Legal Tech Companies Missing Opportunity to Self-Publish Their News

Legal tech self publishing

Rather than pitch messages to reporters, mainstream media and bloggers alike, why couldn’t legal tech companies publish themselves – on a platform that the company owns and controls.

Whether you call it a blog or a publishing “spot,” the company would publish their announcements, insight, commentary and news there.

The minute an item is published it is picked up by RSS aggregators and email subscribers.

Take LexBlog, likely the largest legal news and commentary site, with over 25,000 legal contributors, for example.

LexBlog picks up the feed immediately and runs it at no cost to the legal tech company in LexBlog’s legal tech section, on LexBlog’s front page, as appropriate, and delivers the legal tech company’s “news” via LexBlog’s email distribution systems and social media channels.

LexBlog, also for free, generates a profile page on LexBlog, including all “posted” news, for the company and principals posting the news.

Take it a step further and LexBlog could create a syndication portal dedicated to legal tech. Look at Illinois Lawyer Now to get the idea. A digital magazine dedicated to legal tech news, commentary and announcements.

Anyone, worldwide, could scroll through legal tech news on their smartphone, with information about the company and its principals a click away in the same interface.

Sure, a legal tech company can publish items to their own website, but its uptake is no where near this.

The Internet, and in particular, WordPress has democratized publishing.

As Matt Mullenweg, the co-founder of WordPress, says, this means that people of all backgrounds, interests, and abilities should be able to access free-as-in-speech software that empowers them to express themselves on the open web and to own their content.

Why no legal tech Companies?

For probably less than $50 per month, a company receives a fully equipped and full supported publishing spot, that if they so choose can be used as a blog or digital magazine.

Sure, there will be reasons to build influence and a name beyond self publishing, but expressing yourself in your own words on the open web is an opportunity not to be missed.

Comments

Job security is a myth for lawyers without a personal brand

I talked with a highly respected legal professional last Friday who was recently let go by his law firm. He had been employed by the firm for four or five years and employed by similar large law firms for a couple decades before. A couple weeks ago I heard of veteran lawyer who joined a large firm with a major client, but whose employment status was now at risk with the general counsel’s leaving his client. These stories pale in comparison to all of the lawyers who have been the victim of downsizing caused by the collapse or merger of their law firms. With the changes in the legal services market, very few lawyers have job (or stable income) security writes Dan Lear, Director of Industry Relations at Avvo. Lawyers need to build a strong brand or a business, and to do so now, Per Lear, the job security once held by law firm partners and in-house counsel who had reached the the ranks of Assistant General Counsel or Deputy General Counsel is gone. There’s the former general counse

The economics of a legal blogging network as a virtual community

Over twenty years ago I read of the power of virtual communities in Net Gain, Expanding Markets Through Virtual Communities by John Hagel and Arthur Armstrong (now executive director of Debevoise &Plimpton). I read Net Gain then while creating Prairielaw.com, a virtual law community of lawyers and lay people alike, later sold to LexisNexis. I am reading Net Gain again as LexBlog’s worldwide legal blogging network begins to pick up steam. This legal blogging network is every bit a virtual community of: Blogging legal professionals Those supporting these legal bloggers – LexBlog and its partners Those whom benefit from the legal information and commentary of legal bloggers, including legal professionals, consumers of legal services empowered by legal blogs to select a lawyer in a more informed fashion, and other publishers who receive blog commentary by syndication. No question there is a business model in organizing a legal blogging community, so long as the focus rema

Blogging Makes You a Better Lawyer

LexBlog’s associate editor, Melissa Lin , shared on Twitter this week a blog post of mine on some of the reasons that lawyers blog – to learn, to join a conversation and to build a community. To which Josh King , the former general counsel of Avvo and the current general counsel of realself added, “Also makes you a better lawyer. Also makes you a better lawyer. — Josh King (@joshuamking) September 27, 2019 I have been following King’s blog for years. He has a keen interest in the professional speech regulation of lawyers, and how that regulation may not serve the public interest. I’ve watched him pick up relevant news stories, whether from traditional media or legal bloggers, dissect the issue, analyze the law and share his commentary. Good stuff. I engaged him and others on many of his posts. King was doing exactly one of the things we were told in law school, and which the consumer of legal services would like to see in their lawyer, he was staying up to speed in relevant

Michael Ferguson

Search This Blog