Blogs As Agents Of Change: Choose Your Weapon

Come to Attorney@Blog and talk about yourselves.

The other panels at our inaugural Attorney@Blog conference deal with important issues. Sexism! First Amendment! And don’t forget, we’re getting you six ETHICS credits of CLE in a non-boring format.

My panel isn’t about such highfalutin’ technical or social issues. My panel is about something near and dear to the hearts of most people who either blog professionally or do it as a hobby. My panel is about navel-gazing. Because every legal blogger has a little Fredo Corleone in them: “I can handle things! I’m smart! Not like everybody says… like dumb… I’m smart and I want respect!” Without that little sin of vanity, we’d all be representing clients or teaching classes or doing whatever the hell I’d be doing if I had real skills, quietly. Unobtrusively.

Instead, legal bloggers go out there and try to make an impact. We try to move the conversation or effect change in some way.

Is it working? Is anybody freaking listening? Should we be concerned about “bad” legal bloggers who make everybody dumber one hashtag at a time? I’m not the right person to answer any of these questions, but here’s the panel of smart people who will think through this with me:

  • Kyle McEntee of Law School Transparency: Nobody has tried to use the power of blogging to impact the legal world quite like Kyle. Is it working? Are there best practices that he can share? And how does a blogging crusader actually pay bills and eat?
  • Karen Sloan of the National Law Journal: Karen is who I’d like to be if I grew up. She’s a real reporter. A journalist. She can talk not only about the impact of blogging on actual decision makers, she can also speak to the impact of blogging on the quality of legal reporting. Are we helping, or are we screwing things up for everybody?
  • Joshua Peck of Duane Morris: Peck is the founder of Law Firm Media Professionals. Basically, when bloggers throw a rock at a Biglaw window, Peck is one of the guys who has to replace the glass. If bloggers are making an impact, Peck can tell us how to make a bigger one.

I think it should be a fun conversation for current bloggers interested in how their work is being perceived, and for prospective bloggers who are trying to figure out if there’s a point to taking the time to blog. And, again, you get CLE for listening.

Attorney@Blog Conference [Above the Law]

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