Author’s Note: Since original publication of this article, the State Bar has added more blogs to this list and will continue to update the list as more active blogs are identified.

March 21, 2018 – Kevin O’Keefe, a trial lawyer in La Crosse for 17 years, had a vision in 1999, the era of America Online (AOL). He was using AOL message boards to answer general questions about personal injury, employment, and other legal issues.

“I focused on helping people,” O’Keefe said. “The byproduct of that was I built a name for myself.” Amidst the well-known litigators with big pockets in bigger cities, people with legal issues were reaching out to O’Keefe, a rural lawyer leveraging the internet.

So what did O'Keefe do next? He closed his law shop and moved to Seattle with his wife and five children to start a company, a virtual law community that allowed people to connect online through articles, elists, and ask-a-lawyer message boards.

“My goal wasn’t to help lawyers, although I knew if lawyers were helping people online, they would have all the work they could shake a stick at,” O’Keefe said.

A few years after LexisNexis bought O’Keefe’s company, Prairielaw.com, he started his own blog. He wanted to explain to lawyers how they could leverage the internet to help people, giving them name recognition and exposure as an expert in their area of law.

And soon after launching his own blog, Real Lawyers Have Blogs, O’Keefe launched a new company called LexBlog. That was in 2004. Today, the LexBlog network powers more than 15,000 law bloggers, attorneys from across the U.S., including Wisconsin.

Yes, O’Keefe’s business does better if more bloggers join his network. But O’Keefe said the platform helps lawyers help people, and helping people is extremely powerful.

Blogging isn't a necessity, O'Keefe says. But he wonders why law students and lawyers, especially solo and small firm lawyers, would not leverage this type of tool to build their online networks for employment and business development purposes. 

“I would think that in this day and age, when every law student and every lawyer has a smart phone, they would figure out how to use the smart phone for building relationships and building a name,” said O’Keefe, noting blogs can help them standout in a crowded field of competition.

Give and You Shall Receive

O’Keefe says the internet is a communications medium. Law firm websites and online ads give lawyers an online presence, he says, but blogging is a conversation. In order to be involved in the conversation, you have to enter the room where it’s happening.

“Most people never go into the room,” O’Keefe said. “Just imagine you’re an estate planner in Green Bay, and you are down in Milwaukee just shouting estate planning information out of a bullhorn. You can’t figure out why nobody pays attention to you.”

“Even if you’re in Green Bay with a bullhorn, nobody is listening. But now you go over to the Brown County Coliseum where there’s a big estate planning conference. Instead of shouting, you listen, and you tell other people what you heard, and who said it.”

O’Keefe said the people you talk about will start listening. And the people in the stands will start to see you, too, because other people will start referencing you, he said.

In February, O’Keefe wrote a blog post about law schools. Here’s the lead paragraph: “Leave it to legal tech innovator and law professor, Bill Henderson to be part of a new nonprofit, the Institute for the Future of Law Practice, that will coordinate the entry-level law school market around an updated and modernized curriculum.”

Do you think Bill Henderson saw this? Do you think Bill Henderson now knows who Kevin O’Keefe is? It’s this interaction that allows lawyers to build their names, he said.

“My blog is about what I’m reading,” he said. “I’m going to share that, and I’m going to tell you why I share it. And I am going to meet those people who I talked about.”

“And when somebody gets my name from somebody in Green Bay, now they Google me and see that I have been cited by a lawyer in Miami, San Diego, Chicago, Seattle, Boston, and New York. Tell me whether that leaves an impression.”

But successful blogging is more than that. Lawyers have to find their niche. Now is a great time for lawyers to step into that fray. “There’s no doubt that coverage of legal issues is down. So, it provides lawyers with a wonderful opportunity to cover niches.”

“Just think about it. You have about 15,000 active lawyers in Wisconsin, but less than one percent are blogging. What a golden opportunity,” O’Keefe said.

O’Keefe gives an example of water law, as a niche blog. “In Wisconsin, water law is a hot topic. Whoever is blogging on water law will be the water law lawyer,” he said.

O’Keefe hopes to use the LexBlog platform to give more lawyers, especially solo and small firm lawyers in rural areas, affordable tools to leverage the power of blogging.

“The internet is only growing and growing,” he said. “My hope is that we can democratize the ability of good lawyers to get good work.”

