Michael Ferguson

I am a social creature. I get joy in life doing things with other people, particularly helping people. Heck, when I stumbled into the net twenty-five years ago in the form of AOL, it was the best of both worlds.  Engaging people and helping thousands of people who had questions on personal injury, workers comp, employment and medical malpractice law. With the coronavirus pandemic, I became isolated with social distancing and was wondering what I could to help – other than stay in doors. What could a legal publishing company do to stem the virus? I was getting a little down. My team, as they are apt to do, came through – for me, legal professionals and the public – big time. I got a real lift late today when I saw the Coronavirus Legal Daily . What’s the Coronavirus Legal Daily? Daily publication of blog posts from legal professionals providing insight and commentary on legal issues arising out of the pandemic. Posts are not just coming from blogs dedicated to the pandemic. ...

The challenges most of us are facing with the pandemic, such as social distancing, are minimal compared to being people getting the virus, the small businesses being closed, workers without jobs, people losing their health insurance, and people not being able to care for their loved ones because they’re prohibited from entering a hospital, rehab center or nursing home. Those of us in the legal profession and legal industry (LexBlog included) have an obligation to lead. Working in the law, we’re the champions of the less fortunate. Other industries don’t have that obligation. LexBlog has seen lawyers rise to the occasion by providing guidance and insight, via blogging on legal matters arising out of the pandemic. The public, their clients, and their client’s customers, employees and patients are hurting – and confused, at best, on multiple legal fronts. The lawyers are responding. The impact of the virus impacts all types of areas of the law – insurance, disability, health, employme...

Most lawyers work piecemeal by the hour. We develop skill in a niche. Develop a book of business or market to get more work in the area. And then do the work, though varying in some degree, time and again. I am not saying that’s bad.  As lawyers, we do a lot of good things for people, their families and their communities. We’re integral to a society of laws. LexBlog does much of the same. Develop technology and use it to deploy solutions for customers – though we’ve always operated on a subscription basis. As discussed below, we’re evolving from that way of business. But as Amazon showed again this week with launching a business selling an automated checkout solution to retailers, there is a different way of making money. Develop a process and the technology to support it, use it yourself in your own business and then license the technology/solution to other parties. In Amazon’s case, opening up Amazon Go or Amazon Go Grocery stores need not be the only way to grow revenues. ...

LinkedIn, Reddit, or Facebook, what will it be as a learning center on legal blogging? All are options. I’m a big believer in the open net for purposes of discussion, asking questions, learning the advancement of ideas. I suppose this comes from the wonderful discussions that blossomed on niche areas of the law across Prodigy, Compuserv and AOL in the 1990’s. Those we were not technically “open,” you needed to log in with a user name and number. We also had bulletin board systems (BBS) with only limited discussion on legal. But these places, back in the day when browsers were not widely used and we were years from having search, were the open net. Millions of people like me took to the net seeking help and to help others. The net was a wonderful place then. Mind you, I am talking lawyers, consumers, small business people, in-house counsel, corporate executives. law librarians, law students legal professionals and more taking part in these open discussions in the 1990’s. No one ...

No surprise that professionals on the LexBlog network are reporting and commenting on the coronavirus pandemic. The question arises how LexBlog, as leading legal publisher should “report” on the pandemic by virtue of aggregating and curating relevant coverage. When we started running LexBlog.com as a publication of aggregated and curated blog posts shining a light on our bloggers, as opposed to a marketing site about our products and services, our thinking was that LexBlog.com would be a legal publication where people would come and read stories – in addition to reading stories on the original publication, the blogger’s blog. We talked of  “dressing up” pages of LexBlog.com akin to what you’ve seen in newspapers in days past. I still remember the green and orange pages of certain newspapers being the sports section. Internal “magazines” were discussed. But can LexBlog expect people to naturally come to topical or tag sections on topics such as the coronavirus pandemic. Some peo...

With over 25,000 legal columnists in the form of legal bloggers, LexBlog is no doubt in the the publishing business. Our business model has never been around subscriptions, advertising or, God-forbid, charging people to distribute their content. Our business model has always been licensing publishing software. A blog publishing platform, a portal platform for syndication and a ‘spot’ publishing solution for publishing ‘into’ LexBlog and onto our syndication partners. All in a SaaS model, where our software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. Turns out, per a a piece on media trends at Axios, the business of licensing publishing software is becoming increasingly competitive as more digital publishers look to raise money and develop more content management software and technology products. From Axios: Minute Media, a holding group that owns digital sports and entertainment websites like The Players’ Tribune and The Big Lead, announced Wednesday that i...