How to Start a Legal Blog

As a busy lawyer, you may not see the need for legal blogs. After all, you are bound by strict adver­tis­ing reg­u­la­tions and you already have a web­site that out­lines your ser­vices. When it comes to mak­ing sure the peo­ple who need your help hear about you, expand­ing your mar­ket­ing tac­tics is the best way to grow your busi­ness. For lawyers, a quick and sim­ple way to start is by cre­at­ing and mar­ket­ing a lawyer blog. 

Why Law Firm Blogs Are Necessary

Let’s face it. You pro­vide a high­ly spe­cial­ized ser­vice that most peo­ple need. When peo­ple run into legal prob­lems, the idea of nav­i­gat­ing a con­fus­ing and com­plex lit­i­ga­tion process on their own is not ide­al. Yet, in a sea of attor­neys and lawyers online, it’s impor­tant to stand out and share your exper­tise with a niche audi­ence look­ing for your spe­cif­ic skills and knowl­edge. Oth­er­wise, you’re just anoth­er web­site and we know that is not the case. 

How To Create the Best Legal Blog

The best part about start­ing a lawyer blog to mar­ket your busi­ness is that it costs you noth­ing! The inter­net is full of free mar­ket­ing options and a lawyer blog is one of the best ways to show­case your capa­bil­i­ties and expand your law firm with­out adjust­ing your mar­ket­ing bud­get. It is the per­fect way to build your rep­u­ta­tion and author­i­ty in your legal niche. Before you know it, you’re being cit­ed, rec­og­nized, and invit­ed to speak at con­fer­ences and webi­na­rs. With a thriv­ing law firm, you’ll be able to pick and choose the clients you want. 

• Niche - What’s your legal niche? To cap­ture your tar­get mar­ket, you’ll need to focus and nar­row down your prac­tice area. This pro­vides com­plete clar­i­ty for poten­tial clients and elim­i­nates any con­fu­sion regard­ing the exper­tise you pro­vide. Focus­ing on a spe­cif­ic prac­tice area like employ­ment, crim­i­nal, or tax law is too broad. You’ll want to con­tin­ue to nar­row your focus to a spe­cif­ic geo­graph­i­cal area and spe­cif­ic aspect of your prac­tice to cap­ture niche clients. This mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy works par­tic­u­lar­ly well for small­er cities. For larg­er or met­ro­pol­i­tan cities, it’s rec­om­mend­ed to focus on your spe­cif­ic pas­sion with­in the area you practice. 
• Qual­i­ty — When it comes to cre­at­ing a high-qual­i­ty lawyer blog, it’s best to remain laser-focused on con­tent rather than SEO. That doesn’t mean that SEO is not impor­tant but that qual­i­ty con­tent comes first. Estab­lish­ing your­self as an author­i­ty in your legal pro­fes­sion requires that all infor­ma­tion and exper­tise you express is well artic­u­lat­ed and received by oth­er influ­en­tial legal pro­fes­sion­als. This is one of the best ways to build trust and cred­i­bil­i­ty amongst your peers. 
• Engage — If you’ve been prac­tic­ing law for a while, it may be a chal­lenge to cre­ate new top­ics in a high­ly niched area. The idea is to join the con­ver­sa­tion by show­cas­ing your exper­tise rather than try­ing to think of top­ics to write about. By watch­ing trends and world events that specif­i­cal­ly relate to your legal exper­tise, you can quick­ly engage with your tar­get audi­ence by demon­strat­ing your social aware­ness and world­li­ness. It gives you an oppor­tu­ni­ty to pro­vide your unique com­men­tary on trend­ing top­ics and events that are rel­e­vant to poten­tial clients. You may even be cited! 
• Pro­vide answers — This may be the most chal­leng­ing part of devel­op­ing law firm blogs. Your lawyer blog should be a place where your poten­tial clients come for exper­tise and infor­ma­tion about the legal sys­tem. Resist the temp­ta­tion to use your blog to tout your accom­plish­ments, mer­its, and cre­den­tials at all costs. While it is impor­tant for cur­rent and poten­tial clients to know that you are cred­i­ble, the entire blog should not be ded­i­cat­ed to self-promotion. 

