Category Archives: Blogging

 

February 2nd, 2009

The Future of the Legal Blogosphere

Having now trashed Twitter (Twitter and The Age of Information Overload) before using it and semi-trashed it again after using it (Twitter: A Review), and having concluded it is not the future, the question remains: What is the future of the legal blogosphere?

To figure out the future, you have to know what the present is, which is easier said than done in a fast-moving digital age. But the present information distribution seems to be dominated (for attorneys) by a few distinct forms (leaving aside static web sites):

  • Listservs, which are set up generally based on either locality or practice area;
  • Individual Blogs such as this one or group blogs such as Volokh or Concurring Opinions (both run by law professors); and
  • Social networks such as Facebook, Linkedin, and increasingly Twitter.

This will change, and if you pull up a chair, I’ll look into my crystal ball. For I see a future that blends and links together each of these three. No one has created the site yet, though someone surely will.

First, what is missing from the legal blogosphere is a group blog for practicing lawyers. While Volokh or Co-Op are possible templates for group blogs, I see something more akin to the splashier Huffington Post, except that it would be written by and for lawyers. The benefits of such a blog or webzine to the writers should be obvious: You can have 100+ contributors, who may not want to write something each week (or day) as is the custom with individual blogs. And the benefits to the reader should be equally obvious: An enormous amount of content under one roof from a wide variety of writers.

Now mix in the social element, whether this is for swapping tips and links or engaging in political discussion away from one’s own practice area. It happens to some extent in comment areas, but this is limited. It also is happening in Twitter, but the format is anything but ideal. Twitter is a crude technology, as compared to what is already available, and will not have staying power for lawyers when a better site is created. A well-located and well-designed legal forum can be significantly superior to it.

Well designed discussion boards such as those operated by The Motley Fool financial site, for example, have been enormously popular for over a decade, and the ability to write/read in threads and ignore users/threads is incredibly simple. There are no extra programs to download and no tools to learn.

Just as The Fool centers on stocks, the law forum would center on law. (Though, as testament to the power of community, you can see a vast array of other forums such as politics, and about 20 different boards related to sports at The Fool site.)

And each user of the site can have a profile page that would list, to the extent that people wanted it, contact information and links that allows for social networking and professional marketing.

This site — be it called The Motley Post, Huffington Fool, or Turkewitz Times Version 3.0 (version 1.0 was 20 years ago and this blog is 2.0) — would also have a reader base with some of the best advertising demographics in the nation. Advertising (cars, booze, travel, etc) would be an easy sell relative to other sites, as would law firm sponsorships.

Who will create this site? The logical candidates are:

Thus, a savvy entrepreneur will one day blend the desires for blogging and the desires for a legal-social element into one web location, in an easy-to-use site.

I don’t know when it will happen, but it will. And remember, you heard it here first.

(And yes, The Turkewitz Times is available for licensing. I’m just sayin‘.)

Updated: I was interviewed at LegalTech New York regarding this post, and you can see the short interview here.

Links to this post:

blawg review #198
the last time i hosted this carnival, we looked to plato for inspiration: “wisdom is the chief and leader: next follows temperance; and from the union of these two with courage springs justice. these four virtues take precedence in the …

posted by Jeremy @ February 09, 2009 7:00 AM

legaltech: trends affecting contract attorneys … and oh yeah …
we had 6 posse list members covering legaltech new york this year, trawling the vendor booths and attending several of the seminars/panels. it was the usual mass of vendors and attendees crammed into too small of a space — and spotty …

posted by mrposse @ February 05, 2009 2:18 PM

quickies and white lies
no, this post isn’t about guys who break-up with you just before valentine’s day. it contains a few follow-ups and forecasts about sex offender laws, schenectady’s felonious ex-police chief, the future of the legal blogiverse, …
posted by David Giacalone @ February 03, 2009 10:37 AM

 

January 30th, 2009

Twitter: A Review

The other day I trashed Twitter a bit (Twitter and The Age of Information Overload) because I already have so many sources for information and didn’t really see why I needed another one, and didn’t see how it was much of an improvement over existing technology. I wrote from the standpoint of someone who had not yet joined.

