As many have realized, law blogs, sometimes called “blawgs,” are quickly overtaking firm websites as a major marketing tool to increase that firm’s visibility on the web and to offer practice niche services to their clients. Due to the recent proliferation of law blogs, attorneys are encountering novel legal issues, ranging from marketing their firms through their blawgs, to fielding intellectual property and employment questions from clients who have their own blogs. Law Seminars International saw a need for a conference addressing just those issues – the discussion will center both on blogging as a legal gray area and as a legal marketing tool.


The venue for the Blog Law and Blogging for Lawyers Conference is enticing – San Francisco in the spring. The conference will be held in the Pan Pacific Hotel in San Francisco on April 20 & 21, 2006, and includes an esteemed panel of pioneers in the legal blogosphere. Dennis Crouch, editor of the award winning Patently-O Law Blog, and Catherine Kirkman, editor of the acclaimed Silicon Valley Media Law Blog, will co-chair the event. Conference highlights include a discussion headed by Ms. Kirkman raising issues such as whether there should be a professional responsibility standard for bloggers, and whether bloggers should be held to the same standard as journalists, with input from experienced blawgers Terry Gross and Kurt Opsahl. Glenn Otis Brown, an attorney with Google, will discuss Google’s experience working through copyright and trademark issues surrounding the indexing of web content. The conference will conclude with a practical discussion entitled “Real World Report from Some Leading Bloggers,” with McGlinchey Stafford attorney Bennet S. Koren, Executive Editor of the Hurricane Law Blog, joining the panel, to discuss getting started, lessons learned and how blogging helps the blogger’s firm.
For more information, or to register for the conference, go to LSI’s calendar of conferences and scroll down to April 20 & 21, or click here for a brochure.