Blogging in Large Law Firms
This musing will be short but to the point. I know that many of my readers are lawyers in large firms so I am openly soliciting comments about this post from them as well as any other readers. It has been about 3 years since I started this blog and I have been fortunate to enjoy a fair measure of popular acclaim. Now, my firm wants to play a greater role in that popular acclaim. Read: This is a "heads up" that you may see some changes in the graphics and layout of this blog in the future at some undetermined point.
As other partners in large law firms will attest, being a partner does not mean that you control your own destiny. I have paid out-of-pocket for the costs to start and maintain this blog and the money paid to the very helpful folks at LexBlog has been well worth it, but now the firm wants to pick up the monthly costs in exchange for adding the firm's logo and other graphics similar to those on the firm's website. LexBlog did such a good job with my blog set-up that after my firm saw how well it turned out, about a year later they paid LexBlog to start separate firm-sponsored blogs.
Loyal Readers: If you created something over the span of 3 years, mostly during nights and weekends (for example a novel about the law), with your firm's blessing, how would you feel if your firm then decided that it wanted to have a greater say in the "public image" of what you created?
I keep in touch with several prominent bloggers in large firms who still have their own blogs that have not been brought into the firm's fold. For example, Cathy Kirkman's Silicon Valley Media Law Blog (Wilson Sonsini) and Mark Herrmann's Drug and Device Law (Jones, Day) and Daniel Schwartz's Connecticut Employment Law (Epstein Becker). Good luck, my friends.
I would make sure that if you walk down that path, that you have in writing that you own 100% of the blog, its contents and the domain in the event you separate from the firm.
I am a little late coming to this post and I don't blog at a large firm. However, there's a chapter in my new book, Solo by Choice: How to Be the Lawyer You Always Wanted to Be that deals with lawyer departure from a firm to start their own shop - and one of the issues that I cover is "Who Owns the Blog," The way that your issue plays out will certainly give me additional fodder for the second edition.
I see two sides to this coin.
On one side, I'd be angry if my firm wanted to assert ownership in my blog. I've been at it for longer than I've been at the firm, and I work on it on my own time. It's been my voice in the wilderness, my sacrifice, and I think the benefit should inure mostly to me. On the other side, the positive point (if nothing more than a silver lining) is that your firm is recognizing the value of blogging. If only more enterprises were so enlightened.
I would have mised feeling, I would be happy for the recognition, at the same a fearful that I would lose everything should I decide to leave the firm, Your a lawyer you know enough to get it writting just in case.