Well, now I have joined. My Thursday trial was adjourned, so I opened a Twitter account (@Turkewitz), downloaded Tweetdeck, and started noodling to see if my opinion would change. After two days I now consider myself expert enough to write on the subject.

There are two fundamental issues with Twitter that exist for any social networking site: Technology and Community.

Technology
I am certainly not impressed with Twitter technology and stand by the point I made the other day about listservs or other electronic forums being superior. And when I write about technology I don’t mean the geek end; I mean the user end.

I first joined the online world with Prodigy back in ’92 and have used one forum or another for online discussion since then. Twitter may be different than other current platforms, but is it better? The answer is clearly no.

Any good forum should have these critical components to allow for posting links and engaging in discussion:

  • Multiple discussion boards so that those that want to talk baseball aren’t in the same forum as those that want to talk knitting;
  • The option to follow a discussion either in threaded fashion or chronologically, or simply to collapse the thread into the heading; and
  • The option to ignore certain users because they want to talk about Mac and Cheese instead of the forum subject.

Twitter doesn’t really do this well. It’s a type of scattershot approach to social networking, but the discussion is strewn so far and it would be tough to follow any kind of conversation that might actually break out. And if you actually wanted to make a decent point in reply to an article or blog post, you would still be limited to 140 characters. (Though that might be a blessing in disguise for many.)

One of the best discussion forums I’ve seen is the one created by The Motley Fool financial site. If you look at this board for Apple, for example, you can see a neat, clean user interface. You can ignore people and threads with the click of a button. These boards have existed since the mid-90s.

A good law forum should work the same way, with the ease of dropping in links and creating bios and arguing with one another, because that’s what so many like to do. If you want to get rid of the Mac and Cheese Poster or the chucklehead only concerned with self-promotion, then poof — they’re gone.

The Motley Fool boards blow the doors off anything Twitter has to offer.

Community
Great technology is useless without users. And even crappy technology is good if you have good users.

Twitter has succeeded in attracting the legal community, in lightening speed. How fast? An article by law technology guru Robert Ambrogi on August 8, 2008 in Law Technology News reviews various social networking sites for lawyers. Twitter isn’t even mentioned.

And then there is an article in the January 2009 Trial Magazine (sub. only) about social networking for lawyers. It discusses Facebook and Linkedin and a couple others. But still no Twitter. Assuming the article was submitted a couple of months back, it gives you an idea as to how fast Twitter has taken off in the legal world.

So Twitter appears to be succeeding in the community development end. And that means it can be a valuable tool if you value finding articles and cases that may get swapped here and there, though they may be of limited use if (like me) you have a narrow geographic focus and practice area. I’ll get far more value out of a forum with 25 local personal injury attorneys than I will out of a forum of 2,500 attorneys in different fields spread out over the nation. But I’m not everyone and your mileage may vary.

So Twitter is succeeding, and can be a decent tool for some things. I will continue to noodle with it and use it to see how it goes. Not because the technology is good, but because that is where people are congregating. Yes, I know, that is simply a self-fulfilling prophecy.

But I don’t see it as a keeper. Twitter is not the future of the legal blogosphere. My next piece will be on what I think the future holds.

