Locating a Lawyer Who Does Not Blog is Not Easy

Find lawyer blog

Last Thursday, a friend asked me to find a lawyer for them or to get a referral from a lawyer so they could get counsel on a niche legal issue in a large metro area in another state.

No matter what anyone tells you, locating the right lawyer is not easy, and usually comes via relationships.

So I reached out to a lawyer I knew in that metro area to see if they knew of such a lawyer or knew of a lawyer who may. No luck.

As way of context, lawyers get work by referring work to other lawyers, it builds a network.

Any lawyer would be glad to take my call asking for a referral to another lawyer. And that lawyer would be glad to take the call of any lawyer in their community asking for the same thing. It’s how they get referrals – by referring work out.

When I came up empty on a referral, fortunately I knew the name of NAELA (National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys), an association of attorneys who are experienced and trained in working with the legal problems of older Americans and individuals of all ages with disabilities.

It was an elder law niche issue for which I needed a referral. And lawyers who are members and leaders of niche associations are good places to start a search.

It took me hours wading through NAELA’s poorly developed directory with some lawyers having some information about themselves and others having none. Often the information was such that only a lawyer would know what it meant, and even then the info was not that helpful in selecting a lawyer here.

Unfortunately, it was much the same for law firm websites when I got to them from links on NAELA’s site. Though I did email three lawyers last Thursday night and Friday morning. Only one responded.

Imagine if a lawyer blogged on elder law issues, perhaps more particularly on the relevant niche. The more they blogged, the more likely they would have hit that niche.

I do a search on the niche in that metro and I find that lawyer, their blog and their insight on the issue. Within seconds.

Case closed. The lawyer gets the call.

Lawyers worry about where there work is going to come from. Lawyers pay countless dollars for websites, SEO and directories.

Why not just share what you know by answering the questions you get in your practice. Do it once a week – about 30 minutes is all – and you have fifty answers a year.

It’s not not hard, it’s called blogging – and you’d make it much easier for people looking for your help as a lawyer to find you.

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