Best Legal Blogs You Need To Pay Attention To

“If they are the best, then we can learn a lot from them.” Perhaps this is the simplest and most understandable explanation of why it is important to observe and study your competitors. Reading other legal blogs is part of this strategy.

In successful legal blogs, you can analyze the audience and its needs, get insights, find new interesting topics, ideas and ways of presenting the information.

At the same time, you can see other people’s mistakes and avoid them. For example, if the article received little traffic, then you will know that this topic is of little interest to the audience or it requires a different presentation.

In addition, you will always be in the right information field, notice trends and current events in time. With this information, it will be easier for you to develop your website and create the best legal blog.

Top Law Blogs To Follow In 2022

We have selected several popular and successful legal blogs for you as an example. These top law blogs have different target audiences, different areas of practice, different authors and different ways of presenting the information. And yet, in 2022, they were among the most read and cited. We recommend paying attention to them. You may find fresh ideas and inspiration here to improve your blog.

Law.Com

The Law.com website is one of the best lawyer blogs, and not only in the United States. This resource publishes news, interviews and other materials about the legislation of many countries of the world. Therefore, the audience of Law.com has a wide geography. A large number of authors work on articles – editors, rapid response reporters, designers, lawyers, etc.

In other words, the Law.com platform is not your competitor to be overtaken. Rather, it is a great helper that will assist you to always keep abreast of events, will allow you to hear many opinions in the framework of legal discussions, and will prompt answers to complex questions. The site regularly publishes podcasts, webcasts and videos on current legal topics.

Above The Law

This blog is interesting because it provides a lot of inside information about law firms, famous lawyers, careers in the legal profession, etc. The site has a special section “Career Center”, where the content is divided into three main stages – pre-law, law student, and lawyer. An important part of the site is a section with vacancies and information for applicants. This is a clear division of the target audience – there are thematic publications dedicated to all stages of a lawyer’s career.

In general, almost all Menus on the Above the Law website are a demonstration of very thoughtful work with the target audience. You open a blog, see sections (BigLaw, Small Law, In-House, Law Schools, Legat Tech, etc.) and immediately understand who each section is intended for.

Justia

Justia is a kind of legal information repository. This includes access to online databases on court cases. The site was opened in 2003 and since then this painstaking work of collecting information has been carried out. For example, Justia employees copy and publish documents from the United States Supreme Court.

But in this case, it is worth talking about the Justia blog separately. It has a slightly different focus and is almost entirely devoted to marketing in jurisprudence.

If you want to start promoting your law firm, looking for new ways to present yourself, and need professional recommendations from marketers, then the Justia blog will be of interest to you. Articles are not published here often, but the texts are of very high quality, thoughtful, well-structured and illustrated.

Attorney At Work

Attorney at Work is definitely in the top law blogs. This is another big platform with a lot of authors and their publications. Attorney at Work has set itself the goal of providing useful advice to lawyers every day and fulfills this task. The advice applies to all spheres of work and life of lawyers:

• organization of the workflow;
• communication with customers;
• company promotion;
• a combination of work and leisure;
• creating images and strengthening the brand;
• technical innovations for work automation, and much more.

The section “Videos” should be highlighted, where publications with video content are collected. Obviously, the Attorney at Work team devotes a lot of time and effort to the video format. Almost every video is a mini-instruction that shows step by step how you can solve a particular issue.

In the Downloads section, you can find a lot of useful content that you can use in practice. These are checklists, guides, webinars, and survey reports.

LawSites

The LawSites blog is worth talking about for several reasons.

1. This is a really interesting resource where you can learn about those modern technologies that lawyers can use in their work.
2. LawSites also has a narrow topic. It works a lot like the Crime & Consequences Blog. New articles are also published in small numbers – only one or two per day. The blog attracts the audience with the quality, not the quantity of the texts.
3. LawSites is an example of how one person can develop and popularize a blog. Of course, there is a tech support team behind this blog for sure. But the texts were written by one author. This is the creator of the blog, renowned lawyer and journalist Robert Ambrogi.

Robert Ambrogi successfully combines his professions and implements his skills on this blog. He found his niche and thanks to this he was able to distinguish from the background of competitors.

Reboot Your Law Practice

There is no doubt that it is difficult for a small law firm to compete with the best lawyer blogs such as Attorney at Work or Law.com. Sites like these are too resource-intensive. So let’s look at other options for how you can grow your blog. “Reboot Your Law Practice” works very well for this.

1. Only two lawyers are working on the blog, not a large team of journalists, editors, and lawyers.
2. Scott Limmer and Oscar Michelen have chosen an interesting format for their blog – they publish only podcasts.
3. The target audience of the blog is solo lawyers and small law firms.