Links to this post:

twitter for law firm marketing
i ran across an interesting post from eric turkewitz, a new york personal injury attorney who offers up his wisdom on his blog – the new york personal injury law blog. his post, titled twitter: a review was a lucid overview of a social …

posted by admin @ February 10, 2009 5:04 PM

quickies and white lies
no, this post isn’t about guys who break-up with you just before valentine’s day. it contains a few follow-ups and forecasts about sex offender laws, schenectady’s felonious ex-police chief, the future of the legal blogiverse, …
posted by David Giacalone @ February 03, 2009 10:37 AM

 

January 25th, 2009

Twitter and The Age of Information Overload

Several people have suggested I join Twitter, the microblogging service. With a 140 character “tweet” or “twit ” you can send off a tiny little message to those that follow you. It’s all the rage now with blogging lawyers, and there’s 565 on this growing list. Heck even Barack Obama tweets (though the prior list somehow missed the First Lawyer).

But I’ve resisted. My brain is being swamped with information and my days seem to be getting shorter as I try to stay current:

  • I have 150-200 blogs in my RSS feed;
  • I have a local listserv that is, shall we say, exceptionally active in all things related to my practice;
  • I’ve joined Facebook, which I rarely visit, and when I do, I find out what people had for breakfast;
  • I’ve joined Linkedin, which I visit even less often.

I read hard copy magazines and newspapers. I write this blog. I’ve got a wife, two kids, a dog and a cat. I’m training to run another marathon, and organizing a 1/2 marathon trail race. And, oh yes, I have a law practice to run with clients to attend to.

The internet and the burgeoning social networks that it has spawned have made it possible to acquire information in ways that our parents never envisioned. Information now pours over the transom in an unprecedented deluge, being pushed and pulled in myriad ways.

But at some point I need to stem this tide. I’m not looking to retreat to a cabin in the woods, eating grubs to survive and working on an anti-technology manifesto, but I also don’t feel a compelling need to open every valve of the technology river. There are only 24 hours in the day, and yes, I like to also use some of them to eat and sleep.

It is true that there are times I would like to make a very short post, but a once-a-week round-up of linkworthy items on this blog seems to be efficient enough for that purpose. And I have to think that those that would “follow” me on Twitter already follow me their RSS feed or by subscription, so little would seem to be gained by way of a growing readership.

Twitter really seems like an updated version of a listserv, which has served me quite well over the years. I’ve previously covered that subject (The Million Dollar Listserv), writing that “The listserv may be the single greatest tool the solo or small practice lawyer has,” and if you don’t belong to one in your practice area, you really should find or create one. You can read that post to see why. Twitter doesn’t seem to improve on it in any meaningful way, and when you supplement the listserv with RSS feeds the ground is pretty well covered.

There are some that think Twitter’s great for breaking new stories, but that’s really nonsense. For example, some “credit” Janis Krums with using Twitter to “scoop” mainstream media with a first photo of the US Airways splash landing in the Hudson. Krums was on the first ferry to reach the plane. The WSJ wrote, “Notch another win for citizen journalism,” and the Daily News called his 15 seconds of fame “well-deserved.”

Why, on godsgreenearth anyone would think this is a “well-deserved” “win” of any kind and relevant to any serious issue of news reporting is beyond me. Why would it matter that someone twittered about a loaded airplane going down in full view of thousands of people on the edge of the biggest city in the country — other than to the guy who took the picture and spent his time twittering it to friends? Did Twittering save lives? Of course not. Rescue was already in progress.

While Krums was being lauded as a celebrity, I wanted to know why the hell he was spending time on his iPhone instead of asking the crew what he could do to help, getting life vests ready to toss overboard, looking for survivors in the frigid waters, and looking around to see where, if at all, there might be lifeboats that he might need to assist with. Obsessiveness to technology can also mean the difference between life and death.

And then there is LexTweet — a project of Kevin O’Keeffe’s Lexblog business that builds sites for lawyers — where the twittering is all about law. Or at least that may have been his thought when starting it. According to O’Keefe, “The community has already grown to over 1,500 members. But when I checked it out I found these pearls of twittering show up on his service:

Who wants to sort through this crap looking for substance? Thanks, but I have enough to do. Even if I knew these people I wouldn’t want to read this dreck.

