You’re a busy lawyer. You’ve got a deposition this morning, a client meeting this afternoon and a legal brief due tomorrow. Is it really worth it then to spend time nearly every day in front of a computer adding posts to a law blog that you’re not sure people will even read?

For Minneapolis consumer law attorney Samuel Glover, the answer is a resounding yes — as long as you do it well, that is. Over the 3 ½ years he’s been blogging, the techno-savvy lawyer has retained dozens of clients who have found him through his law specialty blogs — caveatemptorblog.com (a blog concentrating on consumer rights) and lawyerist.com (a blog concentrating on law-practice management, which he co-authors with Minneapolis attorney Eric Cooperstein). Combined, the blogs get around 14,000 visits a month.

“That makes me have a bigger network of people than just about 99 percent of the law firms out there,” he said.

Brendan Flaherty, an attorney with Pritzker Olsen in Minneapolis, agreed that blogging is worth the time and effort that goes into it. He said his firm’s blog — The Food Poisoning Law Blog — has been a simple, economical way to get information out to the public and get the public in the door.

“As compared to other marketing sources, it’s the cheapest thing you can do. That’s what is so great about it,” said Flaherty.

Breeding Business

Blogging lawyers are convinced that their blogs generate business, but acknowledge that it can be difficult to measure exactly how much. Some clients come in directly as a result of reading the blog, while others come in after a recommendation from an attorney who reads their blog.

“I get referrals and clients directly from it,” said Hopkins attorney Gregory Reigel, who links to his aviation-related blog from his law firm Web site. “I can’t quantify how much business I get out of it, but I definitely get some from it.”

Glover said that while not all of the people who visit his blogs are potential clients, all of them are people who might know a potential client.

“About half of my clients find me because of my online marketing, and my blog plays the biggest part in that,” he said. 

Glover has also noticed that the quality of the prospective clients who contact him is much higher since he started blogging. He speculates that individuals who might have taken up his time before with matters not worth pursuing may be getting their questions answered on his blog.

Flaherty said that his firm has several other specialty blogs in various stages of development to complement the food poisoning blog. Each attorney at the firm makes at least one blog entry a week. The firm stays on top of who visits the blogs, how long they stay and whether they contact the firm for a consultation.

“We know we are getting business [from the blogs]. It’s really easy to track,” he said.

The ‘Ubiquity’ Factor

Maintaining a specialty law blog can also help attorneys establish that they are experts in their particular fields.

“By posting to it regularly, it helps beef up my image in terms of showing people I’ve got knowledge of the industry and the law, and it makes me look more like an aviation expert than just a static Web site might,” said Reigel.

Rockport, Mass., media law attorney Robert Ambrogi said that almost anything that helps promotes your firm is a plus.

“I’m a great believer in what I call the ‘ubiquity’ factor in marketing,” he said. “The more you can get your name out there in different media online, and in different locations online, the more that comes back to your benefit.” Seattle, Wash.-based attorney William Marler, well-known throughout the country for handling food-poisoning cases, said his firm began an E. coli blog about five years ago and has since developed specialty blogs for most of the common forms of illness-causing bacteria. Marler said that the blogs, which are continuously updated by staff and now getting between 8,000 and 10,000 hits a day, are primarily a forum for providing information to the public.

Marler said he often spends as much as two hours a day blogging on issues relating to food poisoning and providing his opinions on how we can have a safer food supply. He’s convinced that blogging has helped elevate his stature in the legal and food safety advocate arenas. “Having a voice and having people comment and cite to your blog and understand you are a serious player in this business … it makes you feel a little bit better about what you do.”

Current Events

In addition to snagging potential clients and getting a lawyer’s name out there, blogging has other advantages as well.

Having to come up with regular blog entries forces attorneys to read the papers and stay current on the laws, policies and news in their practice area, Flaherty pointed out. “That’s definitely an added benefit,” he said.

Ambrogi said staying current is the reason he started his media law blog. “It forces you into this regular exercise of keeping up with the news and developments in your field,” he elaborated.

Because the monetary costs of setting up a blog are little to nothing, the costliest aspect of blogging is the nonbillable time and effort spent in coming up with regular posts.

“That is the most intimidating thing for most lawyers,” said Glover.

Reigel agreed. “The struggle is trying to post regularly and put up information that is going to be helpful and useful,” he said. “I enjoy doing the posts, but sometimes it’s a struggle time-wise.”

While it does take time, effort and commitment to maintain a good specialty law blog, lawyers that do it say it’s definitely worth it.

“It’s hard to underestimate how important a Web presence is to our firm,” said Flaherty. “The blogs are a large and growing part of that Web presence.”

Glover considers blogging to be the ultimate form of networking. “You have an army of people out there who are programmed to send you business because they know who you are and what you do,” he said. “That’s how rainmakers get business. They don’t use billboards.”