November is just about over, and it was another month of honours, achievements, and attention-grabbing blog posts from Stem clients east to west.

• New Jersey criminal defense attorney John Marshall got a fun phone call the other day, from a writer/researcher from the popular Fox medical drama House! While we won’t go into detail here about what exactly the researcher was seeking an expert opinion on – you can read about at John’s New Jersey Criminal and DWI Defense Blog (feed) – this lends more credence to the idea that blogging lawyers are apt to get more calls from media, clients, and evidently, TV show writers!
• Products injury firm Hissey Kientz LLP introduced two new practice areas: one for the October 9, 2008 FDA recall of the ReliOn insulin syringe, and another for the diet drug fen-phen and its link to PPH (primary pulmonary hypertension).
• Between speaking at CLEs, giving presentations, and being quoted in the news, lawyers at Canadian firm Clark Wilson have been a busy lot this month. They’ve also been adding to their collection of accolades: Lyall Knott was named an inaugural member of Royal Roads University’s Fellows Council. The 20 RRU Fellows were chosen as business and industry leaders, and will be “stewards of good leadership, entrepreneurship, community and corporate responsibility.”
• Are you being punished twice for the same time if you’re held in jail after a DUI arrest/booking and subsequently are prosecuted? West Palm beach attorney Ron Chapman posts on the subject of DUI and double jeopardy in response to a question from a Huffington Post correspondent, on his West Palm Beach Criminal Lawyer Blog (feed).  He’s also written extensively on Florida criminal records, and his latest post in that regard looks at how to expunge a juvenile’s criminal history record in Florida.
• Legal document sharing site JD Supra has announced (yet) another great offering: their new Facebook application. In a few quick, easy steps, you can have your latest documents appear on your Facebook profile. This is a great way to effortlessly extend the reach of articles, precedents, court filings, and other legal documents that you produce. All you need is a JD Supra account and a Facebook account, and you’ll be good to go.  (See screenshots of the Facebook app in action here.)
• Themis Solutions, the company behind legal practice management SaaS tool Clio, recently wrapped up their three-part series on data accessibility, security, and privacy on their official Clio Blog (feed). They’ve also introduced a series of case studies profiling firms that have signed on to Clio service, with details on why they chose Clio and what they like about it.
• On his Arizona Criminal Lawyer Blog (feed), Lawrence Koplow delves into the mathematical world of determining sentence length for crimes in Arizona. Using the Arizona Criminal Sentencing chart, he outlines how judges decide jail terms and what effect aggravating or mitigating factors have on the term length. Over at his other blog, Arizona DUI Defense Blog (feed), Lawrence has a post up about Arizona’s new, more severe penalties for extreme DUI.

We’re grateful to be working with so many wonderful clients in both Canada and the US, and today we’d like to wish our American friends a very happy Thanksgiving!

For all you iPhone groupies out there – besides the guy writing this post who wasted an entire day waiting in line for one of the first Canadian editions – there’s a new blog in town! Jeff Richardson has started a new site called iPhone J.D. and it looks like a good one!

Now to spin this back to my own topic, I’d like to describe the lesson that Jeff is teaching us about building a profile online. And that is, blogs don’t have to be about substantive law to have an impact! Jeff has a class actions and liability practise, not an iPhone-tech law practise. So where’s the value? He’s just wasting his time right? Nope. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Despite the fact that Jeff has disclaimed any connection to his firm, that little link back to his working life is set to become a major asset for the firm. And they likely don’t even know it. … Mark my words here. Over the next year, Jeff’s blog will attract many links, and will probably surpass his firm’s website PageRank of 4 within six months.

From that point forward, Jeff’s blog will drive every lawyer profile and practice page for his firm website up in the search engine rankings. All because of the link juice that link will pass back to the firm.

Think about that for a minute. His firm which has 10 offices and looks to have hundreds of lawyers, will be surpassed by the indirect efforts of just one single lawyer. All because Jeff took the time to blog about a topic he’s passionate about.

A hobby? Sure. But his clients and potential clients also get to see his personality, his level-headed nature, and a love for the topic. That kind of insight does come into play when hiring a lawyer, and yes, personality counts.

Most lawyers love their work. After years in this industry, I’ve come to believe those that have any kind of longevity also have a passion for legal practise. Blogging, on the other hand, is about constant reflection and writing about something you care deeply about. If you’re going to last at it, just like practising law, you’d better love the topic.

The lesson I spoke of earlier, is that a popular blog will drive your law firm’s web marketing efforts, whether it’s a topic directly related to your practise, or like Jeff’s blog, is only tangentially related.