Now I don’t blame O’Keefe for putting that content up, or even encouraging it. He’s the platform builder, not the content creator. But it doesn’t help to claim 1,500 twittering lawyers if these are among the ranks.

I’m not saying I will never Twitter. It certainly has its place as yet another method of information sharing. It’s just that I don’t see the need, given that I already can’t read all the information that comes in. And it doesn’t seem to be any improvement over a simple listserv or bulletin board with threaded subjects. And that type of technology was in wide use in the mid-90s.

Will Twitter help me acquire yet more information that I can’t get to, or assist me in sharing information that I might have? I don’t see how.

For more on twittering lawyers:

  • Twitter users going to LegalTech New York : Here’s a list (Kevin O’Keefe @ Lexblog),

    Here’s a list of Twitter users [53 and counting] I know who are attending. If you’re not on the list, leave a comment, or drop me a tweet at @kevinokeefe so we can get you on the list.

  • they’re all atwitter (we’re not) (David Giacalone @ f/k/a)

    Everywhere you look, well-known members of the blawgisphere (lawyers who have weblogs) are all atwitter, chirping excitedly about Twitter …At risk of being called a twit (or a throwback), the f/k/a Gang is pre–emptively opting out.

  • Blawg Review #186: The Twitter Wars (at the Res Ipsa Blog)

    Twitter, a cross between “social networking, blogging, and texting,” took center stage this week as legal bloggers debated the usefulness of the new networking platform. For a run down and the new technology and reasons why some attorneys are not embracing it [read the rest of the post with the links]

  • Twitter for Lawyers (David Harlow @ HealthBlawg)

    I’ve been twittering for a couple of months now, and the consensus seems to be that I’m just one of those bleeding-edge geeks with too much free time. I bet I would’ve gotten the same reactions from fellow lawyers if I had installed a telephone in my office back in the 1870s.

  • First Impression of The Lextweet Reflection (Greenfield @ Simple Justice)

    Kevin O’Keefe is always on the hunt for the next big thing, and what to do about it. His latest creation is Lextweet, billed as means to “follow legal community members who use Twitter to discuss the law and much more.” … But the biggest issue has nothing to do with Lextweet at all. The vast majority of twits are, how do I say this nicely, worthless to the general lawyer audience. Nothing personal, but intimate details of your personal hygiene don’t interest me. I don’t know your family (I don’t even know you) so it’s really of little concern what they’re having for breakfast. But this is what people twit about, and what shows up on Lextweet whether it matters or not.

  • How I Use Twitter — Let me count the ways (Grant Griffiths @ Blog for Profit)

    Since I spend some of my time visiting with real-world friends and business contacts and individuals online about twitter, I thought it might be time to provide a post on “how I use twitter.”

  • Sixteen Reasons to Tweet on Twitter (Robert Abrogi @ Law Marketing Portal)

    1. Expand your network. With blogging, writing, speaking and various bar committees, I consider myself pretty well networked. So I was surprised upon joining Twitter at how many new contacts I made, how quickly I made them, and their potential value to me as a professional.

  • Attorneys Flocking to Twitter for Marketing (Larry Bodine @ Law Marketing Blog)

    From where I’m sitting, 2009 will be the year Twitter becomes the major business development trend. Why?

Links to this post:

blawg review #203
on drunkenness oh drunkenness thou poison of society what a hydra headed monster art thou! like the pestilence thou walkest among the children of men and ruin follows with fatal precision in the tracks of thy footsteps. …

posted by Geeklawyer @ March 15, 2009 8:00 PM

to twitter or not to twitter: that is the question for lawyers
over the past nine months or so, twitter, a micro-blogging service that enables users to communicate with each other in 140-character spurts has steadily gained traction with lawyers. some lawyers regard twitter as a bit of time sink in …

posted by @ February 23, 2009 2:34 PM

twittering from the mediation table: social media come to adr
i recently joined twitter. twitter, for those of you not yet familiar with this social media tool, is a social and business networking, microblogging, and instant messaging service. messages sent via twitter are short, limited to 140 …

