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There certainly seems to be no middle ground on my now infamous Metallica post. Some consider it one of their favorites of all my blog posts, while others treat it as the poster child for what not to post on a “professional” blawg because it, horrors, dares to bring in the “personal” element into a “professional” blog. Ironically for the latter group, my post, in part, is about the differences between speaking in an authentic voice and using a calculated and managed voice.
I noted this morning that VH1 tonight is replaying Metallica: Some Kind of Monster. Here’s your chance to re-read my post and see the movie that inspired it. Or you can stick to reading only those oh so professional, mono-topically focused blogs. You know what I’d do.
[Originally published on DennisKennedy.Blog (https://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]
This post brought to you by LexThink!(TM) – The Conference, Re-imagined. LexThink! – Think big thoughts, do cool things, change the world.

I wanted to take some time to process my thinking after LexThink – or more accurately, after BlawgConnect 2005, ABA TECHSHOW 2005 and LexThink, and I haven’t yet started to write about it. I’ve also needed to tend to a few other projects and work on the launch of Between Lawyers.
From my email, I know that I’m taking a little more time than some people would like. I point you to Jack Vinson, Yvonne Divita and Matt Buchanon, among others who have very good posts about LexThink.
I finished another of Jack’s reflections on LexThink this morning. He reflects on the way that “passion” emerged as a theme for the day. I’ve also been thinking a lot about that, and I’ve been thinking about some notes on a big sheet of paper that hung on the wall at LexThink that talked about “passion” and “trust.” A companion sheet has the phrase “authentic voice.”
Last night, VH1 showed the recent documentary film called Some Kind of Monster. The film follows Metallica through the period in which they recorded their last album, St. Anger, and sometimes labeled as the film in which “Metallica hires a therapist.”
[By way of background: Many of my friends are surprised both by how few movies I watch or like these days and by the fact that there were years when I saw more than 300 movies. My glib, but more accurate than you might expect, answer is usually that after Kurosawa’s Ran, there wasn’t much else left to be said through film. I love great movies, and I can’t stand to be in the same room with mediocre or bad movies.
The other answer is that because of Babylon 5, La Femme Nikita, 24 and other serial television shows, I’ve grown to like the extended story-telling form of “movies” better than the 2-hour format. Not to name drop, but seeing Fassbinder’s “Berlin Alexanderplatz” over several days many years ago probably set off my interest in that extended format.
So, to my surprise, and probably the shock of people who know me, I’ve now seen two movies in 2005 that I really liked. One was “Some Kind of Monster.” The other caught me totally off-guard and was “3,” a made for TV ESPN movie on Dale Earnhart.
But, let me get back to Metallica, er, LexThink.]
I don’t pretend to be a Metallica fan – I’m not all that familiar with their music and I didn’t understand their story very well until last night. I especially didn’t realize that as they started to hit big, they lost a band member in a tour bus crash that could have killed them all.
It becomes clear that this documentary shows, in part, the three core members of the group trying to come to terms with that event in a way they never had before. It’s also the story of a fight for their art, their identity and whether they can stay together as a group.
It’s riveting stuff, especially as what is happening reveals itself in the music. It’s also clear that the group could have split apart at several points during the filming.
Interestingly, at the lowest point, in the turning point of the film, there is a funny scene that has them all laughing and realizing that by knowing what they aren’t, they realize what they are and why it makes sense to go forward from that.
The music changes after that point, culminating in the video of the song St. Anger that they shot at San Quentin playing to a group of prisoners. The first time I saw that video, I put it into my top 10 of music videos before the video even finished. Now I understand why the video has the power and realness that it does for me.
Heck, I don’t mind if you make fun of me for liking this movie, for making Metallica references on my blog, or whatever. I do mind if you aren’t willing to set aside a couple of hours sometime and watch this movie with an open mind.
The movie (or at least my reading of it) focuses on three themes I took from Lexthink – Passion, Trust and Authentic Voice. That’s stuff that matters.
You will see in Some Kind of Monster that the Metallica guys are very wealthy and can spend their money on anything they want. They chose to spend $40,000 a month (not always willingly) to bring in a coach/therapist to help them determine what Metallica was, where it was going and if they wanted it to go on.
In other words, they cared about what they had created and where it might go. They wanted to know whether they still had the trust, the passion and an authentic voice and whether they were willing to fight for it.
You might dismiss Metallica as just a heavy metal band, but they showed me more about commitment and caring about what they are doing, their audience and their art than I’ve seen at any law firm. Would you spend that kind of money or, more important, invest the amount of time and emotion, that they did? Why not? Why don’t you care as much about what you are doing as they do?
When I encounter a lack of trust, I have to leave. When I find a lack of passion, like most of us, I tend to be willing to make compromises. Until blogging, I didn’t place much emphasis on the authentic voice piece of the puzzle. Now, I think a lot about that.
So, here are my first action steps for you that grow out of LexThink.
1. Watch “Some Kind of Monster.”
2. Ask yourself if you are willing to make the same kind of effort to work on your firm, business or orgaization.
3. If so, write down at least three reasons why you aren’t making that kind of effort now.
4. If not, write down at least three reasons why you plan to stay there.
5. Rewrite your lists as questions and spend a few minutes every day thinking about your answers to those questions, until it becomes impossible for you not to take some action.
Passion. Trust. Authentic voice. Stuff that matters. Even if we can’t get all the way there, the paths to get closer to them are ones to give serious thought to taking.
[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (https://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]

