Some Pitfalls of Legal Blogging and 5 Favorite Law Blogs

I admit, I’m not the most consistent blogger. I try to publish a post at a minimum weekly, but work intervenes and makes blogging with regularity a challenge. I go for quality over quantity in blogging and respect the fact that I probably have 30 seconds or less to grab and hold the reader’s attention. (Hang in there, this turns practical, I promise!)

Are you an attorney who blogs—or have you been advised to start a blog? If so, I recommend a recent post on Lawyerist.com by Sam Glover called “What to Blog About (or: How to Keep Blogging),” which gives smart advice on how to avoid adding to the abundance of what he calls “crappy, dead law blogs” with “second-rate posts nobody wanted to read, anyway.”

That post got me thinking not only about my own blog, but about those blogs in the legal field I admire for sharing useful information in an authentic voice. I’d like to take this post to highlight a few that I regularly read.

“Writing a blog post is a bit like giving a presentation. People attend if they think they will get something out of it. If you stand up in front of the audience and promote yourself, you will disappoint your audience, and none of them are likely to come to any more of your presentations. If you focus on being interesting and informative instead of marketing, your audience will think well of you. They will probably come back for more, and even though you aren’t promoting yourself, every member of the audience will be a potential referral source.”

Nearly a year has passed since my first blog post. (Check it out if you’re curious to see a snapshot of my family and read a tangent about how the Mayan ruins in Tulum relate to litigation presentations.) In it, I put forth my reasons for starting a blog, which hold true today:

(1) to share practical news, tips and tools that help trial attorneys move their cases forward to successful resolution;

(2) to show attorneys how to use graphics and develop visual presentations to make their cases more compelling and easy to understand;

(3) to share news about emerging trends and issues in litigation—and to give me a soapbox to share my opinions on those trends and issues;

(4) to link to others in the legal graphics and litigation field so that we can swap ideas and shout-outs;

(5) and finally, last but not least, to promote a less stressed, more manageable workplace for attorneys.

How am I doing? Any suggestions on how I can improve? What are some of your favorite, lesser-known law blogs? I welcome your feedback, and I thank you for reading.

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