In a cover story in May's Illinois Bar Journal, Helen W. Gunnarsson answers lots of frequently-asked questions about law-related weblogs in her article "Do We Blawg and How?"
Why would a busy attorney start a blog? You might assume that bloggers' reasons are primarily mercenary, but according to most bloggers interviewed for this article, that assumption would be wrong. Rather, most bloggers say that they blog because they enjoy it, not because they expect their blogs to enhance their incomes, though they welcome any additional business blogging brings.
In resarching her article, Gunnarsson was nice enough to ask me why I started this weblog. Here's what I said--
I started The Illinois Trial Practice Weblog to give back some of the benefit of my experience to younger lawyers. When I started out as a young associate in a large firm, I really appreciated the older lawyers who were willing to answer my questions about practice issues.
Though the issue of what motivates lawyers to publish weblogs is complex, I agree with Gunnarsson that lawyers who write weblogs wouldn't keep going unless they enjoyed it. Since part of the enjoyment comes from having readers, be sure to check out the many other weblogs featured in the Gunnarsson's article, some of which you may not be familiar with. There's a list of these weblogs with direct links in a post I did at Legal Underground.
I'm a second year associate in Chicago- stumbled on your blog a while ago. I am really enjoying it! Keep up the great work.
Posted by: MCF | May 02, 2006 at 08:51 AM