Geeklawyer was a little apprehensive about the UK and Europe’s first legal bloggers conference. Would it be well attended? would it get support? would people find the content to be useful and would the social networking work?
Yes.
Caveats exist on the delight both Geeklawyer and Ruthie felt about the results: it was a little small, though this was down to the still small size of the legal blogging community, something that will change in future years; and several desirable bloggers failed to show up; trying to co-ordinate the diaries of more than two lawyers is usually a nightmare so the fact that we managed it for thirty is an achievement in itself, but inevitably some academics such as Martin fell victim to exam marking, pupilblogger & Liadnan fell prey to clerks and Corporate Blawg collapsed under the weight of numerous client files suddenly being heaped unannounced on his head.
Nonetheless, these were merely small clouds on an otherwise sunny and clear blue sky. Several members of both the general and trade press were present so we hope that the evangelical component of the conference will achieve its goal of greater awareness and uptake of lawyer blogging in the UK.
Several speaker commented on the mixed objectives of bloggers. CharonQC spoke of the egotists ranters anarchists serious commenters and marketing departments; and the horrors inflicted by errors such as the infamous Watson Farley Williams debacle; and he provided a taxonomy of blogging.
Geeklawyer spoke of the four main dangers of blogging for lawyers: professional misconduct, the Google eternal memory problem, malicious commenters and lack of blog upkeep. He also discussed the acquisition and control of co-bloggers.
Justin Patten led what ended up as quite interesting question and answer session on such things as the goals and objectives of blogging as well as the risks.
Ruthie talked about her life as a blogging sidekick. Inevitably much of this was biased propaganda presenting her twisted agenda and deluded grievances; no-one, it seemed to the more balanced Geeklawyer, was fooled for a moment.
Ruthie caused a significant amount of disappointment by not turning up in her famous pink leather motorcycle jacket citing its weight and the heat. A rather glorious Chinese smoking jacket, while in other circumstances sensational, failed to be an adequate substitute for the leching lawyers present. She presented her plan for a Ruthie calendar for next year and merchandise like t-shirts mugs and leatherware. Lacking any concept of discussion she disclosed some gossip about Geeklawyer’s initial inability to manage her effectively as a blogger (guilty). She said that while she was not anonymous she didn’t exploit the blog as a marketing opportunity and eschewed providing free legal advice. She also commented on the disappointing inevitability of sexual discussion in a post making it massively and enduringly popular.
Perhaps the surprising hits of the conference were Headshift Consultancy and Professor Jeremy Phillips of IPKat. Of all the conference attendees Geeklawyer was most nervous of Headshift because of their content. They emailed him when they heard of the conference and Geeklawyer thought they were doing something that sounded interesting. The trouble is that being a bit of a geek Geeklawyer has a distorted value and interest system and perhaps, just perhaps, this geeky stuff attracts him in a way it may not or should not do for anyone sensible: like lawyers. Headshift discussed the use of social networking to provide resources within large firms and organisations using easy existing software Wikis social bookmarking tagging and blogs. They described how quickly built projects costing next to nothing radically changed knowledge sharing and workflows in several prominent law firms, outperforming vastly more expensive software that took ages to develop. Geeklawyer knew all the technology well but hadn’t considered its use in this way. He found it to be a revolutionary idea and it genuinely has made him look at whether he can adopt this on a lesser scale for his own needs. To his astonishment several other lawyers said to him afterwards, unbidden, how interesting this talk was and what revolutionary ideas it revealed.
Professor Jeremy Phillips was the other great surprise: Geeklawyer had of course read his blog on innumerable occasions and took it as the product of a heavyweight and austere intellectual. In reality Jeremy was funny friendly and polite. He told the rather impressive story of the creation and growth of IPKat, and he was a highly engaging speaker.
Geeklawyer has attempted to persuade IPKat to cast him its unwanted news tips.
There should be MP3’s of the conference at some point: but the audio quality of Geeklawyer’s recordings is a bit poor: it sounds like the sermon on the mount recorded from half a mile away, against the wind and with a huge discontented audience.
Update:
Eeek!
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