Miami lawery Jim Walker has been involved in maritime litigation since 1983. He’s your go-to guy for all things cruise related, especially when it comes to things “the cruise ships don’t want you to know” as the motto of his blog, Cruise Law News, proclaims. Jim sat down with Bob Ambrogi in This Week in Legal Blogging to discuss his practice where he represents passengers and crew ship members, his blog, and what exactly is going on with the cruise industry right now.
Episode Summary:
During his conversation with Bob, Jim discussed how he used to be a defense attorney and how his use of a website during that time led him to the world of blogging. His now eleven-year-old blog has been the source of unanticipated publicity and success for Jim, who goes in depth about several cases and situations that gained him attention as a lawyer through his blog. He also discusses networking; Jim often uses testimonies from people within the cruise industry and has mastered acquiring reliable information and keeping the individuals’ confidence. Much of how he does this is through proper use of social media such as Facebook. Jim discusses the trajectory of his career with respect to his blog, and the trajectory of his blog with respect to his career. He closes out by offering advice to prospective bloggers, emphasizing the how helpful Kevin O’Keefe has been throughout his blogging journey, and affirming a blog’s usefulness as a business accompaniment.
Here’s the full episode and, down below, we have a selection of the best exchanges.
You launched your blog 11 years ago, 2009. What led you to get started?
I used to be a defense attorney. I did product liability and maritime defense work and represented insurance companies. I had a defense-oriented website called Walker Law about defending insurance companies. People would be looking for a lawyer and they would chance upon a little squib where I talk about a cruise line on a website. People would not realize—or not care I suppose—that I was defending cruise lines and would say “Can you represent me in suing a cruise line?” Then I made a career choice in the late 1990s where I switched to suing the cruise lines. In 2009 I started thinking, “Well I got to tell stories about the cruise industry.” I found Kevin O’Keefe and was very impressed by what I saw with LexBlog. I didn’t know how to blog back then but I started writing about everything pertaining to the cruise lines. I blog at length regarding what I’m seeing and reading about the cruise industry.
You launched the blog in 2009 and you’ve been going at it since. Did you see in those early days an impact from the blog on this plaintiff law-side practice you were starting to build up?
Absolutely. It’s been the most remarkable thing. It has created so much media attention. I can’t say how it really changed my practice. I was not receiving a whole lot of new cases on my old Cruise Law site. But once I created Cruise Law News and I started writing about it, the number of people that have contacted me has really gone off the chart. I never anticipated it but it’s been a career changing event for me at least.
It’s clear you’re a source of reporting industry news, not just repeating industry news from other sources. You allude to tips that you’ve received without identifying the tipsters. How have you sort of fostered that network of getting plugged in with the industry and getting those kind of tips?
Well it’s largely through the Facebook format. I’ll publish an article about an issue pertaining to wages or the working conditions, the hours, things like that. Crew members share that information widely and they feel a connection to want to report what is happening to them. So many crew members at the same time are reluctant to identify themselves on Facebook out of fear that their employers, the cruise lines, will find them commenting and having discussions online with an attorney. We receive a lot of direct messagees or they’ll contact us through the tip line. Of course when we represent a crew member, if we do a good job, the word will get out and other crew members will have confidence in us and confide their issues to us.
In your 11 years now as a blogger, do you have any advice you offer other lawyers who either want to get in it or are doing it now and want to get better at it? What have you learned about what makes for a successful blog?
Blogging is an effective way to get your name out there. I have been very fortunate to have a widely covered blog. It’s a fantastic way not to pay for advertising. The deals that are available in blog networks are just fantastic. I told Kevin O’Keefe he should charge me ten times as much as he does a month and I would be happy to pay it because it’s well worth it. The one thing I say is you have to be passionate about what you do and that requires you to enjoy your work. I became a solo practitioner and later began practicing with my wife, boom it all started happening. I loved being a lawyer, I loved coming to work and I loved writing about that. The only way to be genuine and authentic is if you love what you do.
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