If you’re going to start blogging, my suggestion would be to get this part early. Make sure your blogging topic satisfies something within you. Make sure it’s a topic that’s both fun and drives you to write! As I’ve said before, blogs aren’t law firm newsletters. Yes you need to think about things strategically, but always write for yourself first. Your readers will thank you for it.

Now, where’s my feed reader? … I need to go subscribe to Jeff’s blog.

Update: Completely forgot to tip my blogging hat to Dave Bilinsky for sharing with me. Thanks Dave!

I’ve come to the realization lately that a number of articles I’ve writen for my Web Law Connected column over at Slaw, don’t always get exposed well in the US market. Considering about 70% of Stem clients originate from south of the border, I’m going to call it for what it is – a  bit of a blunder on my part.

Fair enough, but this was also clearly a fixable situation. As a result, we spent some time yesterday trying to rectify things by uploading some of the backlog to the Stem JD Supra collection. And because of some nice comments from twitter friends, it seems worth capturing the titles & links to those articles in a blog post.

The five articles that went up yesterday were:

• Ethics & Legal Web Marketing: Never Lower Your Standards!
• Legal Web Marketing in a Web 2.0 World
• SEO for Law Firms: Why Adwords is Not the Solution
• Closed Networks and the Problem with Facebook
• Top Five Digital Landmines for Lawyers

Enjoy!

My friend & legal marking consultant Allison Shields is out spamming legal bloggers today, trying to guilt us into pushing the latest issue of the ABA LPM’s Law Practice Today.

Actually, not spam at all… :) In fact, I might even remember opening my mouth in one of the Tucson meetings and suggesting something like a blogger outreach program. Luckily, there are people like Allison around to help turn those keener ideas into something useful.

Now let me back track even further, and ask you to visit Allison’s Legal Ease Blog for a full run down of all the latest articles.  Of course, you could visit the LPT website directly, but then you don’t get to see Allison’s great blog!  And if you look back at that first paragraph, you’ll see I did call the woman a spammer. It’s the least we can do, right?

…

Ok, back on the serious side…  I would like to pick out one article that I thought was quite helpful from this issue.  And that was, Carly Sproul’s piece titled Surviving and Thriving in a Tough Economy. She offers a short bullet point list of tactical considerations, and finishes with some solid advice:

“maintain a positive outlook. The economy is cyclical and while we are currently heading down, a rebound is guaranteed. Things may get worse before they get better, but those who take a proactive approach to marketing and business development will be able to weather the storm and position themselves for the next upswing.”

Finally, I haven’t talked too much about my involvement in the ABA LPM so far. Mostly because I still feel like the rookie and that I’m learning the ropes. That said, I’m now into year two on the Editorial board for the Magazine, and I’ve been tasked with a very cool new project. It’s Web 2.0 oriented, as you might expect, and something I hope to be blogging about in more detail shortly.

Stay tuned.

The content distribution channels just keep coming for legal documents sharing service JD Supra!

Just announced over on their JD Scoop blog, Stem client JD Supra has launched a new Facebook application to help users stream their content into their facebook profile.

There are two potential options during the install process. One is the mini feed, which will create a small summary of the last 3 documents the user has uploaded to JD Supra.

And the second option, which I think is the preferred path, will display the full feed of your documents, plus display a replicated copy of your JD Supra profile page.  Here’s a screen capture from Stem’s JD Supra profile:

And one of the document summary screen:

Another impressive addition to JD Supra’s vision for social legal documents! And, I might add, a very subtle way to insert one’s professional profile and credentials into their facebook experience.

Anyone who says the legal industry doesn’t get web 2.0 … better take a look at this! :)

Google has finally put their name to a guide for SEO practices. Announced on their webmaster central blog late last week, Google released a 22 page PDF titled, oddly enough, Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starters Guide.

To those looking for a top secret advantage or holy grail to a top ranking website… well, you might have to wait a little longer. This guide offers little more than an acknowledgement of what most would consider industry best practises. But for those looking for a brief introduction to the topic, especially when it comes to on-page optimization basics — this guide is good enough that I may make it my first stop for recommended reading.

And for those simply looking to avoid reading a 22-pg PDF report, I offer my own bullet point readers digest consolidation as follows:

• Make your title tags unique on every page of your site;
• Be sure to add a meta-description tag to each of your pages;
• Incorporate logical site architecture / information architecture principles;
  • ie. broad topic > specific category > finite subject
  • use breadcrumb trails, text based navigation structures
• Make content fresh, organized, unique, and relevant to the site’s subject;
• Keywords embedded in the url structure of pages are valuable additions;
• Write your content for the user, not the search engines;
• Optimize using ALT tags on in-line page images;
• Link with shorter descriptive anchor text – both internally and externally;
• Use header tags to differentiate headlines or scannable content;
• Make use of robots.txt files, sitemap files, webmaster central tools, and so on.

