Blog information legal departments have available from the AmLaw 200

The champion of legal blogging, Kevin O’Keefe, published a wonderfuly informative post on June 16, 2009 about the number of blogs maintained by the US’s largest firms, the AmLaw 200. Having just written about one firm that monitors blogs and circulates references to itself (ironically, Wachtell is not listed by Kevin as blogging), I relish this empirical research and results. I have mostly quoted Kevin, but have combined some of his text.

 41 percent of AmLaw 200 law firms in 2008 (82) have blogs.

 15 percent growth in last 6 months in the number of AmLaw 200 law firms publishing blogs.

 43 percent growth in last 6 months in total number of blogs being published by AmLaw 200 law firms (some firms have more than one blog).

 The 82 firms were responsible for a total of 227 blogs.

 186 of the 227 blogs were firm branded; the remaining 41 blogs were not branded. 'Firm branded' blogs are those where the firm's name and/or logo are prominently displayed, indicating that the blog is more a product of the firm than of the individual author writing it.

My point is that tremendous amounts of substantive legal material pours out of law firm blogs. In-house lawyers who want to take an inexpensive step toward learning more can use free tools like aggregators and search feeds to find material that keeps them up to date. Even better, they can ask questions and make comments, thus shaping the flow of educational material. Bloggers love input, and any in-house counsel who takes a few minutes to respond to a post or ask a question will find ample return.