The 2018 Wisconsin Law Blogs

For the fourth year in a row, the State Bar of Wisconsin lists Wisconsin law firms and lawyers who are actively blogging. From criminal defense to employment law, from entertainment law to family law, we searched high and low to find these law bloggers in Wisconsin.

We didn’t see anything on water law (wink, wink). But we did uncover 44 blogs from solo, small firm, or independent law bloggers, 13 large firm blogs (some with multiple blogs, five academic blogs from professors at Marquette University and U.W.-Madison, and 15 State Bar of Wisconsin section blogs (seven active).

Some of these blogs have been going strong since the State Bar published its first annual “Wisconsin Law Blogs” in 2015. Other blogs fell off the list. Some blogs are new to the scene. If you think your blog meets the criteria for inclusion but it's not included, contact State Bar Legal Writer Joe Forward.

Remember, the list only includes blogs that posted at least 12 times in 2017, and at least twice in 2018. If the blog did not include dated posts, it is not included.

Did the State Bar Miss Your Blog?

If you think your blog meets the criteria for inclusion and it is not included, send Legal Writer Joe Forward an email with a link to your blog.

47 Wisconsin Solo, Small Firm, or Independent Blogs

	Blog	Firm Affiliation	Practice Area
1	Andrew Ladd Law Blog	The Law Offices of Andrew C. Ladd LLC	criminal defense
2	Appleton Personal Injury Law Blog	Peterson Berk Cross SC	personal injury law
3	Appleton WI Bankruptcy Law Blog	Helbing Law Office LLC	bankruptcy  law
4	Banking Misconduct Blog	Mahany Law and Judge, Lang & Katers, LLC	banking law
5	Boller & Vaughan Blog	Boller & Vaughan LLC	personal injury law
6	Cannon & Dunphy Blog	Cannon & Dunphy SC	personal injury law
7	Center for Health & Wellness Law Blog	Barbara Zabawa, Center for Health & Wellness Law LLC	health law
8	Comics Lawyer Blog**	Dirk Vanover, Vanover Legal LLC	entertainment law
9	Due Diligence	Brian Mahany, Mahany Law	whistleblower and fraud recovery law
10	Employment Law Blog	Walcheski & Luzi LLC	employment law
11	Family Law Blog	Sterling Law Offices SC	family law
12	Gimbel Reilly Guerin & Brown Blog	Gimbel Reilly Guerin & Brown, LLP	general
13	Herrling Clark Law Firm Blog	Herrling Clark Law Firm Ltd	personal injury, family law, estate planning
14	Hudson Legal Blog	Mudge Porter Ludeen & Seguin SC	personal and workplace injury
15	Hurley, Burish, & Stanton Blog	Hurley, Burish, & Stanton SC	general
16	Karp & Iancu Blog	David Karp, Karp & Iancu SC	family law, personal injury law
17	KEW Tips Blog	Kramer, Elkins & Watt LLC	business, employment, famil law
18	The Legal Watchdog Blog**	Michael Cicchini, Cicchini Law Office LLC	criminal law
19	Loeb & Herman Blog	Gregg Herman, Loeb & Herman SC	family law
20	Mallery & Zimmerman Blog	Mallery & Zimmerman SC	general
21	MWH Law Group Blog	MHW Law Group	general
22	Milwaukee Criminal Defense Law Blog	Kohn Smith Roth	criminal defense
23	Milwaukee Divorce Lawyer Blog	Reddin & Singer LLP	family law
24	Milwaukee Employment Law Blog	Alan C. Olson & Associates	employee rights law
25	Milwaukee Legal Issues Blog	The Law Offices of Robert A. Levine	Personal insury
26	Milwaukee Wisconsin Motor Vehicle Accident Law Blog	Martin Law Office LLC	personal injury law
27	Murphy & Prachthauser Blog	Murphy & Prachthauser SC	personal injury law
28	Navigator Blog**	Melinda Gustafson Gervasi, Gustafson Gervasi Law Office LLC	estate and probate law
29	OgdenGlazer Blog	Ogden Glazer LLC	business, food and beverage, intellectual property law
30	On Point Blog	Wisconsin State Public Defender	personal injury, criminal defense
31	Paul Ksicinski Blog	Paul A. Ksicinski, Attorney at Law	criminal defense
32	Police Misconduct Blog	Mahany Law	police misconduct
33	Probst Law Blog	Probst Law Offices SC	family law
34	Schloemer Law Firm Blog	Schloemer Law Firm	estate planning, tax and business law
35	Stangl Law Blog	Stangl Law Offices SC	criminal defense
36	Studinski Law Blog	Studinski Law LLC	personal injury
37	Tesar Law Group Blog	Tesar Law Group SC	estate planning
38	The Editing Lawyer Blog**	Benjamin Scott Wright, Elder Advisors Law	legal writing, editing, publishing
39	The Previant Law Firm Blog	The Previant Law Firm SC	labor and employment, personal injury law
40	Tristan’s Landlord-Tenant Law Blog	Tristan Pettit, Petrie & Pettit SC	Landlord-tenant law
41	Wisconsin Bankruptcy Law Blog	Miller & Miller Law LLC	bankruptcy & creditor/debtor law
42	Wisconsin Business Law Blog	Schober Schober & Mitchell SC	business law
43	Wisconsin DUI Law Blog	Melowski & Associates	DUI defense
44	Wisconsin Family Law Blog	Nelson, Krueger & Millenbach, LLC	family law
45	Wisconsin Law Blog	Fitzpatrick, Skemp & Associates, LLC	personal injury, worker's compensation law
46	Wisconsin Probate and Estate Planning Blog	Krause Donovan, LLC	probate and estate planning law
47	Wisconsin Unemployment Law Blog**	Victor Forberger	unemployment law, labor and employment law
48	Wisconsin Workers' Compensation Experts	Domer Law	worker's compensation law