These types of on-page optimization factors are pretty much standard fare these days, especially within more competitive search markets. However, the fact that Google has put their name to, and indirectly endorsed, what most consider to be both ethical and standard industry practises — makes the SEO world a little easier to navigate, for everyone.

And that is an olive branch worth commending. Well done Google!

…that is, lawyers blogging about blogging. There has been a handful of excellent posts over the last few weeks on this very subject, and these posts couldn’t come at a better time.

With the current economic downturn, we’ve been hearing that business is down for both large & small firms. Just as the old adage “Buy when stocks are low” goes, it seems that many are taking this opportunity to evaluate their web marketing tactics, including how their blog is positioned to drive new business.

Over at My Shingle, today’s post from Carolyn Elefant asks the questions post “Should lawyers accept ads on their blogs? Why Not?” Carolyn argues that blog advertising, done thoughtfully and properly, is an intelligent passive income stream that’s worth pursuing. She even suggests that when paired with advertising, blogging frequently is especially rewarding.

“Lawyers know that blogging helps market a practice, but as we all do with marketing, sometimes it’s easy to set it aside, particularly when the returns aren’t immediate.  But ad revenue from blogs is something that will flow from a well read, targeted blog and knowing that there’s an immediate return, can give extra incentive to post regularly.”

Personally, I don’t have a problem with quality sponsorships on law blogs. But I do think advertising can be a slippery slope, especially link-based advertising, which is what most blogging lawyers tend get propositioned with.

My advice to clients has always been to avoid it.  When a blog is driving good relevant work, lawyers need to value that relationship to their core revenue stream (i.e. their practice), and protect it. While the sponsorship model has the potential to lend authority to a site like Carolyn’s, link-based advertising, by comparison, and the few hundred dollars (or thousand) a month it might produce, isn’t worth it for most lawyer blogs.

Another good post is “Should you be the one to write your own blog post?” by G2WebMedia’s Grant Griffiths at his blog, Blog for Profit. In this piece, he rebuts four plausible alternatives to writing your own blog content (e.g., using freelance writers, canned posts, etc.). Grant makes an excellent case for why the best person to write your blog is you, and concludes, “In my opinion, you don’t have time not to be the one doing the majority of the blogging.“  That’s good advice, in my view.

Lastly, Kevin O’Keefe of Real Lawyers Have Blogs addresses a concern that’s common among lawyers thinking about blogging: the fact that there are already other successful blogs on the subject out there. “Existing law blogs on your intended topic don’t preclude blogging success” gives plenty of reasons why that shouldn’t stop you. In fact, he asserts,

“Lawyers with a desire and passion to blog in an area of law will find having a ready network of lawyers publishing blogs on the subject to be an advantage. It’s like having a panel discussion on the subject going on every day.”

I would also add… there is always room to hit a law blogging topic from another angle. Think about widening the focus to a larger audience or subject area – rather than creating another law blog, how about an industry blog with a legal slant? Or, going narrow and picking a smaller (and preferably the most profitable) niche and completely owning that subject? … change it up a little!

These three detailed posts show that blogging, like all marketing, needs to be approached in a strategic and deliberate way. The legal community is fortunate to have lawyers who not only write great blogs but can teach the art and science behind it!

It’s been a few months since we last posted about the new additions at LawBlogs.ca. Canadian lawyers, students, librarians, and legal pros continue to launch great blogs. And we’ve been happy to add them to our ever-growing list of Canadian law blogs. Here are some of the latest additions:

• Innovate Hamliton (Michele Ballagh)
• Megawatt: The BC Renewable Energy Blog (Clark Wilson LLP)
• Official Clio Blog – Legal Practice Management SaaS (Themis Solutions)
• IPilogue (Osgoode)
• The Employment and Labour Law Students Society Blog (York)
• Law Library News from John A. Weir Memorial Law Library (University of Alberta)
• Library Technician Dialog (Karen Sawatzky & Brenda Wong)
• Doorey’s Workplace Law Blog (David Doorey)
• Osgoode Labour & Employment Law Society (Osgoode)

Welcome and congraulations to all!

As always, if you’ve got new legal blog with a Canadian perspective, drop us a line and we’ll get you added to the mix.

I have a new Web Law Connected column up over at Slaw, titled It’s Not the Tool! It’s YOU!

My message this month is to have faith in experimentation, and to be passionate in the way we select & embrace our web marketing tools. Please drop by and have a look!