Real Lawyers Have Blogs

Blogs, Media and Technology

On my blog, Real Lawyers Have Blogs, now in its 15th year, I share information, news and insight to help legal professionals looking to network online, whether it be via blogging or other social media.

In addition to my blog, I liberally share others’ insight on Twitter. Feel free to engage me there as well on LinkedIn and Facebook.

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October 2019

Latest from Real Lawyers Have Blogs

Real Lawyers Have Blogs

International Open Legal Blog Archive Project

By Kevin O'Keefe

July 13, 2021

LexBlog is going to undertake, as a project, the building of an international open legal blog archive. What’s it mean? The body of secondary law created by legal blogs now exceeds that of law journals and law reviews. However, there’s no central place to locate the content, authors and publishing organizations (law firms, law schools, other organizations). As a result this law cannot be found. It cannot be cited by practicing lawyers, academics and the…

Real Lawyers Have Blogs

What Limits All Law Blogs From Being Archived?

By Kevin O'Keefe

July 6, 2021

Dave Winer, the godfather of blogging, blogged last week: “I’m really confused about what’s up with archive.org. As I reported on Tuesday, they clearly aren’t archiving this blog in any meaningful way. I write this blog with history in mind. I put things here and on the linkblog because I want to be sure historians in the future will find at least one link to this stuff. If archive.org isn’t backing it up, that’s…

Real Lawyers Have Blogs

Where Will All the Legal Blogs Go?

By Kevin O'Keefe

June 26, 2021

Where will all the legal blogs go over time? It’s a real problem. Lawyers, and especially law firms, look at legal blogs for marketing. How can we draw more attention? It’s a short term outlook. If a lawyer leaves a law firm, the firm is apt to delete their blog posts. Or remove the lawyer’s name from their posts and replace it with the firm’s name as author, making the blog posts useless as far…

Real Lawyers Have Blogs

Read, Share, and Converse to Build Relationships

By Kevin O'Keefe

June 21, 2021

Each morning I go through my feeds in Feedly, as much for an opportunity to build relationships, as to read and to learn. How so? I read something of interest. I take a money quote from the story or a quote from a person in the story and share it on Twitter. I give the appropriate attribute to the person I quoted, the subject organization and the reporter/blogger who wrote the story by referencing their…

Real Lawyers Have Blogs

WordPress Usage Up 4.7% During the Pandemic

By Kevin O'Keefe

June 16, 2021

WordPress, the leading content managing system (CMS) in the world, saw an increase in market share of 4.7% to 41.7% since June of last year. This from Joost De Valk, the founder of Yoast, the leading SEO plugin for WordPress. As way of background, CMS is computer software used to manage the creation and modification of digital content. A CMS is typically used for enterprise content management (ECM) and web content management (WCM). For law firms a CMS is…

Real Lawyers Have Blogs

“No Problem” is Shirking Your Responsibility

By Kevin O'Keefe

June 11, 2021

“When you say, “no problem,” you’re letting yourself off the hook, refusing to acknowledge what was said and closing the door for a useful interaction. Because there is a problem. Exploring what the problem is is far better than denying it.” This, from consummate marketer and author, Seth Godin. I am as guilty as anyone in not coaching by giving immediate constructive feedback. When someone apologizes for an error I’m the first to say “no problem.”…

Real Lawyers Have Blogs

Substack Signals Growth in Blogging

By Kevin O'Keefe

June 10, 2021

The email newsletter platform, Substack is not a replacement of blogs nor even an erosion of the growing blog community. What Substack signals is a growth in blogging – and all that can be good with a well written blog. Yesterday, LexBlog’s head of publishing and long time journalist, Colin O’Keefe blogged that Substack succeeds by emulating old school blogging. The five characteristics of old school blogging: One voice. Substacks are written by a single…

Real Lawyers Have Blogs

Would You Buy a Black’s Law Dictionary for $84.95?

By Kevin O'Keefe

June 9, 2021

Would you buy a Black’s Law Dictionary for $84.95? Or $41.95 for the Pocket Edition? Or $150 for the Deluxe Edition? West Publishing, now part of Thomson Reuters, has been publishing Blacks Law Dictionary since 1890. One hundred and thirty-two years. For only fifteen of those years have we had an Internet with enough legal information for lawyers to turn to the net for much of what they are looking for. Talking to a group…

Real Lawyers Have Blogs

Do Traditional Legal Publishers Understand Legal Blogging?

By Kevin O'Keefe

June 8, 2021

‘The main reason media stalwarts couldn’t understand blogging is that they couldn’t see beyond their all-too-familiar containers and distribution mechanisms. They were too entrapped in their dogmas.“ This from media and blogging veteran, Om Malik writing on the future of media. Media players couldn’t cater to regular readers the ways that bloggers could. Timothy Lee, an independent journalist who previously wrote for the Washington Post, Vox, and Ars Technica, cited by Malik, puts …

Real Lawyers Have Blogs

Suprise Them and Make Them Feel at Home

By Kevin O'Keefe

June 7, 2021

“Your audience wants you to do two things. They want you to surprise them, and make them feel at home. Simultaneously. The better you can do those things at the same time, the further on down the road you get to go in your journey with your listeners.” This from Bruce Springsteen, in a discussion about his album and movie, Western Stars, which brought us country tinged folk music with an accompanying orchestra. A strong…

Real Lawyers Have Blogs

Blogs, Media and Technology

Readers Choice

Blog Authors

International Open Legal Blog Archive Project

What Limits All Law Blogs From Being Archived?

Where Will All the Legal Blogs Go?

Read, Share, and Converse to Build Relationships

WordPress Usage Up 4.7% During the Pandemic

“No Problem” is Shirking Your Responsibility

Substack Signals Growth in Blogging

Would You Buy a Black’s Law Dictionary for $84.95?

Do Traditional Legal Publishers Understand Legal Blogging?

Suprise Them and Make Them Feel at Home

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