, choose something you are passionate about. It doesn’t have to be about a legal subject, but it does have to be something you care about, or you won’t stick with it.

Third, write every entry as if it will be read by all of your clients, all of the associates and partners in your firm, and your parents. Probably very few of them will read it, but every word needs to stand up to that standard. 

Finally, be joyful about it. Have fun. If you do what you love, you’ll love what you do.

____________
I’m going to make a prediction: Leadership and Women Lawyers is going to attract an audience, and it’s going to be around for a good while. I say that because Cynthia not only enjoys writing for her blog, she’s good at it. That’s a great combination.

Some sound advice from Gyi Tsakalakis on what attorneys can do to make sure their blogs are effective (i.e., attract potential clients). Here’s an excerpt from an article he wrote advising attorneys on how they can promote their practices:

4. Blog- (60 mins./week)- OK, so perhaps 1 hour per week isn’t enough, but it’s a good start.

Entire books have been written on blogging, but I will try to point out some quick and dirties here.  Write about something you know a lot about.  You want your blog to get linked to and commented on, so keep your writing interesting.  Don’t think treatise, think law school outlines.  Keep the pace quick and light.  Try to use relevant keywords where appropriate.  Remember, the quality of your content is key.  Write for your readers, they will reward you.

Make sure you are circulating your blog posts.  Email them to colleagues.  Submit them to your social network groups.  Submit your blog to legal blog (blawg) directories.  Some of the top blawg directories can be found here.

You can be sure Gyi is an attorney: he puts two spaces after a stop!

Today’s quote comes from Mike Dillon, general counsel to Sun Microsystems. Here it is:

After many years in the profession, I’m convinced that the most difficult skill for any lawyer to master is the ability to write with simplicity and clarity.

Let’s see what a skilled and experienced editor does with it:

After many years in the profession, I’m convinced that the most difficult skill for a lawyer to master is the ability to write simply and clearly.

Interesting article titled “Patent Litigation and Abraham Lincoln” concludes with this:

Lawyers are most effective when they eliminate weak arguments and marshal the facts to support their strongest arguments. In addition, both judges and juries appreciate the use of plain English, simple exhibits, and a sense of humor.

Mark Herrmann –author of the Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law and co-author of the very popular Drug and Device Law Blog — wrote this interesting post about whether blawgging brings in business.

If you’re thinking of starting a blawg to promote your practice, give it a read.

____________
Update: Kevin O’Keefe — who makes his bread by getting lawyers going with their blawgs — just posted a curious comment on Herrmann’s post. He implies that Herrmann “does not understand the role of a blog is and how it is used.”

____________
Update: A good discussion of Mark’s article is posted here.

Molly DiBianca (proprietor of The Delaware Employment Law Blog) has identified The Top 30 Blogs on Writing, several of which focus on legal writing.

Ask Google to search for these two terms: China and Law

Do that, and the first item returned is a link to China Law Blog, owned and operated by the Seattle firm of Harris & Moure. With an Alexa rank of 200,000 and a Technorati rank under 20,000, this award-winning blog is among the most popular of all attorney-authored blogs, or blawgs.

Why is CLB so popular?

It’s partly due to observing the basics — a clear focus, well-written and very readable posts published on a regular basis, etc. And it’s partly due, I believe, to how CLB differs from most blawgs, which reveal so little of their authors.

Dan Harris — CLB’s main author — says what he thinks, and he encourages his readers to do the same. And that results in some lively discussions about a wide range of topics — from the vagaries of doing business in China to naming Miss China Miss World.

I asked Dan to share his thoughts on blawgs and blawgging, whether the world really needs another blawg, and — if so — what that might be.

Your posts generate lots of comments – far more than posts at other blawgs. Why is that?

1. We ask for comments. For example, I might say we just encountered this labor law issue in Shandong Province — is anyone experiencing this same thing elsewhere in China?
2. We respect nearly all viewpoints. We explain how the law impacts businesses in China and by doing so, we draw a wide range of readers. I estimate about 35% are from the US, 35% are in China, and the rest from all over. I estimate only about 25% of our readers are lawyers. This diversity of readership contributes to the excellent discussions and the excellent discussions, in turn, contribute to people wanting to comment. 

CLB is far more flavorful than most. At times, you stray off topic, and you inject opinion, including political opinion. Why? Aren’t you afraid you might offend?

Because black letter law is boring. Because I believe most people read a blog to know how the blogger feels about a particular issue.  

No. I am not afraid. I am far more worried that I might bore. If I offend someone one time and they choose not to return, I see that as their loss.

If I offend and they choose to respond, that’s everyone’s gain. I must say I have learned a hell of a lot from our readers. When I was in college, I would read just about every political magazine, from The Progressive on the left, to National Review on the right, even though I was neither a leftist nor a rightist and even though both often offended me. I would read them to understand all positions and to learn.

I know we have readers who disagree with us but keep reading for the same reasons. We have 100% loyal readers who start off a comment by saying something like “this is the first time I have agreed with you in months.” 

We are a small firm.  We are better off with a small portion of people who love us and a small portion who hate us than having everyone be neutral about us. Neutrality has never sold tickets.

What are the rewards to, and the dangers of, starting and maintaining a blawg? How much time/energy is required?