The two attorneys share their personal experiences in podcasts, as they have challenging legal backgrounds. They had solo and small firm law practices, but they had to overcome many pitfalls before they were successful. The blog has become part of the marketing strategy.

Lawyerist

Lawyerist is also focused on small law firms. There are many lawyers in this category who have only recently created their firm and need some support, including informational support. Therefore, Lawyerist offers its readers various types of content and assistance:

• Podcasts where experienced lawyers discuss the future of legal practice; many issues are considered from a business point of view.
• The Small Firm Scorecard tool, with which firms can check their strengths and weaknesses and explore goals, strategy, systems, and marketing.
• Lawyerist Insider Library with charts, checklists, statistics and other useful data.

Also, the site itself contains many articles that can help a novice lawyer in business development.

The LawProse Blog

This is another niche product. The LawProse Blog is a blog dedicated to how to write correctly in the language of the law. The blog was written by Bryan A. Garner, who is renowned for his language skills. For example, he is the editor in chief of Black’s Law Dictionary and the author of many leading works on legal style. In addition, LawProse is America’s foremost provider of CLE training in legal writing, editing, and drafting.

The ability to express your thoughts is one of the most important skills for any lawyer. If you are in law, then a high level of literacy is vital for you.

Bryan A. Garner publishes his articles on the blog quite rarely, but he gives important professional knowledge for free. This is why this is the best legal blog for many readers.

Crime & Consequences Blog

A very clear example of a successful narrow-profile blog, unfortunately not updated from 2020. Pay attention to how this resource is built.

• There is no news or other urgent information here, but review and analytical articles are published.
• The design of the site is as simple as possible. This is only one informational feed that needs to be scrolled.
• The site does not use photos, audio or video files. Text only format.
• No more than two or three articles are published per day. There may be breaks between posts for several days.

How does this site attract the attention of the audience? Why is it in the top law firm blogs? The answer is simple – the Crime & Consequences Blog provides unique information. The authors propose to consider criminal cases not only from the side of the defence but from all sides. This is exactly what we talked about earlier in the “Regular Posts” section. You may rarely publish articles, but if they contain unique information, then your blog will still attract attention.

Why Law Firms Start Their Own Blogs

A blog is an essential marketing tool. By blogging and posting regularly, you will see an increase in potential customers. This is how it works.

1. Content update and traffic growth. Almost every line of text on a website can be useful for digital marketing. Now think about how many opportunities a blog gives because you can place voluminous text, photos, videos and other content here! By blogging, your website will become visible to Google faster and your business will be easier to find on the Internet, which means even more potential customers will learn about you.
2. Demonstration of your expertise and brand strengthening. Popular blog topics are answering subscribers’ questions, breaking news, legal conflicts, clarifying complex legal topics, etc. By clarifying all these issues, lawyers demonstrate their knowledge and competence. This inspires confidence among the readers and they will turn to you for help.
3. By blogging, you can educate potential audiences. The more you communicate with your readers, the more information they receive from you, the easier it will be for you to interact with them in the future. You will quickly establish communication with subscribers and convince them to become your customers.

This is why lawyers who are actively promoting themselves on the Internet pay so much attention to blogging.

What Makes Top Legal Blogs In 2022

However, let us not be illusory. To achieve a high result, you need to make a lot of effort. Agree that there are a huge number of blogs today, but only a few of them are becoming the best law firm blogs.

Blogging is painstaking work that requires a lot of knowledge, writing skills, creativity, time and other resources. Here you cannot do without a marketing strategy, a thoughtful content plan, the help of designers and SEO specialists.

Remember that you need to find your style and way of presenting information in such a way that you stand out from the competition and grab the attention of your audience. Below, we’ll take a closer look at why other legal blogs have been successful in 2022.

Keeping It Simple

Lawyers use a lot of complex concepts and terms in their work. This florid language is common in legislative texts, in legal literature, at court hearings, etc. But for ordinary people who do not study legislation at a professional level, it is very difficult to read such texts. Lawyers should keep this in mind when creating blog articles.

Write texts in the simplest possible language. Even a person without an education should understand you. If you can’t do without too complex words, decipher their meaning.

You can use the free Hemingway App to check your articles. If Hemingway shows Grade 9 and below, your text is readable and understandable. If you see College Degrees, rewrite and simplify the article, otherwise, it will not be clear to readers.

Illustrations, infographics, videos, and structured text (paragraph highlighting, subheadings, lists, etc.) will help to simplify the text and make it more understandable.

Showing Your Expertise

A lawyer is a narrow specialist who possesses special knowledge and skills. People go to a lawyer in the most difficult moments of their lives. For clients to trust you, you must convince them that you can help. To do this, you need to publish expert content on your blog.

Effective content meets three criteria:

• benefits the reader;
• written in an understandable language;
• reveals the competence of the author.

