Michael Ferguson

I’ve managed the Legal Blogging Group on LinkedIn since the first week LinkedIn created groups. Regardless of what you think of the value of LinkedIn Groups, they’re gold for reaching out to shake people’s hands. And after all, shaking hands and talking with folks is what networking through the net is all about. How so? Don’t just check off to accept or deny requests to join the group. Review the profile of each person requesting to join. For those you are accepting, send a personal invite to connect with a note welcoming them to the group, introducing yourself/company as the moderator, explain what you do to add value to the group, and ask if they would be so kind to connect on LinkedIn. Then go back and accept their request to join the group. You’ll receive notes of thanks. Continue the dialogue through LinkedIn as appropriate. Look for business development opportunities with the person. Need not be right away. May go into your customer relationships system. For us, it’s H...

I just reviewed thirty requests to join LinkedIn’s Legal Blogging Group , approving most of them. The ones not approved were from people with no interest in the law or legal blogging. As with last week, I was struck by the number of people from countries other than the United States, particularly India, who requested to join. Young people studying the law and practicing law made up the majority of the requests. There’s a large number of young people interested in the law no matter the country. But why so many law students and young legal practitioners outside the United States expressing an interest in blogging as compared to those in the United States? Especially India. My first thought is that the United States is sorely lacking when it comes to law schools preparing their students for life in the law today. Sure, there is the core law that students are learning. And sure, students from the top fifteen or twenty law schools are going to get good jobs in large firms by learning t...

The State Bar of Wisconsin is the latest bar associaton to partner with LexBlog to bring a legal blogging community to their state or metropolitan area. The legal blogging community partnerships are twofold. One to create a hub for all things legal blogging in the jurisdiction. And two, to make it easy and low cost for lawyers to begin to blog or to continue blogging on a better platform than they’re currently using. From Michelle Newblom, reporting for LexBlog on this partnership, over the past few years, the State Bar of Wisconsin’s Communications Team noticed a steady increase in the number of its 25,000-plus members who are actively blogging as a way to communicate their expertise and build their reputation. But bloggers were looking for a way to increase readership of their blogs. And for lawyers in general, there was not an easy place to find relevant blogs, subscribe to multiple blogs at once and access a central database of this growing body of secondary law. The Bar’s an...

When I’m sharing a news story regarding a law firm on Twitter – positive news about the firm – it would be nice to give a shutout to the managing partner/executive chair as well as the firm, generally. The problem is that most chairs/managing partners are not active on Twitter. Being as weak as the next law firm when it comes to a simple form of innovation – communication – is a scary place to be. If you as a leader of a law firm, can’t reach in your purse or pocket and pull out your iPhone and share an engaging Tweet, you’re lacking on the innovative communication front. I use Twitter a fair amount, not to push information at people, but most importantly to listen to the pulse of what is taking place in my market and to engage my audience of customers, business development partners, fellow tech company leaders and influencers – reporters, bloggers and heavy social media users in my vertical. If I want to engage a multi-billion publishing software company leader, I reference her ...

I read an article earlier this week about industry sectors in Boulder which are adding jobs while unemployment is increasing statewide as a result of the Covid-19 Pandemic. Such as? A plaque and metal engraver working round the clock now that it has converted to manufacturing laser-cutting face shields and sneeze guards. Life-sciences arena with one Boulder company expanding its workforce in part to to produce lipid excipients to be used in the development of a vaccine for Covid-19. A fabric boutique and sewing shop which started sewing masks to mitigate canceled in-person gatherings. Fabric sales have increased by 30%. Public health agencies hiring students with public health backgrounds, social workers and public health epidemiologists to aid a statewide contact-tracing program. Amazon says there are currently 1,000 positions in Colorado that need to be filled, which include operations, fulfillment, tech and corporate positions. I’m not suggesting that each of these organi...

A greater number of lawyers are taking to Twitter during the Covid-19 Pandemic than at probably any other time. Why? Lawyers appreciate the need to network online when they cannot network in person. With less travel, social engagement and time spent on outside interests, lawyers have more time to experiment. Consumers and small businesses are being slammed economically. Lawyers appreciate that the market of available of clients is shrinking. With more available time and a shrinking market, lawyers are looking to develop a reputation in niches, even niches in which they have not practiced before. Using Twitter for business development is an art. Twitter is not hard to use, but you need to know what you are doing. Here’s ten tips for those of you new to Twitter. Focus on a niche. Doesn’t matter if it’s an area of the law you do work in, want to do work in or an area outside the law. No one is going to pay much attention to a person without a strong following on Twitter who is...

I sat down with business development coach and author, Nora Riva Bergman, last week – at least virtually – for an interview for her upcoming book,  50 Lessons for Happy Lawyers: Boost wellness. Build resilience. Yes, you can . Nora was nice enough to enough share some of what I shared with her in a blog post . I thought I’d share some of that with you. Lawyers need to think differently during the pandemic , now is not the time to do the same. “The biggest problem lawyers have is just getting in the way of themselves and being guided by other lawyers. In order to innovate, somebody needs to be an innovator. The greatest challenge I see for lawyers is that they’re going to try to correct the situation by just doing the same things. It doesn’t work.” Look at how consumers interact with services and products. They don’t interact with them in the same way that legal services are being rendered. So, there’s real opportunity for lawyers who are willing to be different. Now’s the time...