Sole practitioner collaboration

Last year I joined a group of sole practitioners, called the Independent Law Network.  They have been meeting up together for a couple of years now.  I was invited by Mark Foley (perhaps the nearest thing the group has to a leader), and they were very welcoming.

They are a lovely group of people and it was so nice to be able to talk to other sole practitioners about some of the problems that we all experience. No-one really understands what a sole practitioner has to cope with, like another sole practitioner.

Social media for soles

However I think I was a bit of a shock to them.  I bounded in, and started talking about blogs, twitter, Linkedin and all these strange social media things they had largely been able to ignore up to then.  Needless to say I proposed a group blog, which rather sportingly they agreed to try.  It is now online, the Independent Law Network blog, and we are starting to promote it.

The group also do a printed newsletter which we all send out to our clients as a way of cross referring our services.  The blog uses the same design, so the two are both recognisable as  an ILN production.

Building a blog

It has been fun making a blog for a group of bloggers. We all have our own page with a contact form (I used Contact form 7), and have a category in our name so I can do a link to each persons blogs from their page.

Photos have been a bit of a problem, some of us already had nice professional pictures, others have had to get family and friends to take them. We are considering a group booking at a professional photographers.

Anyway the blog is now out in the public domain.  It will be interesting to see how it progresses.  Whether the group will want to continue writing for it after a few months. Whether it will bring in any extra work.  Or whether anything else will come of it.  You never can tell what will happen on the internet.

Is group blogging the way forward for soles?

However I suspect that this sort of thing is going to be essential for sole practitioners, especially those who have a more traditional practice.  The public often prefer the more personal approach which a small firm can provide, but it is often difficult to find them.  This sort of initiative will help make sole practitioners more visible.

Do you do any networking with local colleagues?  Does anyone else do a collaborative blog with other professionals?  Do you have any suggestions, comments?

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