Wisconsin
Lawyer
Vol. 81, No. 12, December
2008
Inside the Bar
Faster, Cheaper, Better
WisBar Inside Track, the
State Bar’s new electronic newsletter, debuts in January, delivering
more timely, frequent, and interactive news coverage.
by
George C. Brown,
State Bar executive director
Don’t look to your mailbox next month for your copy of Inside the
Bar, the State Bar’s monthly newsletter. It won’t be
there. Instead, look to your electronic mailbox twice a month for the
new State Bar newsletter WisBar Inside Track. With it, you will
get more timely news than you did with the printed version.
Why the change? Because the times demand it. Last spring, the
Madison newspaper The Capital Times moved to online delivery. And
just recently, the venerable Christian Science Monitor moved from
print to Internet delivery of its news. For commercial publications,
some of this move is driven by advertising dollars. But advertising
follows the reader, and more and more of you are accessing your news
electronically.
For the State Bar, there are two drivers for moving to electronic
delivery. The first is that by eliminating the space restrictions
inherent in printing words on paper, we gain the flexibility for a
greater variety of content. The second is that we save the rising costs
of printing and mailing a monthly newsletter – money we can
redirect to other programs and services.
However, it is the change in how you receive information that has
allowed us to make this change. According to the State Bar’s 2007
Technology in Practice survey: 90 percent of the respondents believe it
is appropriate for the State Bar to share information about programs,
products, and services by email; 75 percent access the Internet using
broadband connects and only 4 percent still use dial-up connections; 66
percent already receive electronic newsletters from the State Bar or
other sources; and 21 percent subscribe to news feeds.
For most of its 25-year existence, the State Bar newsletter has
focused principally on news about the association itself. At the same
time the Wisconsin Lawyer magazine focuses on substantive
articles about the law and lawyers, with additional coverage on the
practice of law – professional ethics, managing risk, using
technology, and operating your law business. The new electronic
newsletter provides the opportunity to greatly expand coverage of state
legal news and the practice of law, to deliver timelier and more
frequent court-related news, and to provide quick feedback on developing
issues.
So beginning in January, look to your email inbox twice a month
for WisBar Inside Track, delivering news affecting your practice
and information about the State Bar. If you have not provided us your
email address, or forgot to contact us when you changed it, you can
receive the newsletter by sending your email address to service@wisbar.org or calling the
State Bar customer service at (800) 444-9404.
Wisconsin Lawyer