* Blog affiliated with a law firm with less than 20 attorneys. “Active” means at least 12 posts in 2017 and at least two posts in 2018. If the blog does not have an actual name, the law firm name is used.

** These are “independent” blogs. They are not affiliated or branded by a law firm. However, this list still notes the law firm or entity of the independent blogger listed.

13 Wisconsin Large Firm Blogs

	Blog	Firm Affiliation	Practice Area
1	Axley Brynelson Blog	Axley Brynelson LLP	general
2	Dewitt Ross & Stevens Blogs	Dewitt Ross & Stevens SC	8 blogs, various topics
3	Foley & Lardner Blogs	Foley & Lardner LLP	14 blogs, various topics
4	All In a Day's Work Blog	Godfrey & Kahn SC	labor and employment, insurance
5	Hall Render Blog	Hall Render Killian Health & Lyman	health law
6	Writing on Your Rights	Hawks Quindel SC	labor and employment; family law; employee benefits; and personal injury
7	Husch Blackwell Blogs	Husch Blackwell LLP	13 blogs, various topics
8	O’Neil Cannon Hollman Dejong & Laing Blogs	O’Neil Cannon Hollman Dejong & Laing SC	labor and employment; tax and wealth.
9	Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren Blog	Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren SC	general
10	The Blue Ink Blogs	Ruder Ware	employment, banking, tax, municipal law, health care
11	SmithAmendsen Labor & Employment Blog	SmithAmundsen LLC	labor & employment
12	Stafford Rosenbaum Blog	Stafford Rosenbaum LLP	general
13	von Briesen & Roper Blog	von Briesen & Roper SC	general

* Some larger firms maintain multiple blogs. They are not listed separately. If the blog does not have an actual name, only the law firm name is noted.

5 Wisconsin Academic Law Blogs

	Blog	Affiliation	Practice Area
1	Althouse Blog	Ann Althouse, U.W. Law School	general
2	Life Sentences Blog	Michael O'Hear, M.U. Law School	crime, policing, punishment
3	M.U. Law School Faculty Blog	M.U. Law School	general
4	ScowStats Blog	Alan Ball, Marquette University	statistics on the Wisconsin Supreme Court
5	WisBlawg	U.W. Law School	legal research

7 Active State Bar of Wisconsin Blogs*

1	Agricultural Law and Rural Practice Blog
2	Business Law Section Blog
3	Construction and Public Contract Section Blog
4	Environmental Law Section Blog
5	International Practice Section Blog
6	Labor & Employment Blog
7	Litigation Section Blog

* These blogs meet the criteria as “active” blogs, with at least 12 posts in 2017 and at least two posts in 2018.

8 Emerging State Bar of Wisconsin Blogs*

1	Children and the Law Section Blog
2	Dispute Resolution Section Blog
3	Family Law Section Blog
4	Nonresident Lawyers Blog
5	Public Interest Section Blog
6	Real Property and Probate Trust Law Blog
7	Taxation Law Section Blog
8	Children and the Law Section Blog

* These blogs don’t meet the criteria as “active” blogs because they are new or did not post at least 12 times in 2017.