Birthday Cake with PineappleLong-time readers of this blog will know that today is the blawgiversary of DennisKennedy.Blog. I started this blog on February 15, 2003, and we (my blog and me) are marking its thirteenth birthday today. That makes DennisKennedy.Blog a teenager. Much more about that in a minute.

In previous years, I marked the week of the blogiversary with a weeklong combined celebration of my blog’s birthday and my birthday (February 17 – shout out to birthday sharers Michael Jordan and Jim Brown). The issue of “sharing” birthday celebrations came up this year and, as you’ll notice from the title of this post, “we” decided to do something different this year.

When you have written a blog as long as I have, two things will surprise you. The first is that your blog starts to take on a life of its own and begins to talk to you, especially about its “feelings” and “needs.” The second is that you are constantly surprised which posts set off a negative reaction from readers.

This morning, we had the combination of those two things.

The problem, it seems, was yesterday’s post – a seemingly innocuous post about some of my recent writings outside the blog and some recent podcasts.

I could not have predicted the firestorm. However, when you have a new teenager, you can’t predict anything.

To make a long story short, my blog and I had what they call these days a “good talk” this morning. If you know teenagers, it won’t surprise you that words like “unfair,” “independence,” “old enough,” and the like were flying around. I also heard the word “boring” and “old man” more times than I cared to hear them.

As I now understand it, yesterday’s post hit a tender spot that I apparently have not been listening to the blog enough about. In retrospect, I get the blog’s perspective, but sheesh. Yes, the post did refer to writing I have done in places other than the blog. And, yes, I am aware that my blog sees my podcast as competition for my time, attention and best work. I now better understand why my blog found this so upsetting.

And you don’t even want to hear the comments my blog made about my use of social media.

On the other hand, I do think my best work and content lately has been on the podcast. I won’t apologize for that. I was a bit surprised, however, that my blog has been skyping with Tom Mighell’s blog and commiserating about their perceived neglect from their authors. Not to oversimplify, but they are jealous of the podcast.

For most of the discussion, if I can call it that, I listened. I also tried to make rational arguments, justifications and excuses. I also tried changing the subject and a variety of other tricks. My blog was having none of that and, I’ll admit that I’m impressed, stuck to its guns and made all of its points.

The blog even tried to get me to express my feelings and emotions.

It’s was a difficult conversation. I’m still mulling over some of the blog’s points.

One of the things that came through loud and clear is that my blog feels it deserves my most creative work. It kept returning to the point that I was no longer writing posts like the Metallica LexThink post and the Steve Gadd copyright post. And that I should be. (NIt also wants me to fix some of the internal links on the blog so that people don’t have to search for old posts using the search box at the top of the right column. I get the point.)

My blog’s contention is that posts like those are what my real audience wants and not pointers to things I’ve done in other places. Especially on my podcast. At one point, my blog literally threw a “Legal Talk Network” t-shirt across the room.

Not too surprisingly, the subject of being “old enough” for a tattoo again came up. Again.

In the past, I’ve been able to say that the blog is too young and that I make all the decisions. And my threat of getting an ear pierced and wearing an earring was a deterrent the blog on the tattoo front because it did not want to be embarrassed to death. Now, my blog seems ready to call my bluff. I’m still not convinced that my blog’s tattoo idea – a large “Cloud” with a lightning bolt that says “You only live once” is the best choice, but I understand its point that it has long been living with a photo of me “tattooed” on its front page and, even worse for it, a logo and feed for the podcast.

The bottom line. We agreed that DennisKennedy.Blog gets its own separate birthday celebration this year and going forward. We also agreed that any birthday presents to the blog will be the blog’s presents and not shared with me. Unless it wants to share – not likely.

I also agreed that I would ask readers to let us know in the comments what direction you would like to see the blog take going forward. Keep in mind, however, that my blog will see your comments before I do.

And I agreed that I needed to pay more attention to my blog and consider its feelings.

