The Trick to Ending Bad Lawyer Jokes

by Kim Niemi

It's hard to say if lawyers are the last profession to embrace technology to grow their business — but they definitely aren't rushing to join the digital age either. Which is unfortunate — because they, and their clients, could gain a lot if they did.

Here are just a few things we wish more lawyers were doing:

Blogging Regularly

Only 26 percent of the legal professionals who responded to the American Bar Association’s 2015 tech law survey reported that they or their law firms had blogs. The number is actually a smidge higher than was reported in 2014 (24 percent), but still a paltry figure considering the power of blogging in establishing oneself as a thought leader.

But there's an even greater good to be had here. Lawyers can seem intimidating to the average person. Blogging is an opportunity for lawyers to talk about what they do in a way that makes them more accessible to the people that need them (and — bonus! — it might even put an end to bad lawyer jokes).

Accessibility of content might be part of the problem for lawyers who ARE writing, but not getting engagement — giving those on the fence the impression that blogging isn't worth it.

In a piece for Bloomberg BNA, legal communications consultant Lee Feldman writes, “While law firms create large amounts of content, most of it isn’t very effective and is largely ignored by clients and prospects. By whatever metric you choose to measure — opens, clicks, time spent, click-to-request, etc. — law firm content is not engaging its targets.”

Feldman cites relevance as the key issue behind law blogs — much of the material simply isn't relevant to prospective clients.

If lawyers changed their approach to come at blogging from a more relatable, human perspective, people would surely read. At least they would with blogs marketed well. 

To that end, lawyers need to dive into yet another area they've been resisting.

Interacting on Social Media

The reasons every other industry uses social media apply to the legal profession as well: It's a great way to promote content (like that new blog) and amplify their presence on the web.

But it's understandable why lawyers of all people would be a bit cautious here. There have been enough cases of social misconduct — and its fallout — for anyone to be leery. Lawyers know best of all that sometimes the consequences of one's actions create a legal mess.

That's just one more reason we need their voices in the social realm. Who better to lead the charge with cautionary tales of social gone wrong? The law hasn't caught up to much of digital technology, and that's something lawyers should be talking about to anyone who'll listen, frankly.


This post originally appeared on CMSWire.