From the beginning I told my clients that I would not recommend blogging as a legal marketing tool for them until I had enough experience with my own. I didn’t want to suggest that their law firm blog until I was comfortable with this “relatively” new lawyer marketing technique.
I’ve been at it a year as of next month, and I can say that in my opinion it is an effective marketing technique. Blogs will replace and overwhelm typical web sites, if they haven’t already.
About two years ago Carolyn Elefant of MyShingle fame had a post on blogging that contained one of the most succinct descriptions of what a blog is. She said:

“Blog is short for Web log, which is nothing more than a conventional Web site with frequently updated content. This content may take the form of short articles, stream-of-consciousness ramblings, or simply a list of referral links to news items or sites of interest, with little value-added commentary.”

For those of you who don’t know Carolyn, she is a solo practitioner and blogging pioneer (since 2000). In a recent post on the subject, she revisited the issue of whether solos and small firms should blog. As she pointed out, her advice back then was a conservative “qualified possibly” to becoming more of a believer in its potential today. I agree that a blog is only part of a legal marketing toolbox. But if focused, well-designed and constructed so that you show up high in search engines for the terms that potential clients use to find a lawyer, then a blog can be very effective marketing tool.