I'm now at the ABA Lawyer's Professional Liability fall conference where I have been asked to speak about legal ethics and law firm blogs.
I presented yesterday with Kevin O'Keefe of Lexblog on these issues. Kevin's write up and link to his slides are here, and you can find my slides on flickr, or at the linked pdf document below [update: sorry, can't seem to attach the pdf](if you'd like a copy in pdf, keynote or ppt, just send me an email).
We had some great conversations on these issues, and I especially enjoyed meeting Joel Rothman who writes the niche blog on nutritional supplement law, Wondie Russell of Heller Ehrman, and Adam Sharaf (of Axis) who brought up an interesting question about whether the content of law blogs should be considered the "provision of legal services". This question gets at a tricky issue about whether your malpractice insurer will cover you for something you write about in your law blog. If it is the provision of legal services, then coverage would be forthcoming. But if we take the position (as many argue for obvious and good reasons) that our blogs are place where we write provide our own commentary on legal issues (and our blog does not create attorney-client relationships, is not an advertisement, and definitely not 'practicing law' in jurisdictions where we are not admitted), then your malpractice insurer may say "take a hike" if you're ever sued over something in your blog. But aren't professional activities -- like speaking at conferences, writing articles for legal or industry publications - part and parcel of the ordinary things lawyers do in providing legal services in general? If it is not, then lawyers who blog need to consider some other form of media insurance for the firm which extends to blogging activities.
Now, I'm certainly not an malpractice insurance coverage expert, so I'd be really curious to hear the thoughts of other legal bloggers and especially those involved with insurance coverage on this question.