Rewards:

1. Getting well known. Co-blogger Steve Dickinson and I have been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Business Week, New York Times, China Economic Review, Christian Science Monitor, International Herald Tribune, and countless other publications. This is in and of itself rewarding, but it also lends credibility to us being the China law experts.
2. Learning. We learn a tremendous amount as to what is going on all over China through our blog.
3. Contacts. In addition to clients that come to us directly from the blog, it also has allowed us to establish relationships with other bloggers who are experts in their own China fields: PR people, HR people, sourcing people, logistics people, tech people, to name a few. Now that we know all of these people, we often tap them for assistance in those areas. 

Effort:

It takes a tremendous amount of time during the first year or so and if someone is not prepared to put in the time, they probably should not bother starting up a blog. During the first year, one should post as often as possible, because every post has the potential for bringing in a new reader. One should also comment on and link back to as many other related blogs as possible, so those blogs will know you exist and add you to their blogrolls and link to you. After the first year, and you have been established, the time commitment can decrease substantially.

How did you start CLB? Did you do it all (visual design, database, server setup, etc.) on your own, or did you have help? How much of an effort is it to start a blawg?

CLB began at the suggestion of a friend of mine — a PR person who thought it would be a good way to get my firm’s name out there for doing China legal work. I then paid this friend to learn about blogging by research and attending seminars. He then gave us the basics necessary to start the blog. After a month or so, when it became clear we would continue, we hired a blog designer to spiff it up a bit. 

Has CLB met, or exceeded, the expectations you had for it? In what way?

It has exceeded our expectations. We are widely viewed as the China legal blog and we get new and good work from it every single month. 

You started blawgging three years ago. If you knew then what you know now, what would you do differently?

When we first started, we allowed every comment, so long as it was not what we would call hate speech against a race, religion, etc. From inception, we would get a lot of critical comments of me and my firm that were filled with falsehoods. We would run those comments and write our own comments setting forth the truth. 

One day, I received an email from someone listing various IP addresses used by a particular person. I then went back and searched our comments and realized that around 99% of these critical comments were coming from the same person. I then deleted all of them and have blocked them ever since.

If I had it to do over again, I would never have allowed such comments in the first place. I let my First Amendment beliefs (which are not really at issue here) cloud my better judgment. 

Three years from now, will blawgs be more, or less, important? How will they be different?

I think they will be the same. I know many think Twitter will supplant blogs, but it won’t. I am a huge fan of Twitter (@danharris), but its uses are very different and it has real limitations. There will always be a call for good blogs.

Do you think any attorney looking for more/better work and higher rates should start a blawg? Should every attorney Twitter?

Absolutely not. I would guess that only around 20% of the law blogs are good and only around 20% really get read. There are some horrible law blogs out there and I just do not see how those blogs help their writers at all.

I doubt anyone looks at a law blog and says, gee, “this person is really boring and their grammar is terrible too, but I think I am going to hire them ….” 

If a lawyer is going to start a blog, they need to first think how they will be contributing to readers, not how it will get them business. From day one, we have always been of the view that the only goal of our blog should be to serve our readers. We virtually never tout our firm on our blog and not once have we ever suggested anyone hire us. Our view is that if people find us interesting and return to our blog, they will come to see that we know what we are doing and if they think we are a good fit for them, they will hire us. They will not hire us by our telling them to do so. Far too many law blogs are written with the plan to convince people to hire the writers and that is a huge mistake. 

I love Twitter, and I can give ten reasons why lawyers should be on there, but I can also think of many lawyers who should not be on there.

What does the future look like, as advancements in technology impact how attorneys attract and manage work?

I am probably not the right person to ask about this. I am always preaching to the lawyers in my firm that the key to marketing is to “Just Do It.” I cannot say what will work for other lawyers, I only know what works for me.

Some lawyers should be giving speeches. Some should be writing articles. Some should be in Rotary. Some should be twittering. Some should be blogging. It all depends on the individual.

Far too often lawyers assert that a particular way of marketing will not work or that a particular way of marketing is beneath them simply as an excuse for doing nothing. My firm gets a lot of work off the Internet, but there are plenty of very successful firms that get none. And certainly, the overwhelming bulk of our work still comes from our clients touting us to their friends.

A friend, an attorney, tells you he’s thinking of starting a blawg to help promote his practice. What’s your advice to him? Does your advice vary according to the age of the attorney, type of practice, or size of firm?

My advice would be to do the following:

1. Spend a month reading all the blogs in the practice area or areas in which you are thinking of starting your blog. Ask yourself what your blog will contribute that nobody else is contributing. Ask yourself who your readers will be and how you will get them to come to your blog and then return to it. 
2. Ask yourself if you are really willing to contribute the time necessary to make your blog a success. Quitting a blog six months in means you wasted six months of good time.
3. If you do the blog, stick with it for at least a year. It takes that long to build up a really good readership.
4. Ask yourself whether you have the personality to blog. Are you willing to accept criticism? Are you willing to express your own opinions? Are you willing to put out a post nearly every day, even though on some days you know what you are putting out is not your best work?
   When I am busy, I spend 15 minutes putting out a decent post. My co-blogger, Steve Dickinson, takes days to write his posts. His posts have much greater depth than mine (his usually involve him reading China laws in Chinese and then explaining them), but he can only post every few weeks. We are a perfect combo, but I think that he would have a much tougher time blogging alone than I would. 
5. Are you comfortable with cooperating with those who many might view as your competition? One of the things I love about blogging is how most bloggers are outgoing and cooperative. They spread “link love.” In other words, when I have a good post, they write about it and give me credit. I do the same thing and oftentimes this means I talk about what a great job such and such China lawyer did on such and such a thing. This goes back to serving the reader, not your own business. You have to be willing to link to other blogs all the time.