It was a difficult, contentious discussion, but a worthwhile one that will help us begin to plot a path forward.

We hugged it out at the end and said “good talk,” both nervously looking around to make sure no one was watching us.

So, I wish my blog a happy thirteenth birthday, salute it for becoming a teenager and invite you to do the same. It’s been a pleasure writing the blog all these years and I look forward to many more.

– Dennis

[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (https://denniskennedy.com/blog/)]

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This blog got started on February 15, 2003. I got started on February 17, 1958. This blog was a birthday present to myself. I have a tradition of doing a week of special posts on this blog to celebrate. Welcome to the 2008 version of blawgiversary / burthday week.
If someone asked me what has changed the most in the world of blawgs in the last five years, I’d have to say that things have gotten a LOT more serious and focused. Perhaps it was the freedom that came in the early days with knowing that you had about a half a dozen readers (all of whom you knew), but I used to do some posts that no one would ever advise a lawyer blogger to do these days. A great example was my somewhat infamous “Metallica post.” Ah, well, one of my essential blogging guidelines is to be sure to break the “rules” from time to time.
In its own odd way, blawgiversary week has proven to be almost as controversial as my Blawggie awards. It’s meant to be a way to have fun (especially some fun at my own expense) and as a form of a reader appreciation week. So, let’s have some fun.
This is a big year for this blog and me. Five years for the blog and fifty years for me. It’s also a big year for multiples of five around me. My father-in-law will be celebrate his 90th birthday this weekend. My daughter turns 15. My wife and I celebrate our 20th anniversary this summer. This is my 25th year of practicing law. You see the theme.
Every year, I try to arrange some special things to recognize blawgiversary / birthday week, and I’ve outdone myself this year. I’ve talked NASCAR into running the Daytona 500 (also celebrating its 50th birthday) on my birthday and the federal government into making this a three-day weekend. Ahem.
So, for the next week, I’ll be doing a few things to celebrate. First and foremost, I’ll be doing as many “by request” posts as I can. If you have a question for me, leave a comment or drop me an email at denniskennedyblog @ gmail.com and I’ll turn the answer into a post.
I’ll also try to come up with a treat or two. In the past, I’ve been able to make special discounts and free downloads of software available. If you are a vendor and want to do a special promotion this week, let me know and we’ll see if we can put something together in the next few days or at a later time.
Anyway, this is a time to remind people that the best part of blogging is that it is fun.
[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (https://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]
Read the blog posts and RSS feed items I find most interesting on Google Reader Shared Items or subscribe to its RSS feed. High volume, but lots of interesting items that will get you thinking.
Technorati tags:

This blog got started on February 15, 2003. I got started on February 17, 1958. This blog was a birthday present to myself. I have a tradition of doing a week of special posts on this blog to celebrate. Welcome to the 2008 version of blawgiversary / burthday week.
If someone asked me what has changed the most in the world of blawgs in the last five years, I’d have to say that things have gotten a LOT more serious and focused. Perhaps it was the freedom that came in the early days with knowing that you had about a half a dozen readers (all of whom you knew), but I used to do some posts that no one would ever advise a lawyer blogger to do these days. A great example was my somewhat infamous “Metallica post.” Ah, well, one of my essential blogging guidelines is to be sure to break the “rules” from time to time.
In its own odd way, blawgiversary week has proven to be almost as controversial as my Blawggie awards. It’s meant to be a way to have fun (especially some fun at my own expense) and as a form of a reader appreciation week. So, let’s have some fun.
This is a big year for this blog and me. Five years for the blog and fifty years for me. It’s also a big year for multiples of five around me. My father-in-law will be celebrate his 90th birthday this weekend. My daughter turns 15. My wife and I celebrate our 20th anniversary this summer. This is my 25th year of practicing law. You see the theme.
Every year, I try to arrange some special things to recognize blawgiversary / birthday week, and I’ve outdone myself this year. I’ve talked NASCAR into running the Daytona 500 (also celebrating its 50th birthday) on my birthday and the federal government into making this a three-day weekend. Ahem.
So, for the next week, I’ll be doing a few things to celebrate. First and foremost, I’ll be doing as many “by request” posts as I can. If you have a question for me, leave a comment or drop me an email at denniskennedyblog @ gmail.com and I’ll turn the answer into a post.
I’ll also try to come up with a treat or two. In the past, I’ve been able to make special discounts and free downloads of software available. If you are a vendor and want to do a special promotion this week, let me know and we’ll see if we can put something together in the next few days or at a later time.
Anyway, this is a time to remind people that the best part of blogging is that it is fun.
[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (https://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]
Read the blog posts and RSS feed items I find most interesting on Google Reader Shared Items or subscribe to its RSS feed. High volume, but lots of interesting items that will get you thinking.
Technorati tags:

