Kevin O’Keefe will be addressing the ABA National Conference on Legal Malpractice, discussing law firm blogs and legal malpractice.  His own blog, Lex Blog Blog discusses how a law firm might safely blog.

For Internal purposes of law firm
Identify who may blog
Identify technology issues and how they will be addressed
Software platform to be used
Graphic design and development
SEO – search engine optimization
RSS feed management
Maintenance of platform, particularly addressing comment and trackback spam issues
Hosting
Upgrades – who stays abreast of advancing technology and tests upgrades?
Backup
Training & follow-up issues
Who trains lawyers and staff?
Who oversees blogging?
Identify branding as firms or individual lawyers
ID ownership and who is speaking
Clearly label copyright
Blog copy
General information and alerts closer to email newsletters/alerts?
Entering into blog/social media discussion by following relevant RSS feeds and referencing in blog posts?
Posting policy
Individual lawyer(s) role
Marketing’s role
Commenting policy
Generally should allow
Software set to moderate so comments are approved before go live
What comments will be allowed?
Who approves comments?
Consider impact of Section 230 of Communications Decency Act
PR and communications
What, if any, PR and marketing will be done to promote blog?
How will networking with other bloggers and media be addressed?
Who responds to media requests of bloggers?
ID processes for unforeseen issues – probably already in place
Ethics Issues
Follow existing protocols of firm
Determine if specific blog rules exist in your state
May wish to file ‘screen shot’ of blog with ethic’s governing body
Follow existing states ethics rules, particularly web advertising rules
Technorati Tags: blog policies, legal ethics

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Andrew Lavoott Bluestone

Andrew Lavoott Bluestone has been an attorney for 40 years, with a career that spans criminal prosecution, civil litigation and appellate litigation. Mr. Bluestone became an Assistant District Attorney in Kings County in 1978, entered private practice in 1984 and in 1989 opened…

Andrew Lavoott Bluestone has been an attorney for 40 years, with a career that spans criminal prosecution, civil litigation and appellate litigation. Mr. Bluestone became an Assistant District Attorney in Kings County in 1978, entered private practice in 1984 and in 1989 opened his private law office and took his first legal malpractice case.

Since 1989, Bluestone has become a leader in the New York Plaintiff’s Legal Malpractice bar, handling a wide array of plaintiff’s legal malpractice cases arising from catastrophic personal injury, contracts, patents, commercial litigation, securities, matrimonial and custody issues, medical malpractice, insurance, product liability, real estate, landlord-tenant, foreclosures and has defended attorneys in a limited number of legal malpractice cases.

Bluestone also took an academic role in field, publishing the New York Attorney Malpractice Report from 2002-2004.  He started the “New York Attorney Malpractice Blog” in 2004, where he has published more than 4500 entries.

Mr. Bluestone has written 38 scholarly peer-reviewed articles concerning legal malpractice, many in the Outside Counsel column of the New York Law Journal. He has appeared as an Expert witness in multiple legal malpractice litigations.

Mr. Bluestone is an adjunct professor of law at St. John’s University College of Law, teaching Legal Malpractice.  Mr. Bluestone has argued legal malpractice cases in the Second Circuit, in the New York State Court of Appeals, each of the four New York Appellate Divisions, in all four of  the U.S. District Courts of New York and in Supreme Courts all over the state.  He has also been admitted pro haec vice in the states of Connecticut, New Jersey and Florida and was formally admitted to the US District Court of Connecticut and to its Bankruptcy Court all for legal malpractice matters. He has been retained by U.S. Trustees in legal malpractice cases from Bankruptcy Courts, and has represented municipalities, insurance companies, hedge funds, communications companies and international manufacturing firms. Mr. Bluestone regularly lectures in CLEs on legal malpractice.

Based upon his professional experience Bluestone was named a Diplomate and was Board Certified by the American Board of Professional Liability Attorneys in 2008 in Legal Malpractice. He remains Board Certified.  He was admitted to The Best Lawyers in America from 2012-2019.  He has been featured in Who’s Who in Law since 1993.

In the last years, Mr. Bluestone has been featured for two particularly noteworthy legal malpractice cases.  The first was a settlement of an $11.9 million dollar default legal malpractice case of Yeo v. Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman which was reported in the NYLJ on August 15, 2016. Most recently, Mr. Bluestone obtained a rare plaintiff’s verdict in a legal malpractice case on behalf of the City of White Plains v. Joseph Maria, reported in the NYLJ on February 14, 2017. It was the sole legal malpractice jury verdict in the State of New York for 2017.

Bluestone has been at the forefront of the development of legal malpractice principles and has contributed case law decisions, writing and lecturing which have been recognized by his peers.  He is regularly mentioned in academic writing, and his past cases are often cited in current legal malpractice decisions. He is recognized for his ample writings on Judiciary Law § 487, a 850 year old statute deriving from England which relates to attorney deceit.