In "Do
You Blog?," the cover story in this month’s Washington
Lawyer, reporter Sarah Kellogg provides a comprehensive recap
and overview of how the legal blogosphere has evolved since its earliest
days. Not incidentally, she concludes with a rousing call to
arms for more lawyers, law students, law professors, and law firms
to start blogs:
"Observers say the horizon for law blogs isn’t even
in sight yet, leaving an enormous amount of space for new lawyer bloggers
to cover, from marketing to networking, from knowledge management to
research."
To call this a must-read would be the understatement
of the month, and not just because she flatteringly cites "Adam
Smith, Esq." (I’ll
hold her thoughts on that for last). Among
the other incisive observations which are shot through the article:
- The early adopter Ernie
Svenson describes his place in the legal blogosphere as sitting
down in the front row of the auditorium: “When I got into
blogging, I took a seat in the front row and then somebody filled in
chairs behind me after that,” says Ernest Svenson. “I
didn’t mean to take a front-row seat. There just weren’t any
other seats available at the time." - Denise Howell distills
the essence of why lawyers and blogs were made for each other: “Lawyers are trained to write . . . and research. The writing they
generate tends to have some credibility behind it. That is the crux of
web logging right there.” - Carolyn Elefant emphasizes
the collegial and respectful nature of the legal blogosphere and
points out a subtlety which was perhaps lost on me (as a blawg veteran
of over a year!):“Being inside [the blogosphere], you think it’s the greatest
thing that ever happened….
People don’t feel quite the same way on the outside, but once you’re
in, you do.”She
started her blog, "My Shingle" (about solo and small firm practice)
for altruistic reasons—to try to supply advice to a slice of
the law firm market that conventional media seemed largely to ignore: She
sees it as a way for her to give back to the legal community. “By
having that type of resource out there, it helps make solo and small-firm
attorneys more ethical and efficient practitioners.” - Dennis Kennedy makes
an indispensable point about credibility and trust, and implicitly
distinguishes the blogosphere from MainStream Media ("MSM") by urging
readers to make the intellectual effort to engage in critical thinking:“Everything today raises the issue of how do people think critically and how do you decide what information is valuable and what information you can rely on,†says Kennedy. “I
think that blogs accentuate the process. You really have to do
your homework.â€
Enough said: Just read it from beginning to end. If
you’re a skeptic, you may have to rethink things; and if you’re
a believer, you’ll learn something you didn’t know.
Oh yes, at the end is appended a list of "the best the internet
has to offer when it comes to legal blogs" and suggests "you
can’t go wrong checking out these favorites," followed by
just over a dozen seriously superb blawgs, most of whose authors
I know personally. And
indeed, "Adam Smith, Esq.," is listed and described as
follows:
"Law firm management comes under the microscope at this
blog, which takes a serious and studied look at continuing changes
in the management structure of today’s firms."
Go read the article while I stop blushing.
