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I left ABA TECHSHOW 2004 with lots of great ideas, new friends and an important question. What is the best way to keep the spark we find at ABA TECHSHOW alive all year long?

The simplest answer is to follow the legal technology blogs. As you probably know, blogs and RSS feeds probably have the most “buzz” of any Internet or tech development of the last several years. Blogs are content-focused web pages based on a common chronological template and updated on a frequent basis with “news” items. RSS feeds allow someone to be notified of and read your new content without actually going to the blog’s page on the Internet.

What is important, however, is that the legal technology blogs give us an easy way to track developments, trends and issues in legal technology. Easy and excellent—because some of the leading legal technologists are the writers of these blogs.

Here are some of the legal tech blogs I like best and recommend to you:

• LawTech Guru – http://www.lawtechguru.com – Well-known and well-regarded legal tech expert Jeff Beard has found the perfect medium in blogs. From reviews to alerts to news to thought pieces, Jeff offers consistently solid content and mixes in occasional pieces that will really make you think. Jeff is especially strong on hardware and software reviews, security issues and, no surprise if you know Jeff, gadgets, but his posts on management issues can be gems.
  
• Strategic Legal Technology – http://www.prismlegal.com/wordpress/index.php – Ron Friedmann is first on my list of legal technologists who I haven’t met in person who I really want to meet. His blog beat includes many large firm issues, but he excels at spotting and discussing important tech and practice trends. His blog will give you something to think about carefully on a regular basis.
  
• NetLawBlog - http://www.fedlawyers.org/netlawblog/ - The NetLawBlog is Internet guru Jerry Lawson’s blogging effort. I have a simple rule – if Jerry writes something, it is, by definition, important and worthy of your attention. From Jerry’s “$80 necktie” theory of web design to any of a hundred other insights, NetLawBlog is essential reading.
  
• Digital Practice of Law – http://arkfeld.blogs.com/dpl/ - Michael Arkfeld is one of the most highly regarded legal technology experts around. His blog focuses on his area of greatest expertise—litigation technology. If you are a litigator, this blog is an absolute “must.” If you are not a litigator, I suggest that you add this blog to your list anyway because you will definitely learn new things.
  
• eLawyer Blog - http://www.elawyerblog.org/ - The eLawyer Blog is a group blog on elawyering put together by Jerry Lawson. The blog’s contributors include several of the leading names in legal tech. If you want to get a glimpse of where the Internet may take the practice of law, this blog is the place to watch. Even more interesting is its focus on using technology to bring affordable legal services to those unable to afford legal services today.
  
• Excited Utterances - http://excitedutterances.blogspot.com – If knowledge management is your interest, Joy London’s blog is a great starting point. She covers KM issues in law better than anyone and generally will be the first to report on new developments and resources.
  
• Inter-Alia.Net – http://www.inter-alia.net – Tom Mighell’s blog is widely known as an excellent resource on legal research, but don’t pigeonhole it into just that one category. Tom consistently includes useful tech tips and links to great resources. In fact, one of his tips solved an incredibly annoying problem I had with the Adobe Acrobat Reader, for which I am grateful.
  
• Ernie the Attorney – http://ernieattorney.typepad.com/ernie_the_attorney/ – Ernest Svenson is one of the premier lawyer bloggers and his blog is great for so many reasons that it is easy to overlook how often he posts great information on legal technology. His recent post explaining how to use RSS feeds to read law blogs is just one great example. His running commentary on his use of a Macintosh in a Windows world is also valuable.
  
• PDF for Lawyers – http://ernieattorney.typepad.com/pdf_for_lawyers/ - A joint effort of Ernie the Attorney and David Fishel, PDF for Lawyers is the perfect example of the value of a specialty tech blog. Postings can be sporadic, but they are genuinely helpful and cover practical issues in this important technology that lawyers are starting to use on a daily basis.
  
• EsqLawTech – http://www.lawyerlounge.com/lawtech.php – Glenn Garnes’s legal tech blog covers a wide range of topics and is especially good on software reviews and legal tech news.
  
• DennisKennedy.Blog – http://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/ - While I usually like to downplay the importance of my own stuff, I’m very proud of what I’m doing on my blog, especially in the area of legal technology. On my blog, I’ve been able to write about tech matters that really concern me, such as personal KM and security, in ways that I haven’t yet been able to do in articles. I try to give you links to great resources, a few insights and I definitely want to make you think and see connections that you might not otherwise see.

I know that I’ve left off some other very worthy blogs, but I wanted to give you a good sampling of what is out there today. Use these legal tech blogs as starting points and you’ll be able to find the other legal tech blogs and see the new ones as they come online. I know some of the people who are close to launching legal tech blogs and I can assure you that the value of the legal tech blogs will definitely continue to increase. And, in the process, the overload of WMBs (white male bloggers) the careful reader may have noticed in my list will lessen and we will see more diversity and a greater dynamic.

Please note that Law Practice Today is a great place to keep up to date on legal tech developments and that LPT has an RSS Feed: http://www.abanet.org/lpm/lpt/lptrss.xml.

Dennis Kennedy (dmk@denniskennedy.com) is a computer lawyer and legal technology consultant based in St. Louis, Missouri. He speaks and writes frequently on legal, technology and Internet topics and was named the 2001 TechnoLawyer of the Year by TechnoLawyer.com. His highly regarded web site at www.denniskennedy.com collects many of his articles and is the home of his blog.