Michael Ferguson

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s morning briefings have become a staple for many, New Yorkers or not, on the state of  the pandemic. Sunday morning Governor Cuomo ended with a story that he said taught him a lot. A story that taught him to question why we do what we do. To question the bureaucracy. To ask why we can’t do it a different way. Not everything has to be the way it is. Cuomo was of course referencing bringing New York back from the depths of this pandemic,  for which he made clear the worst days are behind. His message struck me as equally appropriate to a couple things near and dear to my heart. One, our attempts to provide consumers and small business people meaningful access to legal services – especially during the pandemic and the years ahead. We need to question the way things have been done and the bureaucracy that holds change back. Despite years of debate and “action,” we have 85% of people never thinking of using a lawyer when a legal need arises. ...

The LinkedIn Legal Blogging Group grew by over one hundred members from eighteen different countries in the last day. Egypt, Poland, India, US, Canada, UK, Australia, United Arab Emirates, Japan, Romania, Belgium, Germany, Turkey, South Africa, Jamaica, Nigeria, Argentina and Columbia. Amazing. My teammates and I at LexBlog, moderators of the Legal Blogging Group for the last twelve years, are going to work to restore the group to a valuable place for insight, ideas and networking. In approving requests to join, I was more liberal than usual. I want to help people during the pandemic who want to join and be open to the fact that people from various walks of life and various countries can help each other during these tough times. I looked at the member’s profile who was requesting to join the group – what they did, what their background is, how they would benefit from the group and how they might offer value to the group. I sent a personalized note requesting to connect with each...

We’re not going to see conferences of legal professionals in the hundreds, let alone thousands, in size yet this year. You can glean this from the White House guidelines , which the governors apparently approve of (and make the final decision), and the resulting discussion taking place across mainstream and social media. Even in stage three, the non-risk population (majority of people) is advised to minimize their time in crowded environments. The revenue loss for organizations like the American Bar Association, Legal Marketing Association, American Association of Law Libraries, International Legal Technology Association, among others could be significant – registration fees, sponsorships etc. I’d think organizations and companies doing conferences should announce virtual conferences as soon as possible. My gut tells me there are going to be some innovative and cool ways to do large conferences – with new types of platforms developed now for the years ahead. There will be revenue...

The work we’ve been doing at LexBlog on our aggregation and curation software, precipitated by the volume of content published on the pandemic, has me wondering about “aggregated publishing” by law firms and lawyers versus the constant focus on getting eyeballs to to their publications directly. Leading legal professionals have a ton of niche expertise and publish a ton of insight and commentary to build strong reputations. The same with doctors, scientists and other other professionals. I am not as familiar with science and medicine as the law, but I do see aggregated publishing there. Rather than every medical school or hospital publishing a separate publication for each niche, the leading medical professionals publish to publications with articles from medical professionals from around the country or the world. Legal professionals need not give up their independent publications/blogs, especially in the case of passionate and authoritative lawyers whose blogs, and themselves, per...

I was in Boston on 9/11. Unable to fly home to Seattle, I drove my rental car down through Conneticutt onto Northern Manhattan the afternoon of 9/12 or 9/13, I am not sure which. As a New York City native and an American, I had this fealing, being on the East Coast, I should try to help out. I am not sure what I was thinking I could do. With the military stationed along the way into Manhatattan, the growing realization there was nothing I could do and probably a tear in my eye, I headed West across the George Washington Bridge into Jersey with the World Trade Center Towers still on fire and a glow on my left. The Coronovirus pandemic has much the same effect on me. I am not a nurse, doctor, scientist or medical professional. Heck, LexBlog can’t shut down our factories, and make the products that Governor Cuomo and the federal government are looking for – even if we get a low interest loan from the Governor, they’ll pay a premium for the products – and my COO, Garry Vander Voort, a...