It would be lovely if the majority of lawyers saw writing as a positive way introducing the law and legal issues to the wider public through interesting and well written pieces.
Some do, very few though, and the reason is simple they are in the main chasing their hourly billing, in some cases just to stay afloat and other times because, law for them, is about the money, not the kudos.
Also, let’s be honest. Just because lawyers can read long words and difficult documents as well as work out arguments and concepts it doesn’t mean by default they can write or that they even have the desire to do so. In my experience most can’t write for toffee.
I understand O’Keefe’s frustration especially as he has based his business model around lawyers spening their evenings or weekends writing articles that nobody will really read, but the simple reality is that in the main lawyers don’t write interesting articles on the hope and prayer that by doing so everybody will love them and send work their way.
Also i’m not sure how well it will go down with people ( who could be future clients) telling them that they are unethical
Here’s O’Keffe’s article decrying the world of spam we live in
90% of Legal Blogs Produced By Small Law Firms May Be Spam
By Kevin O’Keefe on July 12, 2022
It’s become difficult, or impossible, to find quality legal blogs published by small law firms in this country.
LexBlog’s library sciences intern, working on the Open Legal Blog Archive, backed by LexBlog, estimates over 75%, perhaps even 90%, of the blogs from small firms are spam. This sample from a survey nearing 20% of the country.
Most are written on behalf of the law firm, by a marketing company or agency. The blogs are not written by lawyers in the firm.
A spam blog is used to game search engines to achieve higher rankings and to link to affiliated websites owned by the law firm.
The term spam blog or “splog” was popularized in 2005 by Mark Cuban.
Rather than blogs personally delivering insight and information, the blog was trying to influence search indexes and others by trying to use every relevant term in the dictionary.
The lawyers having someone else publish their blogs don’t care that doing so is unethical under any state’s rules of professional conduct.
In the solicition of new clients (advertising), a lawyer cannot do anything that is false or misleading.
Saying you wrote something you did not is clearly misleading advertising.
My guess is most lawyers think a blog is something you buy from a legal marketing company that goes on your website to get SEO and web traffic.
These lawyers have no idea what legal blogging is, nor does their marketing company.
Who cares about ethics or taste. “Every lawyer is doing it.”
Lawyers have an awful reputation with average Americans.
This form of blogging is only making it worse.
The Internet and blogging represents a wonderful opportunity for lawyers to connect with people in a real and intimate way.
For lawyers to build a reputation and book of business, while at same time helping people.
When I started LexBlog almost twenty years ago I thought there was no way lawyers could screw up this opportunity to connect with people while building a real reputation.
Boy, was I wrong.
It’s sad.
