Why lawyers who blog are good

Now that the job search is in full swing, many are giving me the advice that I should shut down my blog, delete my facebook account (not that that would do much!), and keep my private life offline.

However, I ran across this blog post by a lawyer in Ohio who gives a good argument for why bLAWgs (get is?) are good.

1. Knowledge Entreprenuer. I find time to actually go research those extra questions of clients to which I don’t quite know the answer. Why? Now I think in broader terms about what I want to know and can offer to prospective clients. What better source of inspiration for blog/blawg posts could there possibly be? We’re naturally curious and love to learn new stuff – how better to satisfy this than by actually exploring the questions that clients seem to ask most often! The blogging/blawgging attorney is just going to know MORE about more issues because they have a concrete personal stake and commitment beyond the needs of any particular client to find stuff out. And if I already know something, you the client won’t have to pay me to go find out.
2. Communication 101. You’ll have a fairly good idea whether you’re going to understand a word I say or write and actually be able to use any of the expensive advice you pay me to give you. Let’s face it – in most cases, it doesn’t much matter if I’m a brillant legal genius if you can’t make any sense out of what I’m telling you or comprehend how to implement the counsel and advice you’re paying me to provide. If you are able to “connect” with what I write in my blog/blawg, then at least you know you’ll get something of value when I communicate with you in writing, and hopefully face to face as well.
3. Authenticity and “Real Voice”. One of the really “neat”/”cool” (OK, I’ve been around a while and don’t really know the current “hip”/”in” phrase) things about blogs/blawgs is that the authors get to show at least a little personality. Some of us are a little better at this than others (law is a rather conservative field) and I think I’m still finding my “authentic” voice, but blogs/blawgs are conducive to a level of informality. So, when you read my blog/blawg, you as client get at bit of a “sneak preview” of what I’m really like. And if, as is likely, you’re going to be spending some time with me once you ask me to represent you, that’s got to be useful info.

   See the remaining two good reasons after the jump.

4. Quality and Competence. There is at least some ability to actually assess the quality and competence of your would-be lawyer to be. Those of us who blog/blawg are “out there”. You can take what we’ve written and ask your favorite friend attorney (who you don’t want to hire because you don’t want to mix personal and business or for some other reason), CPA, financial advisor, etc., what they think – or even research us on the web by seeing what other folks have to say about the same topic, or even about we’ve said about particular subjects. I’ve heard, and I suppose it’s true (and I know it is with me and doctors), that clients generally can never really evaluate whether their lawyer actually knows anything so they try to decide that based on other factors. Well now they can. And I would suggest that those of us willing to chance that scrutiny ought to be high on the list of any client.
5. Commitment to “the Law” Made Practical. Most of us would rather deal with someone who isn’t just “in it for the money”. We all believe that someone who ultimately cares about the product or service being provided ”just because” it’s what they enjoy doing will offer superior service. Well, no one cares more about “the law” “in the real world” than lawyers/attorneys who blog/blawg. Who else would bother? We really are the folks who became lawyers because we were philosophically attracted to the questions law poses and tries to address every day. We actually still do think about those questions from time to time and blogging/blawging may be a way for us to focus on those questions in a way that will ultimately benefit society at large, as well as clients in particular instances. Blogging/blawging is fundamentally more practical and pragmatic than traditional legal scholarship in the form of footnoted articles in law reviews and journals. Yet I think it has a place that will become more obvious over time to both those in academia and to the clients who only want to know what they should do today.