The best law firm blogs publish expert content in different formats. For instance:

• cases and stories from practice;
• interview;
• detailed answers to questions;
• recording of thematic webinars, lectures and live broadcasts.

You can analyze and explain new laws, comment on news, give general recommendations on paperwork, clarify terminology, share stories of your victories in court, etc. All of this will show how much you understand the law and build loyalty with your audience.

Being Interesting And Useful

The competence of any specialist is revealed through the valuable information they share. If you are rewriting Wikipedia, this is not expert content. Valuable information should reflect your knowledge and experience.

Types of useful content for the best lawyer blog:

• answers on questions;
• dispelling myths;
• checklists and instructions, etc.

Try not to overload the articles with unnecessary information. Remove from the text those sentences and phrases that are not of real benefit and only distract the reader.

Don’t leave questions with the reader. Each of your articles should answer a specific question. If, after reading the text, the customer still asks the question “Did I correctly understand that…?”, then the text is not written well. If you answered one question in the text but touched on other topics, then immediately specify where on your site the client can read more about this.

Speaking To A Target Audience

Knowing and understanding your target audience is an important factor in the development of your blog. You need to know exactly what problems your customers are most likely to face, what questions they are concerned about, and what they want to read about first. After all, you are blogging for your clients. It means that you should talk about their pain.

There can be several target audiences, and within each of the subgroups can be distinguished that will be interested in different legal services. The larger the business, the more such segments there will be. However, you must keep in mind each of these subgroups.

Blogging without considering the needs of your target audience can backfire. You run the risk of spending a lot of effort creating content that your audience won’t be interested in. Or your site will receive inappropriate traffic, that is, these articles will be read by those people who will never become your customers.

SEO Optimization

We’ve already talked with you about blogging being one of the best ways to create new content. Regular content updates are vital to optimize your website and promote it online. So, keep SEO in mind when creating your content plan and writing articles.

1. Do your keyword research and select the ones that can be used for your online promotion.
2. Write text using keywords. It will help Google understand what your site is about. The more keywords a search engine sees, the more potential customers will be able to find you thanks to Google.
3. Publish the text by inserting internal links, tags and meta descriptions.
4. Analyze your results. You can use Google Analytics or other tools to see the result of your SEO work. But remember that it takes Google a while to see your new content. So please be patient.
5. Compare your site to the competition to achieve your ultimate goal of being the best law blog.

There are many nuances in search engine optimization, so it is better to entrust this work to an experienced specialist.

Regular Posts

To “force” search engines to index all changes on your site faster, you need to develop some patterns of publications. For example, if you publish one article every day on your blog, then search engines will visit your site at least once a day, or even more often.

If your resource is new and no one knows about it yet, then you just need to write and publish as often as possible, so that search engines will get used to your site and begin to trust you. After a while, search robots will develop a pattern of visiting your resource and you will not have to wait too long for new pages to be indexed.

To understand how many articles you need to publish per month, you need to analyze the other top legal blogs.

If the leader site has a lot of articles on the topic you need, and you only have one or two, you will have to catch up with the leader and publish the necessary articles often. If your blog is so unique that there is practically no competition, then it will be enough for you to publish only a few new texts per week.

Develop The Best Lawyer Blog In The Industry With Us

As you can see, legal blogs can be very diverse. Of course, usually great teams work for the best law blogs. But we tried to give you examples of those blogs where the authors are one or two people. Despite fewer resources, they managed to become famous. They succeeded because they had a clear strategy and an understanding in which direction they wanted to move. They knew what was their uniqueness and how to show this feature to readers.

You have unique skills and knowledge that can set you apart from the crowd. Use this to grow your blog. But if you find it difficult to take the first steps in this direction, then you can contact Lasting Trend. Our team will help you develop a strategy and content plan, write your first articles and post them on your blog. We’ll help you bring out your best features that will grab the attention of your target audience.

Conclusion

In this article, we’ve covered just a few of the ways to build and grow blogs. But there are many more such techniques. In some situations, these techniques may not work, while in others they can bring maximum success.

Perhaps you have favourite sites that are not included in our top legal blogs. We could not describe all of them, but let’s at least mention a few more:

• legal technology blogs: Law Technology Today, Legal IT Insider, Artificial Lawyer, The Clio Blog, ABA TECHSHOW;
• blogs about corporate law: Sterling Miller blog (Ten things you need to know as in-house counsel), ACC Docket, InhouseBlog, Law 360’s;
• top legal news blogs: Legal Desire, Reuters Legal, Legal Reader, SCOTUSblog, JDSupra, JD Journal.

You can also think about blogs on ethics, management, marketing and other topics related to legal practice. Read these blogs, pay attention to how they are created, and learn from this experience.

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