To be honest, I find them impossibly confusing. I generally write about this issue on Between Lawyers, but since you asked, I’ll take a stab at it here.
By way of background, I think I first started speaking about legal ethics rules for web pages back in 1996 or 1997, so I have some history on these topics. I think that the web page rules evolved in a fairly straight-forward way, with a few standard requirements, usually being the placement of some disclaimer language.
What concerns me is that there appears to be a trend of not treating blogs under the web page rules, as would be logical, amd instead treating them as some new kind of animal.
Personally, I see the debate from the academic viewpoint. My blog is, as I say repeatedly, an experiment in writing. It has nothing to do with my legal practice – ask the legal marketing people if they recommend writing about Metallica documentaries and NASCAR to advertise a legal practice. To the extent I use my blog to promote anything, I promote my speaking and consulting businesses.
In fact, lately I have done all my law-related posts to Between Lawyers, which is an educational and, hopefully, an entertainment vehicle, not a law practice marketing or advertising vehicle.
Some people do not understand why I have taken this approach. Allow me to illustrate. At the recent Missouri Solo and Small Firm Conference, I had a discussion with the main education specialist for my legal malpractice carrier about whether a Missouri lawyer may do legal work for non-Missouri clients under the current or future multi-jurisdictional practice rules. Most lawyers will know what the answer was.
If I used my blog to “advertise” my legal practice, I’d simply get inquiries from clients whose work I couldn’t take. The current ethics rules make it all-but-impossible as a practical matter to refer work to another attorney and try to take a referral fee – the reasons are far to complex to get into while sitting in a drum store – so there’s no reason to try that approach.
As a result, I’ve decided not to mention my law practice on my blog. I market the law practice in non-Internet ways in Missouri, although I provide standard information on my website, as I have done for almost ten years.
The recent discussion and interpretation have given me concern that I still might not be doing enough and that the mere fact that I am a lawyer who writes a blog will make me subject to a regime of rules designed for lawyers who run yellow page ads, billboards and the like.
As I said, I find it all confusing and hope that, as was the case with web pages, there is a move toward clear and easy to follow rules.
As an interesting aside on this whole legal advertising rule, I’ll note that when I was in large firms, my friends in small firms complained all the time that there was one set of ethical rules (as they were enforced) for big firms and one set for small firms. I used to laugh at them and tell them to chill out. Now, I find that I’m talking like they were.
Here’s an example. I received a blow-in card with a publication that was an ad for the Orrick law firm.
The ad had a very large green “$O” and then made a reference to how they “win cases” in the first sentence.
As you probably know, the recent talk about blogs has focused on creating unreasonable expectations of results, mentioning past successes, and unsubstantiated factual comparisons.
I admire Orrick for being willing to prepare and use an ad that seems to go right in the teeth of the type of reasoning that has been used in connection with blogs. I simply don’t have the guts to do anything like that. I suppose that some cynical small firm lawyers will say this is another example of one rule for big firms and one rule for small firms, but I simply think of it as being “aggressive.”
To be crystal clear, I personally have no problem with the Orrick ad – I actually like it. I’m just confused by the interpretation of the advertising rules as they apply to lawyer blogs.
And that’s the end of another edition of By Request Tuesday. Thanks for your questions.
[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (https://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]

Steve Nipper follows up my now infamous Metallica post, with his new post on Guns N’ Roses and intellectual property law on rethink(ip).
The money quote:
“So. Where do you stand? For you, is it about the fans or is it about the music? Are you willing to rethink the band if they won’t change…if they aren’t willing to produce the music fans want?
Sometimes someone has to get their act together and rethink the band.”
I spent a very enjoyable day today with Doug Sorocco, another of the rethink(ip) guys, who was in St. Louis for the day. I got the chance to learn more about the rethink(ip) vision. Trust me, these guys definitely rock. They’ve made me do some rethinking.
[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (https://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/]

Steve Nipper follows up my now infamous Metallica post, with his new post on Guns N’ Roses and intellectual property law on rethink(ip).
The money quote:
“So. Where do you stand? For you, is it about the fans or is it about the music? Are you willing to rethink the band if they won’t change…if they aren’t willing to produce the music fans want?
Sometimes someone has to get their act together and rethink the band.”
I spent a very enjoyable day today with Doug Sorocco, another of the rethink(ip) guys, who was in St. Louis for the day. I got the chance to learn more about the rethink(ip) vision. Trust me, these guys definitely rock. They’ve made me do some rethinking.
[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (https://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/]

Kennedy-Mighell Report Podcast
Noted legal technologists Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell bring listeners an in-depth analysis of the latest advancements in legal technology, in addition to best practices for utilizing existing tools.