Are blogs by lawyers and law firms the hottest thing to
appear on the marketing horizon?  Well, yes,
and no.  (And
both those articles are featured this morning on ALM Media’s
law.com.)   The
first imagines that "Fred" can start
a trademark-law blog that in Google’s rankings will "catapult
over" other trademark firm’s sites, expensively search-engine-optimized
by pricey consultants, "without spending a dime."  The
second quotes the communications director at Stroock & Stroock
& Lavan as saying blogs are "not appropriate" for
firms the size of his (350 lawyers), that he’s "not
inspired" by blogs,
and that they "don’t seem like a good fit."  (In
fairness, the second article also notes some success stories
with firm blogs, and advances a key pro-blog argument that
I can attest from personal experience has teeth—"It’s
an extra discipline…It’s forced me to be
very, very current.”)

So, pick your
poison?

At the risk of forfeiting my hard-earned membership-in-good-standing
in the blawgosphere, I will venture that blogs will turn
out to be no better or worse, no more compelling or lame,
than conventional law firm marketing efforts.  Venturing
into blog-land will prove to be no elixir if:

• you write about things clients don’t care about
• at too turgid a length
• without an approachable and engaging voice
• or which are "yesterday’s news."

For proof, look no further than to this Legal
Week
piece characterizing the vast tonnage of client-targeted
publications "as a disappointing
confluence of the late, the untailored and the ‘not
focused on my business’," all at a cost rumored
to be £3-million/year
for one Magic Circle firm.   The good news is
that we can do better.  And (astute readers will
spot an "Adam Smith, Esq." theme here), we can do so by
taking a page from corporate-land, in this case investment
banks.

Having spent seven years working with the investment research
divisions of, among others, Morgan Stanley, the author reports:

"Crucially, they face many of the same content-to-client
issues that law firms do. They need to write content that
is focused on what clients want to know. They have to cover
all of the supporting detail, the content has to be reused
efficiently and the process has to be as frictionless and
quick as possible.
The personality types writing the content are similar, too."

So what do they do that we don’t?  In short, through automating—and
deeply constraining—the generation of reports through
MS Word templates, they permit the repurposing and reuse (as well as searching and indexing) of key "content."  The templates are designed to mimic
the practices of the "best" newsletter authors and thus bring
all the laggards up to their standards.  Concision wins
pride of place:  “Take
everything you write, halve it, summarise it, then edit the
summary.”

"Dumbing down," you protest?  Why don’t you
ask your clients which they’d prefer:  (A)  Something
written by someone relatively oblivious to the context of
the client’s business, but thoroughly grounded in the minutiae
of his area of expertise, or (B) something that gets to
the point quickly and suggests concrete actions? 

Can you do (B) through a blog?  To be sure.  Can
you do (A) as well?  Of course!—just give the
spread of the blawgosphere some time.