In a legal field bursting with blogs, Dennis Kennedy is probably most well known for his annual Blawggie Awards. A true technology buff, Kennedy is excited to find out what the future of blogging holds.
"What I think is happening right now—which is fascinating to me—is that you have a group of lawyers who have been blogging for two, three, four years, who sometimes write about law and sometimes they don't. And then you have sort of a newer group of law blogs that are very focused on marketing. They're really geared toward new clients and building business and stuff like that. So, it's fascinating to me to see how that evolution is going to occur and how that approach will work over time. That, to me, is just one more of the really fun parts of the Internet."
Kennedy, who has been a lawyer for almost 23 years, wanted to go into the legal field from the time he was in high school. After a number of his teachers and professors in high school and college told him they thought he'd enjoy working with the law, he decided there just may be something to their advice. Since graduating from law school, he has worked in firms of all sizes; and he thinks there are good things and bad things about each. Currently, he is a solo practitioner.
"There are a lot of things I like about what I'm doing now," Kennedy said. "In another sense, when you're a solo, you're a solo. You're working by yourself most days. So, there are some aspects to being around really great people—really good lawyers, really smart people—that I miss. And then, as a solo, you don't get as many chances to do really big projects that you can really sink your teeth into that you get a chance to do at a larger firm. So, there are pluses and minuses to each approach, and I've sort of been fortunate that I've had good results…in all the different things I've done."
Kennedy said he has always been eager to embrace new technology. A member of the American Bar Association's (ABA) Law Practice Management Section and the ABA's TechShow board, Kennedy said he's always been involved in the latest happenings in regard to technology.
"I was one of the first group of lawyers with a website back in 1995. I was one of the first group of lawyers with a blog here a few years ago," he said. "So, technology and the Internet have always been key to what I'm doing, and I left the area of estate planning because I wanted to do some things I felt brought me closer to what was happening with the Internet."
Kennedy first got into blogging while writing a column on Internet marketing. So, when he began to think about experimenting with his writing, he decided to leap into the blogosphere.
"I decided I had to have a blog, and I gave it to myself as a birthday present three years ago," Kennedy said. "I would say for me, my blog is about my writing, but it touches on a lot of issues. So I, by choice, named my blog DennisKennedy.blog because I wanted to be able to write about anything that interested me; and I felt like if I did the technology law blog or the legal technology blog or something like that, then it would be very limiting. And I didn't want to do that."
The Blawggie Awards, Kennedy's very own creation, were launched so that he would have a way to honor bloggers that he felt were doing a great job. He said, in the beginning, he thought someone else would certainly start their own blog awards; but when they didn't, he decided to turn them into an annual event.
"With blogging, you have your own printing press or radio station," he said. "So, I wanted to do this thing where I recognized some of the people I just thought were doing a great job with blogging. In the day to day of trying to think of something to post, you sometimes don't mention the people who do a great job on a daily basis; and you just kind of take that for granted."
Kennedy, who speaks to law firms about integrating technology into their practice fields, has a lot of advice to give to lawyers who are resistant to new technological trends.
"Sometimes I like to say lawyers are at the awkward age, where both their children and their parents know more about technology than they do and are more comfortable with technology; but I think that there is a certain fear that lawyers seem to have about technology, and I realize it's difficult for people to get over," he said. "I always say you need to find some area of technology—whether it's the Internet or something else—where you can do some things that are practical that will give you some experience and give you enough practice so that you can become a lot more comfortable."
However, Kennedy thinks that it's the clients who will finally succeed in pushing attorneys toward technology. He feels that the Internet has made for a more educated client—a client who expects the use of technology from his or her attorney.
"Between clients pushing and electronic discovery and other things happening, I don't think that lawyers are as able to hide from technology as they used to be in the past 10 years. You can't hide from it anymore," Kennedy said. "You really have to step up to the issues. The good news is that the computers and the software now are great. They're so much better than they were in the past. It's a great time to learn, because you can do all this cool stuff now."
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