Ever since the ABA Journal started its Blawg 100, blawggers from all walks have life have coveted inclusion on this best-of-the-best list.
Undeniably, having an endorsement from the ABA Journal gives a blawgger some significant “street cred”. And I certainly am not taking issue with the Journal’s voting process (at least not in this post). However, in my humble opinion, there are better ways to measure excellence (or at least popularity) of the blogs in the ABA Journal Blawg directory.
Currently, the Journal provides several options to sort through the various blawgs. They include Recently Featured, Popular Today, and Random Topics sections.
They also allow their visitors to sort blawgs by topic, author type, region, and law school.
These are all excellent.
If you click on “by topic” the journal provides an extensive list of legal topics from which to choose. However, the directory lists topical blawgs:
“Based on the number of times our readers have visited our descriptions of these blawgs.”
For example, in Legal Marketing & Consulting, here are the top 10:
- Build a Solo Practice @ SPU
“Newly minted or well-seasoned, teaching you how to create and grow your legal practice.” Business planning from the ground up: marketing, getting clients, keeping clients.
- What About Clients?
“What About Clients? is a weblog which contains my personal ideas and thoughts on servicing business clients as valued customers in American law firms. I started it in 2005 because I think that 1) the level of service at even the best American law firms is often inattentive and erratic—and that troubles me—and 2) even where service is sound, it can be a lot better.”
- Law Blog
“WSJ.com on law and business and the business of law.” The Wall Street Journal‘s legal blog features a half-dozen detailed posts daily on a wide variety of legal topics from law firm shakeups—sometimes featuring interviews with BigLaw names—to the U.S. Supreme Court. Posts frequently include links to pleadings and other relevant legal documents.
- PointofLaw.com
“Information and opinion on the U.S. litigation system.”
- MyShingle.com
“Dedicated to the demands and desires of solos and small law firms, the clients we serve and others in the legal profession who use our services or dream of going out on their own.” This blog was started to help students and lawyers at firms who want to create unconventional practices and to provide a place for solos to trade advice and tout their successes.
- Chuck Newton
“Preachings and teachings from my perspective inside a third-wave law firm. Appealing to spare room tycoons, home office lawyers, downshifters, carpet commuters, connected attorneys, law students and wannabes.” Posts cover law school news and emerging law practice niches. You can also follow Chuck Newton on Twitter.
- The [Non]billable Hour
The [Non]billable Hour deals with law-firm management and technology issues. It says it is “changing professional practice one idea at a time.”
- More Partner Income
“Dedicated to ideas and techniques for the financial management of the law firm with the objective of increasing the income of equity partners.”
- LawBiz Blog
LawBiz Blog bills itself as “your practical guide to profit.” Topics include running a law firm as well as profitably exiting by selling a law practice. It contains advice on law practice management and technology, linking to relevant articles and podcasts. Some of the podcasts are interviews done by blawg author Ed Poll.
- Idealawg
A look at the world of law and lawyers from many directions. Idealawg contains articles and advice about professional development and self-improvement.
While I don’t question that these 10 blawgs are excellent sources of information on legal marketing & consulting (in fact I would contend that a couple are the most popular), I’m not sure that listing the blawgs in order of “reader clicks on description”, is an accurate assessment of the blawgs’ popularity.
For example, does the Journal’s system account for “click fraud” (an author clicking on their blawg description several times to increase its placement)?
Admittedly, the Journal does not publicize this order as a “best-of-blawgs-list.” However, I think that with some modifications, traffic and click-throughs from the ABA Journal’s Blawg Directory could provide a more accurate measure of blawg popularity, in my humble opinion.
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Accolades, awards, top “this and that” doesn’t interest me. An audience who wants to read my blog and comment does.
I own several legal directories which use off-the-shelf software. There are several choices to order the listings. One of the choices is to sort listings by popularity. I do not use this method, not because of the possibility of manipulation, but because it’s very nature will seriously skew results. I sort my listings by topic and by date within each topic.
It looks like the ABA site requires a visitor to register before voting. Of course, if I wanted to spend the effort, I could register hundreds of times with different e-mail addresses. It is possible to make an attempt to prevent someone from manipulating the number of clicks or votes by recording the IP address, but this would prevent multiple lawyers on the same network from registering. Additionally, it wouldn’t stop someone who knows how to easily get around that.
The bigger problem with sorting listings by popularity is that users will have the tendency to click on the Popular section. If popular blogs are listed at the top, those will get the most viewers. Most people will not spend the time to look further down the list and the popular blogs will get all of the viewers and votes keeping them in the popular list.
I noticed that the ABA site does not list my blog http://www.Lawyer-Advertising-Blog.com although many legal and nonlegal websites linked to it, including one of the most important and prominent nonlegal advertising and marketing consulting firms in the country. I don’t need their listing because for several years my blog has been #1 in Google for the search phrases “lawyer advertising” and “attorney advertising”. However, I do not see how they missed it.