In a post for Law Blogs, called Five Questions Series: Fascinating Insight from Successful Law Bloggers, Emily Durand-Wood writes about my good friend Ernie Svenson’s new book, Blogging in One Hour for Lawyers, and a series he has been running on the companion blog to the book called “Five Questions for a Law Blogger“.

Thanks to Emily for writing about Ernie’s blog, and specifically for referencing part of the blog where I talk about my biggest challenge to blogging: the time commitment. I also like the fact that Emily referred to me (at least parenthetically) as a successful law blogger – I hope I am. And so, in the spirit of making the most of my time, I give you Emily’s take on Ernie’s “five questions”:

The standard five questions are:

1. Have there been any unexpected benefits to blogging, and if so, what are they?
2. What unexpected challenges did you find in blogging?
3. What did you envision would happen when you first started blogging?
4. Given what you know now about blogging, what advice would you give to lawyers contemplating taking the plunge?
5. If you were going to start this over again, what things might you do differently?

Legal bloggers Tom Mighell (Inter Alia), Jeff Richardson (iPhone JD), Molly DiBianca(Delaware Employment Law Blog), Townsend Myers (NOLA Criminal Law) share their experiences candidly.

There are some great lessons to be learned from these seasoned pros. Like, expect the unexpected:

“I had no idea that 10 years later, I would have written several books, appeared just about all over the country speaking to lawyers on technology issues, and become involved with a great group of law practice management experts.  I just thought I would get more readers for my newsletter.”

-Tom Mighell

Approach blogging authentically and enthusiastically:

“Don’t do it unless you have a narrow focus that you are interested in.  Adding posts on a regular schedule is difficult and will never be worth it if you don’t have a passion for what you are doing.  Don’t just start a blog for the sake of starting a blog.”

-Jeff Richardson

“Understand the medium before you try to lay claim to it.  By this, I mean that no one should write a blog unless he is a loyal blog reader.  It’s always easy to spot a blogger who doesn’t read blogs because they make the mistakes and missteps of a amateur. That image will not help you develop a readership and certainly won’t help you get new clients.”

-Molly DiBianca

Be realistic about the time commitment:

“Time, time, time. Plain and simple. Having a full time job, then trying to find time to blog about your full time job is tough.”

-Townsend Myers

But try to look on the bright side:

“I suppose the other challenge is keeping up with all of the excellent blogs in my practice area.  When I started my blog, there were about 50 high-quality blogs written by employment lawyers. Today, there are three times that, with more cropping up ever day. Having more resources and more great people to meet is a problem I think I can live with.”

-Molly DiBianca

I really hope Ernie continues with this series; the responses so far have been fascinating.

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