A preface is in order to make sure there's no misunderstanding:

Nothing I've said should be interpreted as meaning that Ms. Brown is an
incompetent web site designer. That's not my point at all.

So far as I can tell, she is at least as good as the average designer, and
possibly better than average. One thing she said that impressed me was her
recommendation of Contribute. While Contribute is far from perfect, it is
an improvement for people who are committed to using only conventional web
sites. It was to Ms. Brown's credit that she recommended a product that
would make life better for her clients but could cut into her profits by
reducing billing for updates.

To emphasize the point that Ms. Brown is no worse than the average web site
designer, let's do some testing of other web site designers, selected at
random from the Open Directory. Again, all results are from Google, as of
this afternoon:

http://www.poweradvocates.com (In business since 1999)
Linked to by 68 other sites.

http://www.sitelaw.com (In business since 1996)
Linked to by 87 other sites.

http://www.legalwebdesign.com (In business since 1998)
Linked to by 35 other sites.

In a way, this comparison is slanted in favor of the design firms, since all
or most of them require their clients to build a link back to them, thus
artificially inflating their totals.

Now, let's compare those professional sites, all done by skilled graphic
designers, with three blogs that use basic free templates. The blogs are
also at a disadvantage because they have only been around months, not years:

http://www.netlawblog.com (Started January 1, 2003)
Linked to by 406 other sites.

http://www.elawyerblog.org (Started August 2, 2003)
Linked to by 119 other sites.

http://www.fedlawyerguy.org (Started August 2, 2003)
Linked to by 92 other sites.

Note further: the first three sites are all professional sites, run by full
time workers with a heavy incentive to attract large numbers of visitors.
By contrast, all three of the latter blogs are part-time affairs run by
someone with a full time legal practice.

The bottom line: While not necessarily a wonder drug, blogs have enormous
potential for legal marketing.

Jerry Lawson
http://www.netlawblog.com