Illinois Bar Shines a Light on Legal Bloggers With Illinois Lawyer Now

Big kudos to the Illinois State Bar Association for shining a light on their state’s blogging lawyers with the launch this week of Illinois Lawyer Now.

Illinois Lawyer Now aggregates all of the posts on blogs published by members of the Illinois Bar and curates the posts into a constantly updated legal news and commentary publication, which also includes original articles from the Bar and contributors.

Each blog, blogging lawyer and law firm with contributing blogs is profiled in individual pages on the site.

From the Bar in announcing the site:

By aggregating members’ legal blogs on a single website, the ISBA aims to shine a brighter light on the excellent writing its members are doing every day. While the average blog on a firm’s website is seen by only those who visit the firm’s site, inclusion on Illinois Lawyer Now will amplify the content’s exposure and result in many more readers.

Lawyers benefit from Illinois Lawyer Now in growing the readership of their blogs and having access to a growing body of legal information, per Illinois State Bar President James F. McCluskey.

We find that a syndication portal is a win-win for our members and their readers. Illinois Lawyer Now gives our blogging members an opportunity to grow their audience, and at the same time, it gives readers access a variety of knowledge from Illinois lawyers all in one place.

Illinois Lawyer Now is the first publication to be launched on LexBlog’s new “Syndication Portal” platform. The technology delivers a turnkey publishing product that gives organizations the ability to aggregate content from many blogs and sites into one online publication.

The Syndication Portal product is appropriate for any organization that seeks to highlight members’ content, strengthen its membership organization and realize new revenue from digital publishing. That could include bar associations, law schools, larger law firms and special interest groups.

A special thanks to Tim Slating, Assistant Executive Director, Communications for the Illinois State Bar and his team for working with LexBlog to develop this product. Truth be told, the “Syndication Portal” concept was drawn out on a napkin over a dinner in Vancouver with Tim a year ago.

I guess a thanks also goes to Ed Walters who invited me to that annual Fastcase dinner for bar executives and sat me at a table with Tim, who I had not before.

And just how is Illinois Lawyer Now working? In just two days, sixty Illinois law firms have submitted a total of eighty blogs for inclusion. Amazing.

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