The Root got its start the way many things do: from a few friends who all wanted to do something fun.
Randy Michels, Bill Ferrell, and Kevin Hartley became friends through their work years ago. On their previous blog, blogging was a change of pace from the patent litigation they were doing; a much more “fun and happy” way to get themselves out there and become known for the trademark work. But ask any of them and they’ll tell you that if they didn’t love it they wouldn’t do it—and that’s what translates to your audience.
“We really wanted a way to be ourselves. That was our rule: whatever your hobbies are, whatever you like to do, whatever you think is funny—put it in there. As long as you’re being yourself people will sense that you’re genuine,” said Ferrell.
For the trio that means sometimes they don’t stray into the hot topics as much. They might avoid the latest on the Taco Bell breakfast menu and instead stick to where their passions lie; sports, musicals, movies, and more. That passion reads pretty clearly in the blog, where The Root writers have shown a penchant for conversational tone and easy wit.
“I think, for us, you spend so much time litigating and being concerned how your writing will be interpreted it makes you a little risk averse. The blog was a nice change of pace to let it rip a little bit,” said Michels. “It gives us an opportunity to write like we actually like to, before legal education tried to beat it out of us.”
Which may be one of the reasons they’ve gotten such a positive response from the legal community, even though they only started blogging towards the end of 2013.
“We go to law school events and students run up and tell us they’ve read the blog. It’s not like being a rockstar, but it’s as close as the three of us are going to get,” laughs Michels.
Now that they’ve started The Root along with their own firm Trust Tree, they’re using their posts to revisit the basics. The goal was to provide clients and small business owners with the basics they’d need to navigate the trademark world, but their writing has always had a broader appeal.
“[One] person who was in-house and does nothing with trademarks said they had no interest in intellectual property but they still read the blog regularly because it had current event stuff in there,” said Ferrell. “My favorite comment was from a paralegal who was in-house who said ‘it’s really informative about trademarks but it isn’t boring.’”
They’ve been successful with blogging previously, after running a blog at their previous firm, and now that they’re starting over with Trust Tree—with a new responsive blog—they’re ready to do it again.
“We had a large mobile readership beforehand, and it bothered all of us the way people were seeing it on a non-responsive site. Everytime I look at our blog now I’m shocked at how much happier I am about it, how excited I am to share articles—not that I wasn’t before, but now everyone will see exactly what we’re trying to convey,” said Hartley.
“These things are changing all the time, and we want to make sure we’re keeping up with the times,” said Hartley. “We want to focus our resources on keeping up with the times.”
“Particularly when you put so much effort into brand methods. You take that voice and strip it of all the visual branding on mobile, you’re only getting half of it,” Ferrell added.
The blog is less experimentation now: no more clickbait-y headlines and no more avoiding videos because it’d be hard for the blog reader to read. Instead you’ll find more of what intrigues the group, more learning from mistakes of trademark violators, and more of what makes them laugh. For them, blogging has to benefit both those writing it as well as those reading it.
“Having that freedom and the confidence to be yourself makes it fun and allows you to write every week,” said Michels. “Someone tried to marry Charles Manson, there’s [an audience] out there for you. But you’re not going to find those people if it’s not enjoyable.”