The best way to start a lawyer blog is to think of ques­tions your clients have asked you and build your con­tent from this per­spec­tive. If they asked about a spe­cif­ic case or the legal sys­tem in gen­er­al, these are excel­lent talk­ing points to build your rep­u­ta­tion as the go-to resource for indi­vid­u­als look­ing for your expertise. 

• Start — After assess­ing the infor­ma­tion you want to pro­vide, the hard part is get­ting start­ed. As an indi­vid­ual who writes on a reg­u­lar basis, you may be tempt­ed to be ana­lyt­i­cal and crit­i­cal of your first blog. This is com­plete­ly nor­mal but unnec­es­sary. It’s more impor­tant for you to post your blogs and learn as you go. Here’s how to get started: 
• Blog­ging plat­form — There are a num­ber of blog­ging plat­form options avail­able with the most pop­u­lar being Word­Press. Once you’ve set­tled on your pre­ferred plat­form, it’s time to name it. Using the name of your law firm or area of prac­tice is a good start­ing point. 
• Use a notepad — Start a brain­storm­ing ses­sion with a pen and paper. On a notepad, write down at least 5 ideas, ques­tions clients have asked you, or spe­cif­ic aspects of cas­es you’ve worked on that may be of inter­est to the pub­lic. It starts to become fun when you like what you’re writ­ing about!
• Cre­ate dead­lines — An impor­tant ele­ment of suc­cess­ful blogs is con­sis­ten­cy. To ensure your blog is time­ly and con­sis­tent, cre­ate an achiev­able dead­line that you can meet on a reg­u­lar basis. 
• Start post­ing — We know that you are a legal pro­fes­sion­al with an excep­tion­al grasp on your spe­cif­ic niche of the law but make sure your blog is not rid­dled with legal jar­gon that is dif­fi­cult to under­stand. Express­ing your­self through authen­tic­i­ty and per­son­al­i­ty can make your blog more enter­tain­ing and engag­ing. Don’t be afraid to make a per­son­al con­nec­tion. It helps to estab­lish trust with your audience. 

ABA for Law Firm Blogs

As you are aware, the ABA or Amer­i­can Bar Asso­ci­a­tion has spe­cif­ic con­fi­den­tial­i­ty and pro­fes­sion­al con­duct guide­lines for law firms that reg­u­late how lawyers and attor­neys mar­ket them­selves. If you want to dis­cuss an inter­est­ing aspect of a pend­ing legal mat­ter, it is impor­tant to adhere to these guide­lines and have a con­ver­sa­tion with your client about dis­sem­i­nat­ing cer­tain aspects of their case. In cas­es like this, main­tain­ing the integri­ty of your client-attor­ney rela­tion­ship is paramount. 

It’s also impor­tant to be aware of your state’s legal adver­tis­ing rules. Gen­er­al­ly, dis­cussing broad legal issues or case reviews is not con­sid­ered adver­tis­ing. It is rec­om­mend­ed to be aware of how the infor­ma­tion is being pre­sent­ed. Social media is pow­er­ful and it can improve your law fir­m’s vis­i­bil­i­ty many times over. For this rea­son, it may be a good idea to add a dis­claimer to the end of your blog posts to ensure clar­i­ty. Some exam­ples of dis­claimers are: 

• “The lan­guage in this post is not intend­ed to estab­lish a client-attor­ney relationship.” 
• “These results are not a guar­an­tee of sim­i­lar results.” 
• “Con­tact a licensed attor­ney for assistance.”

Do You Need Help Creating the Best Legal Blog

We have a long track record of work­ing with law firms for over 25 years. With exten­sive expe­ri­ence in busi­ness devel­op­ment and mar­ket­ing ini­tia­tives for the legal indus­try, we devel­op com­pre­hen­sive and inte­grat­ed mar­ket­ing strate­gies that incor­po­rate brand­ing, pub­lic rela­tions, com­mu­ni­ty rela­tions, mul­ti­me­dia, web devel­op­ment, and SEO for bot­tom-line prof­itabil­i­ty. Our focused, com­pas­sion­ate, and resource­ful approach pro­vides a fresh per­spec­tive that will align with your busi­ness goals and objec­tives. When you are look­ing to grow your law firm and part­ner with a mar­ket­ing col­lab­o­ra­tor, we will help you build the best legal blog while you focus on help­ing your clients. 

Are you ready to grow your law firm? Give us a call for a free mar­ket­ing assess­ment and let’s get started!