April has flown by, but the news & projects continue to come for Stem clients. Here’s our monthly roundup of client successes:

• New York injury lawyer John Hochfelder hosted Blawg Review #209, and dedicated the legal blogging roundup to his late father. The Blawg Review was enormously well-received, and mentioned by at least a dozen other bloggers, who praised John’s creative and touching approach.
• Clio co-founder Jack Newton spoke at the LegalIT 3.0 conference in Montreal earlier this month, delivering a presentation called “10 Things Every Lawyer Should Know about Software-as-a-Service“. And TechnoLawyer dubbed Clio a “Best in Show” at this year’s ABA TechShow 2009.
• Contingency fee litigation firm McClanahan Myers Espey was pleased to announce that the firm’s client, Clear Correct, Inc., resolved its patent infringement dispute against competitor Align Technology.
• Nursing home lawyer Jonathan Rosenfeld wrote an article for Long Term Living Magazine on the Federal Trade Commission’s “Red Flag Rule” and how it will enhance privacy in nursing homes.
• Hissey Kientz LLP, a product injury law firm, re-launched its firm website.  With a fresh, clean look, the new site features expanded multimedia, news, and detailed information about the drugs, devices, and injuries the firm specializes in.
• At China Law Insight, King & Wood PRC lawyers wrote recently about changes to insurance law in China, as well as the country’s efforts to adapt to the changing global auto industry.
• Lyall Knott, Q.C., a senior partner at BC law firm Clark Wilson, was appointed to the International Joint Commission (IJC) as a Canadian commissioner.  The IJC is an independent, binational body that helps prevent and resolve water-related disputes along the Canada-US boundary.
• Our New Jersey criminal attorney client, The Law Offices of John Marshall, unveiled both a new website (New Jersey Marijuana Lawyer) and new blog (New Jersey DWI Lawyer Blog). The firm also added a service page for animal and dog bites to its personal injury website.
• The Meadows Addiction Treatment Center announced a new program called Integrated Evaluation, which combines the expertise of medical and mental health professionals and offers clients a comprehensive, thorough evaluation.
• West Palm Beach criminal lawyer Ron Chapman wrote about when a judge can increase a bond amount, and what constitutes “good cause” in order to do so.
• At JD Scoop, there’s a great post with practical ideas on “What Documents Should I Post on JD Supra“? Adrien Lurssen explains six main types of documents and they benefits and value associated with each.

We’ll be back next month to share more!

My latest Web Law Connected column is now posted on Slaw and on JD Supra.  The article is titled Lawyer Twitter Practices: 29 Do’s and Don’ts and offers an intemized list of ways lawyers are currently using Twitter. As the title alludes, some of those practices are helping to support the user’s professional reputation, and some are not.

If this is a topic that you’re looking to explore further, I have two additional recommendations. First, take the time to work through the comments at the bottom of the Slaw article. There were a number of great suggestions made there.  And second, drop over to Jordan Furlong’s Law21 and read his thoughts on Twitter. There wasn’t much duplication between the two articles, and Jordan’s post addresses a number of issues I didn’t get to.

Stem client John Hochfelder is the host of this week’s blawg review, which comes with an interesting personal touch – the review is both dedicated to, and the theme guided by, the life of his late father.  The publication date was also timed nicely for today, his father’s birthday.

And before anyone guesses wrong, the theme idea and craftsmanship was all John – So full credit to him!  And really, you don’t contrive a story like this.

What I would like to write about, web strategy wise, is the opportunity Blawg Review provides for legal bloggers looking to establish themselves.  Around since its first edition in April 2005, Blawg Review is one of the oldest and can certainly now be described as one of the strongest rotating blog carnivals. Each week someone new hosts the review on their blog, offering a personalized round-up of commentary (in this case, legal blogs) from the previous week.

Hosting a blog carnival has always been a solid web-marketing tactic, but like most things that work well in the online space, isn’t always easy to pinpoint why.

Two of the big issues I see with many new bloggers is that they are often: link-poor and (web) relationship deprived. Getting past those barriers, while difficult, requires: 1) writing commentary that is substantive & genuine in tone and 2) having the personal web-network of relationships that can help increase exposure.  Gaining attention in the blogosphere, simply put, requires both ‘the steak’ and ‘the sizzle’.

So how does hosting a carnival like Blawg Review help? A couple of ways. First, there’s a benefit on the link front – the host blog usually receives its fair share of quality incoming links. Links, I might add, that are based on substance (not schemes) and links that are strong on subject relevance.

And second, the host blog puts itself on the radar of the legal blogging community.  At a number likely over 5000 now, that’s not always an easy task.

Now let me make my confession (’cause Ed’s waiting for it) – I’ve never actually hosted Blawg Review.  So now that I’ve told you what a great idea hosting is, let me remedy my cobbler’s kids routine and say that I’m signed on to host while the Olympics are on in Vancouver (as is the Canadian Trademark Blog).

This is something I regret not giving priority to when I first started Stem, and probably a lesson to be learned by others who are looking to raise their own blogging profile.

A self-acknowledged vanity item: I was one of the video interviewees (embedded below) on the newly launched LexConference website that was covering ABA Techshow.

ABA TECHSHOW 2009 Interviews: Steve Matthews of Stem Legal from LexConference on Vimeo.

One of the groundwork slides in my referral networking session at ABA Techshow with Reid Trautz was Stem’s ongoing tracking of the “law practice industry” category on LinkedIn.  The slide quoted the number of profile pages indexed by Google on four different dates over the course of the last year. Those were:

• April 2008: 118,000
• June 2008: 216,000
• December 2008: 406,000
• March 2009: 563,000

And here is the associated graph:

The question I posed to attendees was this: What do you think these numbers are going to look like in a year’s time? two years? three years?  The point, of course, is that the adoption rate is skyrocketing. It’s also important to recognize that each of these profile pages was created by, and actively managed by, the participant’s effort.  Not a massive updating process by firms to keep their records current in a directory – but based upon actual participation.

For me, that’s the promise of the read write web.  And to those looking for proof of Susskind’s ideas within the 2009 Techshow keynote, look no further.

It’s time for another roundup of new Canadian law blogs — here are the latest additions to LawBlogs.ca:

• Brian Bowman – On the Cutting Edge (Pitblado LLP)
• The Cross-Border Biotech Blog
• Halifax Medical Malpractice Lawyer Blog (John McKiggan)
• Halifax Personal Injury Lawyer Blog (John McKiggan)
• Sexual Abuse Claims Blog (John McKiggan)
• Law in Québec
  
• Making Sense of It. Law and Life (Peter MacSweeney)
• Ontario Real Estate (Brian Madrigan)
• Ottawa Injury & Accident Lawyer Blog (David Hollingsworth)
• The Two Wheel Geek
• Canadian Lawyerista
• Clayton Whitman
• Law for Innovators (Ryan Clements)

That’s 13 new blogs since the site’s January update.  Know of one I’m still missing? Drop us a line and we’ll get it added ASAP.