Over at "Drug and Device Law," they kicked
up a little storm last Friday by asking why the marketing value of practicing
lawyers’ writing a blog seemed to be undervalued. I first learned of
it when my friend Mark Herrmann of
Jones Day sent me a heads-up asking if I could respond. Unfortunately,
before I had a chance to do so, the WSJ Law Blog also picked
up the story this
afternoon.
Here’s the issue: "Drug and Device Law" is apparently the most widely
read site on drug and device product liability, with 25,000 page-views/month. But
the law firms the authors belong to (Jones Day, of course, for Mark, and Dechert,
for his co-author James Beck) seem remarkably indifferent to and only passively
supportive of the blog. Why might that be? Mark and Jim propose
four theories (as aptly summarized by the WSJ Law Blog):
“Most widely read product liability blog” = “World’s
tallest midget”: 25,000 pageviews is a drop in the bucket,
and there’s essentially no institutional benefit to blogging. If the
two of us — Beck and Herrmann, the blogging morons — want to
waste our Saturday mornings feeding this beast, we should go ahead and entertain
ourselves.
Power of blogosphere eludes firm management: Management is
basically folks over 50 who start their days sipping a cup of coffee and reading
the Journal. Only people under 40 start their days sipping a cup of
coffee and checking [legal blogs].
Blogs attract the wrong eyeballs: The target market for
big firms such as ours is the general counsel and C-level management of Fortune
500 companies. With all due respect to our visitors — and we love you
guys; really! — you folks are younger and less important.
Where’s the money in this? It takes many hours of effort
each week for the two of us to provide regular, fresh content to this site,
and the amount of business generated doesn’t justify the effort. If the
two of us get some personal satisfaction from blogging, no one will interfere,
but firms do cost-benefit analyses of marketing initiatives, and this one flunks
the test.
Both the original piece and the WSJ followup have received numerous
comments, which while they have few common threads do coalesce around the proposition
that most blogs are a waste of time or worse, and that sorting the gems from
the rest is time-consuming. Interestingly, almost everyone who advances
this view also adds the caveat that finding the good stuff is highly
rewarding—and a robust counterpoint to the mainstream media.
So what do I think here at "Adam Smith, Esq.?" Not
being in a large firm any more, I fortunately don’t have anyone whatsoever
looking over my shoulder when I write and hit the "publish" button. But
I think each of Mark & Jim’s hypotheses has some merit, most particularly #4,
"show me the money."
There seems to be less and less time for
labors of love, for things we do not because they contribute to the bottom
line but because they advance our learned profession, serve the cause of justice
or the disenfranchised, or boost the flagging morale of a colleague. And
it’s very hard to infer any 1:1 correspondence between what I write here on
"Adam Smith, Esq.," and my speaking and consulting engagements with firms,
just as it is—so
I suspect—very hard for Mark and Jim to identify clients who have come
to them through "D&D Law."
That’s not why I created "Adam Smith, Esq.," and I suspect it’s
not why they created D&D Law.
I part company with them, however, on ##2 and 3, "management
doesn’t get it" and "the wrong eyeballs." At least judging
from my experience, some of the most loyal, dedicated, and enthusiastic readers
of "Adam Smith, Esq.," are managing partners and firm chairs at BigLaw firms. I
also believe firmly that there’s no such thing as "the wrong eyeballs." In
the famous six degrees of separation syndrome, some of the most rewarding encounters
I’ve had in the real world with people new to me have come through a friend
of a friend of a referral of a reader who pointed them to "Adam Smith, Esq."
Since time immemorial—or at least since Gutenberg (1440)—lawyers
have indirectly promoted their visibility and enhanced (with luck!) their credibility
by publishing on legal issues and gaining a reputation for being thoughtful
observers. Now that we can do it in the online medium, nothing fundamentally
has changed. The basic equation remains the same: "Assertion persuades
not; but demonstration convinces."
It does me no good to ask you to believe that I’m a thoughtful
fellow who cares deeply about the management of law firms and I would not insult
your intelligence or waste your time by saying that.
But it has apparently done no small bit of good to have founded and
be publishing "Adam Smith, Esq."
So my words of advice to Mark & Jim? Hey,
just keep it up. As long as it is its own reward. Because your
site, in and of itself, will never be more (and should never be less; if it
becomes so, it’s time to pull the virtual plug).
Or, as my wife has observed, be realistic about this salient
fact: "’Adam
Smith, Esq.’ is, itself, nonprofit."
