I recently mentioned the Internet Roundtable columns Jerry Lawson, Brenda Howard and I wrote on Internet marketing for lawyers several years ago and how they are some of my favorite articles.
Sabrina Pacifici emailed me that she has placed all of the columns in one location on LLRX.com. Even better, she relinked and added columns 36 and 37, a two-part series on blogging.
I remember that Jerry Lawson decided that it was time (July 2003) to cover blogs as part of Internet marketing in the columns. We had been talking privately about blogs and how they were changing all the rules and conventions of law firm websites.
I started the first column with: “When I notice that both Jerry Lawson and I have commented publicly that the energy and excitement around blogging remind us of 1995 and the early days of creating web pages, it’s clear that blogging is a topic that deserves some attention . . . .”
We brought in two of our favorite bloggers as guests – Ernest “Ernie the Attorney” Svenson and Tom “Inter Alia” Mighell – and the columns are especially interesting to show their early reflections on blogging.
I’ve always felt that Ernie captured a core element of blogging with this comment:

I was always interested with the idea of having a website, but I would never have taken the time to set one up. But some easy-to-use weblog software with a free 30-day trial is all it took to draw me into the Internet fray. That, and an obsession to have my voice broadcast to the widest possible audience.

I thoroughly recommend the columns to anyone interested in blogs and blogging, and the early history of lawyers using blogging. Look for the discussion of the term “blawg.”
Column 37 (part 2) marked the end of the Internet Roundtable columns, which was appropriate in a sense because blogs so radically changed the world of traditional law firm websites.
Jerry Lawson’s final comment on that last article was both wise and prescient:

Blogs have enormous potential, but it’s important to keep the phenomenon in perspective. I think we’re going to see another instance of the “80/20 Rule.” It will probably shake out something like this: About 80% of all lawyer web logs will fail. The remaining 20% will have greater or lesser degrees of success, mostly modest. One per cent or so, maybe less, will be extremely successful. However, some of that 1% will be so successful that they will make their owners very, very glad they got into the blogging game.

A big thank you to Sabrina for bringing back these columns. And, when you visit the articles, be sure to check out the rest of the always great content at LLRX.com.
[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (https://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]
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