Taking A Break & Questions for Readers

I’m not sure why I ever bother to blog the week between Christmas and New Year’s. Most folks either skip town or are frantically racing to meet end-of-year deadlines. Either way, it makes for absent or distracted readers. In fact, that’s generally why I save my New Year’s predictions for January (2009, 2010 and 2011).

I also recognize that some lawyers voluntarily take a break from the blogosphere during the last week of December to plan for the coming year. I’ll be  doing some planning myself, in particular, thinking about what I can do to improve this site to make it more useful.  You’d think that after blogging here for nine years, I’d have a pretty good idea of my audience’s preferences but truth is that my readership (and I would imagine, most blogs’ readership base) has changed over time.  Starting out in 2002, I’d be lucky to attract 30 readers a day, mostly colleagues from Solosez who wanted to support the site, or a few of the then-handful of other legal bloggers. My traffic has grown substantially since then, but there are also plenty of other blogs that address topics of concern and interest to solos, from practice management tips, technology advice and of course, marketing.

While I like to write about others’ blog posts from time to time, I’ve never been a “repeater” or “me too” blogger in that I don’t simply pass on links to another post or chime in and parrot the same advice.  So to continue to remain both original and useful, I’d love to get some feedback, either in the comment section below or by email (elefant@myshingle.com).  In particular, are there  topics that you’d like to see covered that aren’t addressed at other blogs or perhaps some new perspective worth sharing?  Likewise, are there topics that I post on here (like my Ethics 20/20 coverage) that simply bore you to tears (doesn’t mean I’ll stop posting on issues that in my view matter to solos, but I’m curious).  Finally, are there certain formats that you prefer over others? Would you like to see shorter posts?  What about more webinars, videos, podcasts or live interactive Q&A? Finally, if you’re a new reader, please let me know what brought you here.

In the meantime, if you’re a new reader, or you plan to spend the next week thinking about starting a firm or ramping up your business if you’re already in practice, have a look at some of these resources:

Cold Calls for Lawyers (recording, no registration required)

Biglaw to Your Law (recording and slide deck, no registration required)

StartingaLawFirmOnlineGuide.com (writings on every stage of planning and running a practice, plus links to free 6 hour tutorial on starting a firm)

Nolo Legal Marketing Blawg as well as other marketing materials at MyShingle for some ideas on topics like finding clients, identifying new practice areas or making your internet presence more useful.

So enjoy the break, have a wonderful New Year and I’ll see you all back here next year!