Myrtle Beach Lawyer Featured in SC & NC Lawyer's Weekly
Wow. Mike Dayton wrote a fabulous article about this blog in the December 12, 2005 edition of SC Lawyer’s Weekly. I believe that there was a feature article in the NC Lawyer’s Weekly as well. It was a front page story, below the fold. A half page on the front cover and a half page on the back cover, with a number of posts covering half a page on the inside of the paper. That’s a lot of coverage. I’ve reprinted their e-mail interview below:
Q: What is blogging?
A: A weblog is a Web site that can be easily updated. A weblog also has a newsfeed where a reader can "subscribe" to the feed and be automatically notified when the weblog is updated. Blogging is slang for writing a weblog. Some people even go as far as calling legal weblogs "blawgs."
Q: How did you get started with it?
A: I started off reading political blogs, then discovered legal weblogs. A year ago, most legal blogs were written by lawyers in the technical field, such as intellectual properties or computer contracts. I believe that after Evan Schaeffer in Illinois, I had the second weblog on trial issues in the country. Now, more and more trial lawyers are starting to blog.
Q: Why were you interested in your own blog?
A: I give presentations and classes on technology issues for lawyers and I spend a lot of time reading on the Internet, so it was a natural fit for me. It also gives me a place where I can keep notes and organize my thoughts from things I read on the Internet, books I read, and seminars I go to. Instead of keeping the notes in a notebook, I keep them on the Internet, where they are full-text searchable. The great thing is, that other people can benefit from them too.
Q: Do you need to be "computer savvy" to set up a blog?
A: No. There are a number of services where you can set them up from standard templates. I have hired a service to do it for me, because I don't want to worry about the technical end. My wife created her own "mommy blog" without any technical knowledge at all.
Q: How often do you update it?
A: About three times a week. I started off with doing five updates a week, but have slowed down since the first six months. It depends on how busy I am and how much I have to say.
Q: How do you pick topics?
A: I write about trial techniques, practice management and technology that helps in the courtroom and the office. The tagline is "Using Technology to Be a Better Trial Lawyer." I picked those topics because that's what interests me. While my blog has a broader focus, niche topics tend to work the best.
Q: How much time does it take to update it?
A: About 15 minutes a day. I also read about 125 other weblogs in my news aggregator. A news aggregator allows you to automatically receive the newsfeeds from a weblog. I read legal, medical and healthcare, business and marketing weblogs. The other blogs help keep me up-to-date.
Q: How many hits do you get?
A: I get about 300 readers a day and about 4,000 unique readers a month. Over 800 attorneys have visited the site more than 200 times.
Q: Do you get much feedback from readers?
A: Yes. I've met a lot of people through the blog. Plus, a number of readers that have been interested in the same topics have written to me. The contacts and people I've met have been the best part of the blog.
Q: Has it generated any business or clients?
A: Yes.
(The savvy reader will recognize which answer is the shortest, read between the lines and draw their own conclusions).