posted by Diane Levin @ February 05, 2009 4:50 AM

quickies and white lies
no, this post isn’t about guys who break-up with you just before valentine’s day. it contains a few follow-ups and forecasts about sex offender laws, schenectady’s felonious ex-police chief, the future of the legal blogiverse, …

posted by David Giacalone @ February 03, 2009 10:37 AM

the (swift-sluggish-frozen-thawing-swollen-dammed) fickle river of …
prof. yabut is almost sixty years old. by now, he should have resigned himself to the strange and subjective elasticity of time; or, at least ceased to be surprised by it. nonetheless, over the past few days, as january rushes/drags to …

posted by David Giacalone @ January 31, 2009 5:32 PM

why do lawyers who don’t use twitter feel the need to diss twitter?
new york city injury lawyer eric turkewitz, who is not only a first rate plaintiff’s trial lawyer, but also a heck of a fine person, is the latest lawyer to question the value of twitter. eric doesn’t say he’ll never use twitter, …

posted by [email protected] (Kevin) @ January 26, 2009 12:56 AM

why do lawyers who don’t use twitter feel the need to diss twitter?
new york city injury lawyer eric turkewitz, who is not only a first rate plaintiff’s trial lawyer, but also a heck of a fine person, is the latest lawyer to question the value of twitter. eric doesn’t say he’ll never use twitter, …
posted by [email protected] (Kevin) @ January 26, 2009 12:56 AM

 

December 1st, 2008

Welcome New Readers

My Thanksgiving version of Blawg Review is bringing a temporary spike in readership, so I figured I would make this one short post to new visitors.

Why? Because the Blawg Review didn’t discuss, at all, the subject of personal injury law. The words don’t even appear in the post.

Now there are some who think blogs should be filled with appropriate buzz words to optimize search engines so that potential clients will find you. But that isn’t the way I approach my tiny corner of cyberspace. I just want to write things that I find interesting about the area of law I know the most about. If writing isn’t fun, it’s work, and I have plenty of work at my workplace.

So for the new folks, here is a “best of” for this blog. that I created after doing my first Blawg Review, based on the NYC Marathon. It has posts which were either popular or that I simply liked, and I update it periodically. If you find the stuff interesting, feel free to add me to your RSS feed. If not, thanks for visiting and I hope you have another opportunity to return.

 

October 22nd, 2008

Kafka and Me (Why Bloggers Need Not Be Perfect)

I just read Franz Kafka’s The Trial for the first time and learned something pretty startling: There were elements that resembled a blog.

I picked up the book on the way to vacation. (What does a Jewish lawyer from New York pick to read on a visit to Prague? A book by a Jewish lawyer from Prague.)

The startling part to me was not its well-known theme — a man arrested and asked to defend himself in an unknown court with unknown charges — but the fact that such a famous work was also very much unfinished. Much of Kafka’s work, including this one, was published by a friend after Kafka’s early death.

The start of The Trial is ominous enough:

“Someone must have slandered Josef K., for one morning, without having done anything wrong, he was arrested.”

And from there K. descends into the hell of the all-powerful, all-knowing and unseen bureaucracy.

The recent translation I read — and the reason this comes up in the context of blogging — had explained in the forward that this version was published to be as true to the notes Kafka left as possible. That means errors in names (same name spelled differently), the timing of events, and descriptions of scenes remain as written. Unfinished chapter fragments are tacked on after the end. The actual order of chapters, in fact, is not entirely known. There were paragraphs that went on for a dozen pages, as if the notes had been written down for later editing.

Now blogs can be like that. Unfinished. Rough around the edges. Often with mistakes, which we hope are merely formalistic and not substantive. Because if the substance works, then (like Kafka) errors in the formalities of writing will (we hope) be overlooked.

And that, from this day forward, will be my excuse for written errors.