Starting a law firm means that you have to market your law firm. That is a no-brainer. I would guess that 75% of all legal blog posts out there in the blogosphere are related to law firm marketing in some way.
But, an equally important question is: how do blog to market my firm? In my case, there are so many different routes to choose and I question what is the most effective use of my time. I struggle with these questions every day and I would guess that many fledgling solo practitioners do as well. After all, time is what we sell.
During my struggle to start and market my law firm, I have been doing quite a bit of blogging. I have discussed the purposes of legal blogging in the past, but I don’t think I have focused enough on why solo lawyer should blog. Stated another way, should solo lawyers blog just to blog? To be honest, I am not even sure that this blog and what I am writing at this very moment is “proper marketing”. It may not be.
My point is that the blog is not just an outlet for thoughts and ideas about starting a law firm. Or, rather, it can be about that, but such an effort is not very effective marketing. If your read enough blogs and posts by other solos related to practicing law, you will probably notice one of two things: (1) the lawyers actually want to give away good, well-thought-out advice or (2) the lawyers are trying to make money from the advice. This blog falls into the former group (you may not think my blog is good or well-thought-out, but I am certainly not trying to make any real money from it).
However, I wanted to point out that I have separate blogs on starting a law firm AND for my specific pratice area. I blog about starting a law firm because I feel like I have advice to give and because I actually enjoy it. It keeps me a little more focused on what I need to do to be successful as a solo attorney. But, it doesn’t bring in money. What does bring in money (if you do it correctly) is blogging about a specific practice area and using key words and search terms related to your locale and practice area. E.g.: once I get licensed in Minnesota, my practice blog will focus on family law and/or trusts and estates in my particular area – Minneapolis. Sadly, several attorney in Minneapolis have picked up on this and I have some competition, but there is still room for me in the market (I think).
If anybody is reading this and taking it actually following my advice, you too should blog. But, I would recommend blogging about your chosen legal niche practice and then using key words related to your locale. This is both difficult and fairly easy. The difficulty is actually blogging consistently and staying true to your search terms. The easy part is that you know way more than the average person or business who you are marketing to. If you can write like a lawyer, you should be able to blog like a lawyer.
In this blog, I do it for fun (mostly) and because I hope somebody is being helped. I felt very lost when I first started practicing and I was upset that the partners at my old firm apparently didn’t feel the need to train me. Of course, it’s possible I didn’t listen. Furthermore, this blog does provide me with some search engine bonus because I can link to my website and other blogs through it. I have been doing that effectively up until now because, again, I’m not licensed in Minnesota yet. Rather, I’m suffering through studying for the bar exam, again.
If anybody wants to comment or ask questions about starting a law firm and blogging or how to set one up through WordPress, Blogger, or any other service, feel free to leave a comment. The process is fairly simple, but it does take some thought and effort.