With LexBlog as a sponsor of the National Association of Bar Executives Communications (NABEComm) Workshop in Minneapolis this week, I planned to attend.

And why not. The folks in the Communications Section are leading the digital publishing and communications for state bars across our country.

Their goals, vision, passion for publishing, social media prowess and the like intersect with those of LexBlog. I’ve picked up plenty of innovative ideas from NABEComm members, at the Workshops and on the side.

This year LexBlog planned to share at NABEComm the use of portal technology to aggregate and curate the blog publishing of state bar members into a digital publication/media center benefiting both lawyers and the public.

On display would have been:

Each are a live prototype, other than a site being run by a bar association.

Problem is the guy who was to be in Minneapolis for LexBlog came done with Covid. Me.

Each portal aggregates and curates the legal blogs from a state (lawyers, law schools and other legal professionals), provides a profile for each the lawyer, blog publication and the publishing organization and enables original publishing by the group, ie, bar association.

There are multiple benefits to a portal.

  • Showcase the credible (not advertisement-like) blogging of a state’s lawyers, limiting it to bar members for bars
  • Profiles of lawyers, blogs and organizations displayed on site and indexed at Google
  • Inspiring legal bloggers to share information, insight and commentary with the blog
  • Blogging builds peoples trust in lawyers and connects people with lawyers in rural areas
  • Strengthens the relationships of lawyers with their bar associations by bars helping lawyers even more
  • Body of ever growing law available to lawyers and the public
  • Original publishing of bar associations on the site, as desired

The three prototype sites are presented by the Open Legal Blog Archive, an organization backed by LexBlog.

The blogs are pulled from the Archive. If the sites were launched commercially, each blog would consent to such syndication.

Digital publications aggregating legal blogs in portals have been launched in a number of states, including four launched by state bar associations and their communications sections.

I wish I was in Minneapolis, but alas I’ll share this from Seattle.

Post my Covid, I’ll reach out to some of you to see what you think of portals and how they can be used.