LLC

Legal Blogs: Should be able to advertise their services and make money through targeted sponsorships. I think it might be distracting though.

I am not planning on adsense on any legal blogs soon!

If you ask me. unless you are wealthy, you are crazy not to monetize in at least one of two ways on any blog.. It in no way lowers a websites worth as long as it is done right.

I try to promote other lawyers like me who practice in the fields of IP and supplement regulation as much as possible. It’s just good will. A legal blog is not supposed to make money directly. If it does so indirectly, by attracting clients, that is great.

Let me explain.

I started an accident blog about 6 months ago with the sole intent to provide people relevant information that I believe consumers would like to know about (such as posts about accident prevention). There’s a good book by David Meerman Scott “The New Rules of Marketing and PR” that helped me along the way.

Along the way, I’ve written about a wide range of subjects. Here’s an article I wrote about emerging technology which would help prevent car accidents caused by cell phone usage while driving.

http://www.seriousaccidents.com/accident-blog/car-technology-accident-blog/utah-medical-student-inspires-car-accident-prevention-smart-key/

We also tell people why the car accident occurred so hopefully people can learn from others’ mistakes.

Having worked as an insurance defense attorney and Corporate America, I know how the other side works. I switched sides not to make money but to feel that I contribute to the greater good. In working for the insurance companies, I found that they take advantage of people and even find it humorous at times.

Car accident lawyers work for the people, and — in my opinion — we value people over property in the legal system.

When it comes to starting a legal blog, it’s important to remember that we’re writing for people and not for profit or “spiders.” We gain a trusting leadership from our blog and a satisfaction that we’re working to help educate our readers about auto accident claims. Maybe we’ll attract a client that read the blog, and that would be a good thing too.

So, in my opinion, a legal blog should not have advertising. It should be — at most — an indirect source of income.

As others have pointed out, US lawyers are severely restricted in how they can advertise. They usually can’t cross-promote other businesses related to their law practice either.

So monetizing a legal blog is probably not viable for lawyers in the US, though rules do vary state by state.

http://health.okguru.com

So several of them “register” their site as a newspaper, and then offer news with the newspaper which has the same name of the firm.

Locally there have different limits on the content they can publish.

Instead actually nobody is against lawyers promoting themselves by adsense.

I use adsense, sell databases, sell ebooks, i’m a consultant, i sell videos.

But mostly I spread documents and infos for free, because users after need a consultant to explain them.

I’m proud to talk about all italian blog, and spread their ads: there is no problem, it’s not a way to loose money.

Perhaps because i’m not a lawyer.

But you think every consultant is different, I want to let my users compare what i do instead of the others. I strongly use videos and podcast, and this put me in front of every other consultant in Italy.

So i use adsense because in my niche i’m really different from the others, and i want to be compared.

Good blog,
Spataro
founder of IusOnDemand srl

That was a really interesting and thought-provoking blog. I am a legal blogger – I wrtie Jobsworth, a blog about employment law and it ahs been going for 6 months now. Readership is building up slowly and steadily and I’ve got several plans in mind for expanding the offering. My aims are very similar to the other legal (personal injury) blog you refer to. Direct advertising is one of the things I’ve been thinking about but have almost certainly rejected for the reasons you set out and also because it just doesn’t “feel right”, if that isn’t sounding too pompous. My firm has built up its business in the real (as opposed to the virtual) world since 2000 by word of mouth and we never advertise in magazines or elsewhere. I want to carry on with that in the virtual world, which is much better suited to “word of mouth” referral than the real world. The forms of indirect marketing you suggest are all areas I’ve thought of (apart from the classifieds board idea – not sure how that would work) and want to investigate further.

At the moment my first priority is to try and produce quality copy that is topical and I’d like to think it is working. My main concern though is that whilst I get some comments and enquiries from readers, it is hard to turn them into fee paying clients. The analogy is often given that people can buy a suit off the peg rather than going to savile Row for a bespoke item and why can’t lawyers offer that service. The difficulty in most areas of law, apart from personal injury, wills and conveyancing perhaps, is that all legal issues turn on their own facts and to be able to advise you properly your lawyer has to spend time getting to understand the case, and money is, of course, chargeable, time. The challenge isn’t just to promote oneself but to find ways of making legal advice accessible once you have “hooked” someone.

I’d welcome your thoughts on this.

Finally, may I just say how useful I find your blog? it’s been really helpful in giving me ideas on my own offering.

Best regards

Michael

There are many ways that law firms can monetize blogs and not just indirectly. First, as I posted here – http://www.myshingle.com/2008/11/articles/tech-web/should-lawyers-accept-ads-on-their-blogs-why-not/ – there are opportunities for high end sponsorships that can enhance a blogger’s reputation. I do not endorse affiliate deals, Google ads or tip jars because they can seem cheesy on a law firm site, but there are many companies that would be very interested in sponsoring a law firm site.

Second, there is also the idea of offering for fee content. In my field (energy regulatory), most of the information reporters charge several thousand dollars a year. At the same time, it is almost impossible to keep up with all developments in this complex and changing area for free. A lawyer in a high end practice area could sell memberships for $20 or $30 a month to supplement revenue. This would enable them to hire people to work for the blog.

Finally, lawyers need to recognize the value of their sites. Logos like ABA Top 100 Blawg or Alltop are just another form of advertising. If lawyers are willing to post those ads for free, they should not reject paid ads out of hand.