In a post entitled "The State of the Big Firm Blogosphere," authors Beck and Hermann of the Drug and Device Law blog note:
We took a peek at Kevin O'Keefe's recent report on the State
of the AmLaw 200 Blogosphere to see whether blogging is catching on at big
firms. Kevin reports that 41 percent of the AmLaw 200 now have blogs, which is a
110 percent increase in the last two years. Those numbers speak for
themselves....
We next compared the list of firms with blogs to the AmLaw 200 report on profitability. Of the ten firms with the highest profits per partner (we know, we know! everyone criticizes that metric, but the public is still fascinated by it) in the United States, only one has any connection to a blog. And that "connection" is pretty remote.
Kirkland & Ellis, alone among the top ten PPP firms, has a blogging lawyer. But the efforts of that lawyer -- whose work appears at the Sports Law Blog -- just barely count as a "big firm blog." It's true that the blog's founder is a K&E associate, but the blog is now written by five "contributors" -- most of whom appear to be law professors -- and more than a dozen "guest contributors," who generally have no connection with K&E. And, like our own blog, the Sports Law Blog is not "firm branded." It appears to be the product of the collection of folks who publish it, rather than an institutional effort by the firm.
The other top ten PPP firms -- Wachtell, Quinn Emanuel, Boies Schiller, Sullivan & Cromwell, Paul Weiss, Cravath, Simpson Thacher, Cleary, and Schulte Roth --have no apparent affiliation with any blogs at all.
Make of that what you will....
Anyway, perhaps someone with more spare time than we have can look at the list of big firm blogs and draw more scientific conclusions than we have. The data's there for the mining; someone should take a look.
We next compared the list of firms with blogs to the AmLaw 200 report on profitability. Of the ten firms with the highest profits per partner (we know, we know! everyone criticizes that metric, but the public is still fascinated by it) in the United States, only one has any connection to a blog. And that "connection" is pretty remote.
Kirkland & Ellis, alone among the top ten PPP firms, has a blogging lawyer. But the efforts of that lawyer -- whose work appears at the Sports Law Blog -- just barely count as a "big firm blog." It's true that the blog's founder is a K&E associate, but the blog is now written by five "contributors" -- most of whom appear to be law professors -- and more than a dozen "guest contributors," who generally have no connection with K&E. And, like our own blog, the Sports Law Blog is not "firm branded." It appears to be the product of the collection of folks who publish it, rather than an institutional effort by the firm.
The other top ten PPP firms -- Wachtell, Quinn Emanuel, Boies Schiller, Sullivan & Cromwell, Paul Weiss, Cravath, Simpson Thacher, Cleary, and Schulte Roth --have no apparent affiliation with any blogs at all.
Make of that what you will....
Anyway, perhaps someone with more spare time than we have can look at the list of big firm blogs and draw more scientific conclusions than we have. The data's there for the mining; someone should take a look.
