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Dennis Kennedy is well known for hit annual bloggie Awards.
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LAW STAR
“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 �995. 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 Bloggie 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.
continued on back
Dennis Kennedy: Author, DennisKennedy.blog [By Charisse Dengler]
In a legal field bursting with blogs, Dennis Kennedy is probably most well known for his annual Bloggie Awards. A true
technology buff, Kennedy is excited to find out what the future of blogging holds.
PAGE 2
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LAWCROSSINGTHE LARGEST COLLECTION OF LEGAL JOBS ON EARTH
LAW STAR
“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
�0 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.”
ON THE NET
DennisKennedy.com
www.denniskennedy.com
Dennis Kennedy’s blog
www.denniskennedy.com/blog/index.html
American Bar Association
www.abanet.org