As I have written before on the blog, judicial elections and mandatory retirements because of age interfere with the Court’s scheduled work. This is an election year—Justices French and Kennedy are running for re-election. In the event that one or both of them isn’t re-elected, all cases they have heard must be decided before their
Governor DeWine Commutes Sentence of Sex-Trafficking Victim Alexis Martin
On April 17, 2020, Governor Mike DeWine commuted the sentence of sex-trafficking victim Alexis Martin. While a juvenile, Martin was involved in a robbery and house burglary gone awry in which her trafficker was shot and killed, although she was not the shooter. Martin was bound over to adult court where she pleaded guilty to
Getting started with LexBlog
Thanks for joining LexBlog! We’re excited to help you create great legal content. This post shares some important information to help you with your new site. It covers topics such as logging in to the platform and where to find help articles or support. We’ve also added some of our favorite blog posts as placeholder
Setting your site goals and measuring your success
When planning a new blog or evaluating your current blog, measurable goals help you determine if your site is successful. The LexBlog philosophy of blogging skews away from content marketing and toward connection and reputation building. Who you connect with, be it a colleague or client, should be your desired outcome.
Your goals should be
Listening: First step in blogging by lawyers
Imagine you’re an estate planning lawyer in Des Moines looking to grow your practice.
The marketing folks at Principal Park, home of the Triple A Des Moines Cubs, call to tell you that you’ll have free use of a luxury box for five of next year’s ball games. Better yet, they tell you they’ll arrange
Before you blog, find your community
When people ask me what they should do to get started on blogging, I rarely talk technology or even blogging. While those are important elements of blogging, they are next steps. Things you do after you decide you want to blog and have found your community and your voice.
Ask yourself this when you decide
Finding listening tools
To create a successful blog, you will need to listen to your audience and online influencers. These resources will help you understand why listening is important and to find the tools that can help you.
As LexBlog’s Kevin O’Keefe explains:
“Blogging is much more than ‘message sending.’ You listen to the conversation that’s already taking
Figuring out your blog’s focus
Focusing your blog around niche topics will increase your readership and search engine performance. If your blog covers too many topics, it becomes harder for people to find related content on your site and for search engines to understand what your site is about. Here are some ways to narrow the focus of your site.
Coming up with post ideas
Both new and experienced bloggers need ideas for fresh content. This article lists ideas for generating new posts: comment on recent news, repurposing your content, conferences and meetups, personal and evergreen content, and other prompts.
Respond to current news through your blog. Don’t include a detailed recap of the news. Instead, link to the original
The ideal blog post
This is the format of an ideal blog post. The most important part of writing an ideal blog post is to, you know, actually write it. Your thoughts are brilliant, I’m sure, but when you keep them within your head you miss out on the discussions that your ideas could generate, that could subsequently help
How long should a law blog post be?
However long it takes to say what you have to say. No more. No less.
Everywhere I talk these days I am asked what’s the proper length for a law blog post. I give this answer everytime.
I fear the question arises out of a lot misinformation on law blogging flying around.
This afternoon I