I had a wonderful time speaking at the Bar Association of San Francisco as part of The Undeniable Tour. They always have an engaged audience. They were particularly interested in learning how to select which social media platform to use and how blogging can attract potential clients.
One person asked me a particularly interesting question. He wanted to know when his firm has a successful outcome for a client how can they blog about it – if the client approves. This isn’t a question I get very often so it caused me to pause and think for a moment. I had three thoughts for this fellow legal eagle.
#1 – Check with you state bar’s ethical rules about writing about your cases.
#2 – Be careful about sounding like you’re advertising your firm via you blog. Even though the purpose of having a website and a blog it to ultimately get clients and grow your business, the focus of your blog should be about providing useful information to your clients. Don’t treat it like an online billboard.
#3 – Ask yourself why you want to write about a client’s case. Is it simply to give yourself a gold star? Or is there a way to use the case to help others? Use common client issues as a way to explain how the law works to resolve a specific type of problem or as a way to explain the legal process. There may be a new precedent that was created in your client’s case that was worth sharing with others. There may be several blog posts that you could write about a particular situation so don’t feel like you have to limit yourself to one.
As always, when you have a legal blog put a disclaimer on your website that informs readers that your blog provides legal information but it is not a substitute for legal advice. Your state bar may also require all law firms to have an advertising disclaimer on their sites.
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The Undeniable Tour would not be possible without my awesome sponsors: Web3Mavens, Enchanting Lawyer, Total Networks, and Attorney at Work.