Law Consulting Blog : Cordell Parvin's Law Consulting Blog : Coach & Consultant For Lawyers & Law Firms : Business Development, Career Planning

I am still thinking about blogging today.  Recently the Harvard Business Review posted a blog titled: The Moment Social Media Became Serious Business  I was fascinated reading what Harold Adams Innis  said about reduction in cost of communication in 1951, long before anyone was blogging. What he said applies to blogging today.

• Redistributing knowledge and, in doing so, shifting power
• Making it easier for "amateurs" to compete with "professionals," because access to knowledge substitutes for mastery of complexity
• Allowing individuals and minorities to voice ideas
• Reducing the advantages of speed that formerly accrued because some had knowledge before others
• Reducing the advantages of size that are based on the ability to afford high costs. 

Because blogging costs so little, smaller law firms and younger lawyers have a chance to compete against bigger law firms and more senior lawyers. Borrowing a Seth Godin book title,  the problem is, the more lawyers and law firms blogging, the less blogging by lawyers is a Purple Cow. Just yesterday, LexBlog in its Best of Blogs post reported there were 123 posts (including mine) that day using the LexBlog platform. That number is growing almost every day.

So, if you are blogging, you better find a way to make your blog unique and valuable to your target market because your clients and potential clients are being inundated with indistinguishable client alerts and blogs written by lawyers.Valeria Maltoni has an e-book Why Blogging + 25 Tips to Make It Work that may give you some good ideas. 

What can you do to make your blog be unique and interesting? One way to stand out is to tell stories and use humor. Your readers will enjoy the humor and being entertained by a story. 

Cleve Clinton and Jamie Ribman, two Looper, Reed & McGraw lawyers I coached here in Dallas have a blog titled: Tilting the Scales. I love getting the email of a new post because it is entertaining and makes a point clients would value knowing. They use real legal issues and then make up names of characters. Just today, they wrote about the Ice Princess, the story of Olympic ice dancers Corrie O. Graff and Dan Saul Knight who lived together in Texas.

Brandon Mendelson shares seven ways to add humor in his blog How to Be 20% Funnier Than You Really Are. While you are at the copyblogger website, read other valuable suggestions for successful blogging.

Finally, my bet is that before long lawyers blogging will present their blog three ways:

1. Video blog
2. Audio blog
3. Written blog

Will you be a "purple cow" and be one of the first to present your blog those ways?

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Just today, I read an interesting Copyblogger  blog post: The Critical Mistake that Keeps Bloggers Broke. I could have easily written it for lawyers. I would have titled it: "The Critical Mistake that Keeps Blogging/Tweeting Lawyers from Connecting with Clients."

I know many law firms that have blogging lawyers. I know many lawyers who are tweeting. Several of those firms and lawyers make one big mistake. Their blogs/tweets are focused on what the lawyer bloggers/tweeters do rather than what their clients do. In that way the blogs and tweets are more about the lawyer than about the client.

The dirty secret is your clients and potential clients do not care about what you do. They only care about how you can help them solve their problems and achieve their business goals.

I recently wrote about this in the context of websites. Your Firm Website: Is It for You or Your Clients? Are your firm’s blog posts for you or your clients? If I was the partner in charge of marketing in my old law firm and could choose the firm’s blogs they would be:

• Financial Services Law Blog
• Construction Law Blog
• Real Estate Development Law Blog
• Healthcare Law Blog
• Hospitality Law Blog
• Energy Law Blog
• Manufacturer’s law blog
• Franchise Law Blog
• Information Technology Law Blog

Those were the main industries for our clients. I would want our litigators, corporate lawyers, environmental lawyers, IP lawyers, and labor and employment law lawyers to stay on top of what was happening in their legal field that was impacting any of our clients’ industries.

What are your clients’ industries? Are your blogs and tweets about what you do or about what your clients do?

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I have decided each Friday to share with you the blog posts I have been reading over the last week. As you will see most of them are not written specifically for lawyers, but the content is valuable for lawyers. You will also see that it takes hardly any time to read them. The more important time you spend is reflecting on how you can use the points in your own practice. So start by reading Is Reading Blog Posts Worth Your Time?

If you or your firm is blogging, you have to read Chris Brogan's Build Ecosystems for Your Content 

If you want to learn more about client service read Los Angeles lawyer Staci Riordan blog Puttin on the Ritz She shares a story about the service she received at the Ritz Carlton in Philadelphia.

If you want to learn more about social media read 10 Ways to Leverage Social Media

If you are blogging and trying to get your blog retweeted, read 13 Ways to Get Your Blog Post Retweeted.

Finally for this week if you are wondering whether you are spending time on social media sites wisely read When Worth Your While Isn't Worth Your While

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 Are you blogging? If so, how much attention are you paying to your headline? Are you burying your main point? Your headline and first paragraph are the most important writing you do because they determine if your readers continue reading.

Suppose your potential clients are receiving your blog as an RSS Feed. All they will see is your headline. When they look at it, they will ask: "What's in it for me to read on?" Suppose your potential client  clicks on the link to your blog and reads your first paragraph. They will ask again: "What is in it for me to read further?"

So what does this mean? You have to write a compelling headline and first paragraph to persuade your clients to read further. 

When I wrote my monthly column for Roads and Bridges magazine, I sometimes got upset with the editors for editing my headline. In many instances the editor thought plays on words or being cute would capture the readers' attention. Maybe it did and if so I am grateful.

Instead of letting you look at a few blog posts and decide whether the lawyer writer has caused readers to read further, I thought I would take a couple of headlines and first paragraphs of my Roads and Bridges columns and let you decide.

The first is a column the editor titled: Bridge Project Marred in Contract Misrepresentations. While I think the headline could have been better, I do believe bridge builders would want to read on. I think my first paragraph was pretty effective. Here is what I said:

"Do you clearly understand the contract requirements that affect the work prior to bid? Sometimes knowing what your obligations are should cause you not to bid. Unfortunately, some contractors just have to bid anyway. That was what happened in D.C. McClain, Inc. v. Arlington County, 452 S.E.2d 659 (Va. 1995)."

What made that first paragraph effective? I believe more than anything else, it was my use of the word "you" and asking a question for the reader to answer.

Now let's look at one that I did not do as well. In this column, the editor chose Over Done as the title. While that is cute, it is not compelling. In the column I discussed a really important case for contractors, but here is how I began the column.

 "Long ago, there was no requirement to have a differing site condition or significant change in the character of the work clause in the state standard specifications. As some contractors know, Congress left a loophole under which states could “opt out” of having the clauses, and some states have done so."

While everything I said was true, contractor readers do not want a history lesson. They want to know how the new case impacts them and what they need to do. I did not get to those points until later in the column. So, I buried the lead, to use a journalism phrase.

How effective are your headlines? Will your potential clients want to read further? Are you burying your lead by giving history lessons? If so, your potential clients may never get to your main point.

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 I just finished reading Chris Brogan's recent blog post The Writing Practice . It is a great piece well worth reading. He discusses how he comes up with ideas and how those ideas become a blog post. Then he makes the point that you should always be practicing your writing. I agree.

I wrote  a monthly column for Roads and Bridges magazine for close to 25 years. I know that my first columns were not as good as later columns. I began writing this blog in 2006. I hope my more recent posts are better than the posts I had those first few months.

If you are a young lawyer take an assignment you just finished and create an article or a blog post that potential clients would find valuable. Do it just for practice. Then do it again after the next assignment. Ask yourself how your potential clients would benefit from reading what you have written.

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