Attorney Steven Gursten will speak about legal blogging at Injury Board seminar in Clearwater, FL
I am a trial attorney. I’m a real attorney who litigates actual cases and I spend the majority of my time in the trenches. I say this because when I’m now asked to speak about my own experiences as a successful legal blogger, I want people to know that I’m not one of those faux-lawyers who spends all their time on marketing, instead of litigating. I am not a TV lawyer I am not a lawyer who puts my face on the sides of buses and billboards. My law firm does not illegally solicit cases, although ambulance chasing and lawyer solicitation is becoming an epidemic in cities like Detroit. My law firm is not a legal mill, and we don’t churn and burn auto accident injury cases for quick settlements. Blogging, and this website, are the only ways we reach out to current and prospective clients.
Legal blogging works. It allows me to educate prospective clients who are researching to find the lawyers with the right knowledge, expertise and experience to help them in a very specific subject matter – automobile accidents and No Fault insurance.
This week, I’ll be in Clearwater, Florida speaking during a special legal conference for personal injury lawyers presented by Injury Board. Only this time, I won’t be presenting on my usual seminar topics about brain injury or litigation tips for trial or better settlements. Instead, I’ll be discussing how I use this blog, how I got started as a legal blogger, and how this has changed my law practice.
I’ve now been blogging at least several times a week for about eight years. I write not only as a lawyer but also as a safety advocate. I write to educate readers, which now includes thousands of Michigan lawyers, judges, insurance claims adjusters, and members of the public who have questions regarding the Michigan No Fault law.
One recent safety initiative I’ve been outspoken about is distracted driving prevention. Texting is causing a terrible number of car accidents, and teen drivers are the most likely to text. Our own Michigan Auto Law attorneys hope to educate teen drivers about just how dangerous texting and driving is. We launched “The 2016 Kelsey’s Law Scholarship: Stop Distracted Driving Contest” last week, in honor of Kelsey Raffaele, whose tragic death inspired Michigan’s teen driving law after she was killed in a 2010 cell-phone related car accident.
If you scroll through my blog, you will see posts written in collaboration with the Michigan State
Police and my legal interpretations of Michigan court opinions on auto No Fault insurance cases and how they will affect accident victims seeking PIP benefits. I also write often on legal tips to help Michigan lawyers better protect car accident victims, my thoughts on elderly driving, and how Michigan attorneys and legislators should respond to chronic pain patients who drive while using marijuana, instead of far more dangerous opiate narcotic drugs.
I’ve spoken at nearly 200 legal seminars throughout Michigan and the country, and I often write on the topics that I’m asked to speak about.
What you won’t see on my legal blog, however, is what the majority of lawyers are doing these days.
Most lawyers don’t write their own blogs. Most legal blogs start because lawyers are told by their marketing people that they need to “push content.” They pay writers $25 a pop or so to write generic, and generically unhelpful, thoughtless, keyword-spammy blog posts. Many lawyers do this because it’s easier to write a big check to a marketing company than it is to spend the time to write quality content. Keyword-stuffing, they hope, will disguise that they don’t have deep-subject matter expertise.
But these blogs don’t help these lawyers to connect with clients and it doesn’t help them resonate with readers.
My seminar topic is called, “Legal Blogging for Business: Ethical and Compassionate Blogging by Real Lawyers.”
The conference runs until the end of the week.
