Media and Journalism

Meet ATL’s New Ami

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Every high-profile law firm seems to be getting involved with the incredibly partisan fight for or against EPA’s new climate regulations; Dutch women work significantly less than their American counterparts, have a big pay gap, but are still happier; and a Google maps camera crew busted a drug deal in Brooklyn last week. Why am I giving you these seemingly unrelated news bits? Because starting next week, I’m going to be writing for ATL about gender issues, green causes, and social media — and where they intersect with law and the legal profession.

Hopefully I’ll be able to expand upon ATL’s tradition of reporting, first to satisfy my inner journalist (I’m a Columbia Journalism School graduate and I worked as a reporter for a newspaper in India for over three years), and second because… well, who doesn’t like forcing comments out of Biglaw firms?

More about me, including a picture, after the jump.

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Above the Law Launches a New Column for In-House Counsel

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Some time ago, we solicited applications for a new position here at Above the Law: a columnist to cover the world of in-house counsel. We received many outstanding applications, and we thank everyone who applied for their interest.

Today we are pleased to announce the launch of the new column, entitled Inside Straight (for the poker aficionados among you). As its name suggests, the column will cover the world of corporate counsel with all of the candor and insight that you’ve come to expect from ATL.

Our columnist — a former law firm partner, current in-house lawyer, and author of a well-received book on legal practice — should be familiar to longtime followers of the world of legal blogging….

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Non-Sequiturs: 11.05.10

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* U.S. News will be shutting down its print magazine. But the rankings should be safe. [Mediabistro]

* The ABA is coming for your internets. [Avvo]

* Prince Jefri of Brunei is a wild and crazy guy. [Law Shucks]

* Justice Stevens pontificates on Ground Zero Mosque. [BLT: Blog of the Legal Times]

* Prop 19 supporters are already gearing up for 2012. Yeah, cause it’s not like pot heads will lose motivation over the course of two years. [WSJ Law Blog]

Syracuse College of Law Tries to Learn the Difference Between Satire and Libel

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Yesterday I was busy trying to keep bullies out of jail. Check out my editorial in the New York Daily News for a full discussion on how I would handle mean children. But while I was away, news broke that the Syracuse College of Law is conducting its very own witch hunt, which could lead to the expulsion and deportation of a kid accused of saying mean things on the internet.

I’m telling you guys, this country is going to hell, one ridiculous overreaction at a time.

If you missed the story, the ABA Journal has a nice summary of what’s going on at Syracuse. The facts are pretty straightforward: student writes a satirical blog which attributes funny, Onion-style quotes to real people. The real people get their panties in a bunch. Syracuse launches an investigation into whether or not the blog constituted libelous bullying of other students, and whether the student author should be expelled for a “code of conduct” violation.

Now, to be clear, if we are going to hold people accountable for being mean to others, expulsion (and not jail) is a far more appropriate response. But, to my mind, this isn’t libel. This is clear parody, and satire should be protected, not punished…

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Harvard Club Rejects Eliot Spitzer (aka Client No. 9)

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Eliot Spitzer: Harvard Club reject

In April, we reported that Eliot Spitzer — former governor and attorney general of New York, until he resigned from office in the wake of a prostitution scandal — was applying for admission to the Harvard Club of New York. Spitzer graduated from Harvard Law School in 1984.

Well, the jury has reached a verdict for the ex-prosecutor — and the news for Spitzer is not good. His application was rejected earlier this year, according to an article by Sewell Chan and Nicholas Confessore of the New York Times.

So what did Spitzer, famously known as Client No. 9, have to say about his rejection?

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The Key to a Good Law Blog? Try Listening.

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This past week, bestselling author Seth Godin pointed out that most bloggers and users of social media are failing miserably:

There are millions of songs on iTunes that have sold zero copies. Millions of blog posts that get zero visitors each day.

The long tail is real… given the ability, people create more variety. Given the choice, people seek out what’s just right for them to consume. But, and there’s a big but, there’s no guarantee that the ends of the long tail start producing revenue or traffic. And a million times zero is still zero.

So what are attorneys with little or no traffic to their blogs doing wrong? Let’s discuss….

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Cosmo’s Bachelor of the Year Contest — With Hot Law Students and Lawyers

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Cosmo's Most Eligible Bachelors

Objectifying men is hot right now. The Duke F**k List, recent Duke grad Karen Owen’s candid appraisal of the various men she slept with, is burning up the internet. Here at Above the Law, we’re getting a ton of traffic to a silly little post about some hot male ass in Chicago.

This seems like good timing, then, for the arrival of Cosmopolitan magazine’s Bachelor of the Year contest. We learned about the competition, in which readers vote for their favorite from 51 bachelors (50 states + D.C.), via Going Concern (our sister site, until recently).

Caleb Newquist of Going Concern highlighted Carl Koenemann, an aspiring accountant who looks great with his shirt off. But the bachelors up for bids also include three legal eagles: two law students, and one practicing lawyer.

Perhaps you’ve met one or more of these hunks. Let’s get to know them a little better (and check out some shirtless pics), shall we?

