Michael Ferguson

Though many, if not most, law blogs are published by a group of lawyers at a law firm, blogs published by an individual lawyer may work better for developing business. When I started blogging back in the stone age I thought of blogs as a conversation. One blogger expressing their thoughts and commentary, often referencing what another blogger posted, with other bloggers responding on their blog. Blogs were very personality driven. That didn’t necessarily mean law bloggers were blogging about personal items or being ultra opinionated, it just meant the bloggers had a unique voice, tone or sense of humor that resonated with followers. When law blogs started to take off about a decade ago, large law firms, with lawyers segmented by practice or industry groups, gravitated to group blogs for any number of reasons. Budgets for marketing often followed groups versus individual lawyers. Egos. In some cases, every lawyer in a practice group had to be listed as an ...

With all the recent stories in the news, it should come as no surprise that sexual harassment and sex discrimination is still prevalent in the workplace.  Dozens of allegations of sexual harassment and sexual assault have now been brought forward against Harvey Weinstein of The Weinstein Company.  Roy Price, the Studio Chief of Amazon Studios, […] See More Here: Sexual Harassment in the Workplace – Will it Ever End?

Law firms may want to invest more in marketing individual lawyers, versus practice groups and the law firm as whole. Pursuant to the latest GC Excellence Report , an indidual lawyer’s reputation ranks first by general counsel in selecting a law firm. And it’s by an almost ten to one margin over the importance of a law firm’s brand. From the Global Legal Post reporting on the study: The reputation of the individual is the single most important factor when deciding which law firm to use, according to the latest benchmarking research. Three in four general counsel (74 per cent) say this was the top factor when selecting a law firm compared to 39 per cent who opted for price. It is the first time in the GC Excellence Benchmark report research, which has been conducted over five years, that reputation has topped the bill. Personal relationships and reputation eclipsed law firm brands and global presence, items firms appear to be emphasize in their marketing and business development ...

Chatting with Bob Ambrogi , while he was visiting Seattle this week, we agreed that legal tech was growing like at no other time. Tech’s been around legal for a long time and we’ve had a lot of folks like he and I involved in legal tech companies and its coverage for a couple decades or more. But the last three or four years have brought us a slew of companies and solutions disrupting legal like never before. So I was surprised to read Holden Page’s story at crunchbase that investment in legal tech startups hit a hard peak in 2015 and has been on the decline since. While over a billion has been placed in legal tech startups, the pace of that investment in terms of deal and dollar volume has stalled. Included in this stalling are startups that look to help lawyers automate and improve workflows through new software and services, and startups that look to do away with lawyers using artificial intelligence and other software innovations. Crunchbase puts both markets of leg...

Legal research is expensive, but there are a number of free alternatives available. Aside from running over to the law library at the local courthouse or law school, or hiring law students with subscription access to Westlaw and Lexis, your options can sometimes be limiting. However, the trend is moving away from traditional hard copy books towards electronic formats. Unless you have your own

ALM (p/k/a American Lawyer Media) upgraded the user interface of its digital publications this week. From Gina Passarella , the Executive Editor of The American Lawyer: Our improvements will deliver the same breaking news and in-depth analysis of core U.S. and international business of law trends, but in a more visually appealing, intuitive and user-friendly fashion. The new design, including the vastly improved mobile experience, puts all of ALM’s news at your fingertips. You can still start your day at The American Lawyer but also easily access ALM’s broader offerings across publications, topics and geographies. And from Zach Warren , Editor In Chief of LegalTech News: Just like many of the legal technologies out there, we decided to do our own user interface upgrade, and we hope that the result is a more reliable, streamlined, and ultimately enjoyable experience. If you’re browsing on the Web, you’ll notice a more up-to-date looking home page and intuitive taxonomy, which...

I am a big believer that content is nothing more than the currency of relationships. I’m not dismissing the value of content, any more than I would dismiss the value of words at an offline networking event. Without words how could you engage others and get to know them? But I’m not going to measure the success of my words or my content, like others do, by whether I used the right words (the ones that ranked) and how much traffic my words got. There has to be something more. When I read a good post or article, whether from a blogger, reporter, columnist or business person (lawyers included), I look to meet the person. Online and maybe later, offline. If someone can add value to my life with what they’ve had to say online, maybe there’s something more to be gained through getting to know them. What do I do? Share their piece on Twitter, giving the person the appropriate attribute by including their Twitter handle at the end of my tweet. This lets them know I appreciate their thou...

Why is baseball the greatest sport? Because just when you think you’ve seen it all, you witness what the Cubs did in their playoff win over the Nationals last night. With two outs in the top of the fifth inning the Cubs saw four consecutive batters reach: one by an intentional walk, one on a passed-ball strikeout, one on catcher’s interference, and the fourth on a hit-by-pitch. Those four events have never happened before in the same half-inning, at least not in the more than 2.73 million half innings in Baseball Reference’s database. None of the 2.73m half innings in our db have even had all 4 of these events. 22 w/ 3. Only 5 games had all 4. https://t.co/ntifpJIb6n — Baseball Reference (@baseball_ref) October 13, 2017 Only 22 half innings have had 3. Only 5 games had all 4. The Cubs somehow pulled that off, to the chagrin of Nats’ manager Dusty Baker who was dying watching it, seemingly for the first time in the history of the sport. In case you’re wondering how m...

Despite all the money law firms spend on Internet marketing, more people choose a lawyer by a referral from a friend, relative or another lawyer than any other method — by far. This from the  2017 Legal Trends Report , just released by Clio , a leading practice management solution provider. When it comes to looking for a lawyer, consumers indicated that they sought referrals from friends/family (62%) and from other lawyers (31%). Online search (37%) and directory listings (28%) trailed. TV ads (13%), online ads (13%), radio ads (7%), and billboard ads (6%) had a much lower influence among respondents. Clio releases its annual Legal Trends Report to help lawyers make smart decisions about the future of their practice. Using anonymized data from 60,000 users, supplemented by large-scale surveys, Clio was able to make numerous findings, including where lawyers spend their time and where their concerns lie. Business development, for lawyers, is the near the top of the list on bot...

Practice Management Advice from an Expert 2 billion email users worldwide send 294 billion emails daily; that works out to 2.8 million per second. Everyone will agree that they are sending and receiving their “fair” share; some more than others. But what does that mean in concrete terms? Buried Alive? Tips for Mastering E-mail Overload Article written by Tracy Parks, Principal and

I love finding helpful tools for paralegals that will help them succeed.  I stumbled upon Quizlet the other day.  I had not been to the website in a very long time and honestly had forgotten about it.  It's a great tool to use when studying for tests or to up your game at your job and add to your knowledge base.  It's completely free to use.  So, what is Quizlet?  From the website:  "Welcome

I’m headed back to the Midwest this week to speak to another law school class. I have to tell you, nothing gets me more jazzed than speaking to law students about the opportunities they have to use the net to learn, network and build a name. Little question that some law school students are using social media and blogging to build a name for themselves. I shared the stories of a few law grads a couple weeks ago. But how many law students are blogging and using social media for learning? How many law professors and law schools are promoting its use for learning? Sadly, not many — and that’s a loss for the students and possible malfeasance on a law school’s part for failing to do so. ZDNet’s Dion Hinchcliffe recently  reported  that though technology has long been used to improve how we learn, today’s digital advances, particularly with social media, have taken learning in a powerful new direction. [The digitization of learning] allows learning — for better or worse, depe...