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Seven Types of People Who Are Interested in Small Law Firms

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I wrote last week about the perceived level of interest from attorneys at small law firms in finding a collective voice. As I’m currently camping somewhere in the remote, internet-less regions of our northern neighbor, I haven’t the chance to check in with your comments and emails, but promise to do so upon my return to the internet-using world.

Speaking of camping, we’ve previously discussed lawyers decamping from Biglaw in favor of something cozier. Over at Adam Smith, Esq., Bruce MacEwen calls this phenomenon a “natural evolution of an industry under economic stress.” I call it an opportunity. The “natural evolution,” as MacEwen so eloquently terms it, means that there should be a growing interest among Above the Law’s existing readership in the opportunities offered by small-firm practice.

But I figured I needed a more clearly defined angle in order to pique the interests of your esteemed editors. As I thought about the potential for this column and how to pitch it to Lat and Elie, I ended up compiling a short list of reader profiles that I figured would take interest in such an endeavor.

Who is interested in reading about small law firms? Here’s an eye-pleasing numbered-list format….

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Have Law Blogs Failed to Live Up to Expectations? Biglaw Partners Opine

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“The secret to happiness in life is setting low expectations.”
– My Uncle Lyman

Over the past few weeks, in the comments to my ATL posts, there have been a number of questions about whether or not large law firms are bringing in real clients through their law blogs. While we have seen some instances of big wins that have come as a direct result of law blogs, these have been rare. What about the average law blogs? Have blogs lived up to the expectations of Biglaw firms?

My inquiry began by looking at all the law blogs of the Am Law 100 firms. Click here to see the full list. As you can see from the chart, the majority of the law blogs come from just a few firms. In fact, 5 percent of the firms account for 49 percent of the total law blogs of the Am Law 100.

So I went directly to these firms and asked them: Have the law blogs been worth it? Have they been worth the money, the effort, and the (expensive) billable time of the attorneys?

I spoke to several law firm partners and marketing officers to find out….

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Email Marketing and the Power of Permission

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In a classic Seinfield episode, Jerry gets the phone number of a girl he is interested in from off of a list of people donating money for the AIDS Walk. Jerry does his best to keep this a secret from the girl, but eventually he lets it slip to George, who lets it slip to Susan, who tells her friend, who spills it it to the girl. The girl ends things with Jerry, offended that he would use a charity list to pick her up.

Why did she care? Because the way people get our information and how they use it matter to us. People hold on to their contact info as if it were solid gold. You give up your phone number and email address too easily, and you will be forever harassed by spam.

People do give up their email addresses, though, especially in exchange for information that they really want, or to people they like. This allows for something called permission marketing, an extremely powerful tool for building a prospect list for your practice. List building is an essential aspect of business development that is far too often overlooked. Often lost in the debate over the viability of social media is an improper or ineffective utilization of existing contact lists….

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The Group Blog v. The Personal Blog

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The firm that blogs together, stays together.

Are you a superstar or a team player? When it comes to law blogs, the question is: do you have your own blog, or are you part of a team that writes a group blog? With over 45% of the Am Law 200 now using blogs, amid mounting evidence that blogs bring both publicity and business, many firms are trying to figure out the best way to build a successful blog.

For those of you who have been living underground for the last year, here is how the two different types of blogs work.

The Personal Law Blog

Lawyer X starts blogging. He is an expert in Computer Fraud Law, and as he blogs and shares his knowledge, he gains credibility and brings publicity to the firm, in the form of website traffic and media mentions. He starts to be seen as a subject matter expert, which helps him build relationships and expand his book of business. The firm makes more money and everybody is happy.

This is one strategy. The second strategy is to have multiple authors in a group law blog.

The Group Law Blog

Lawyers A, B, C, D and E come together as a group to write a blog about Video Game Law. Each week, one or two authors write a blog post that leads to greater exposure for the firm. The practice group is seen as more cutting edge, RFPs can mention the blog, and the increased web traffic results in phone calls that lead to more business. Everyone is happy.

So which type of law blog is right for your firm? I took this question to several active members of the online legal community to get their perspectives….

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Give Your Legal Writing Nine Lives

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“If you build it, he will come.”

– Voice heard by Kevin Costner in Field of Dreams

Writing a book, blog, article or white paper are all great ways to get noticed and build relationships in the legal industry. Unfortunately, practicing lawyers confront great demands on their time, and even though they have good intentions, the work of creating this type of content is often delegated to associates or put off altogether. Part of the problem is that writing blog posts and articles is a loss leader. You spend too much time writing without business coming in, and soon enough you’ll be out of business.

Here is where social media and email marketing comes in. Every article and piece of content you create no longer has just one life. Now it can easily have nine. Hopefully one of these nine lives will give you the extra motivation to start writing more.

Life 1: Blog.

The law blog is your home base for all your new content. Creating blog posts on a regular basis is the single most powerful tool for business development in the online world. The search engines love fresh content, and once you have enough content on your blog, you will create a steady flow of traffic to your site….

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