I remember first getting approached by LexBlog’s CEO, Kevin, when I was the Community Associate at WeWork. The selling factor being, of course, the way he talked about LexBlog and the work they were doing. Having no experience in the legal industry, nor any interest in the tech industry, I politely told him (in so many words) I was too fond of my current community in my WeWork building to jump ship.

He was persistent. The more I talked to Kevin, however, the more convinced I became about the importance of access to the law. He explained how momentum in blogging and online community building were transforming the way legal services were being accessed. Kevin talked about LexBlog like it was the best possible turnkey solution to expanding and advancing access to the law in order to help those in need – his belief helped me believe it too.

I recently restarted his Common Sense in Legal Blogging series while preparing video clips for our resource center.  One of the things he says a few minutes into the first chapter caught my attention – not because I was surprised by what he said, but because it rekindled my fire to growing this online community of legal bloggers. He states,

When I interviewed Jeff Nowak who writes a blog on FMLA in Chicago in December and I said, ‘What got you into blogging? What makes you blog?’ He goes, ‘My desire to help.’ I said, ‘Come on. At some point in time, you must’ve said I’m doing this for business development, or to make a name for myself.’ He said, “Never.” He goes, “I am always motivated by helping people.

Continue Reading It was never about business

I watched The Social Dilemma documentary on Netflix with some friends last night. I will start out by saying it is absolutely terrifying, disheartening, and eye-opening to say the lease. On a national as well as a global scale, it feels as though our world is falling apart at the seams. Between fake news distribution, social media addiction, unstable leadership, and more – it seems as though truth is something we’re struggling to recognize and hold onto.

Working at LexBlog, I’ve often heard our CEO, Kevin O’Keefe talk about often how the internet can be a powerful tool for building relationships and advancing communities. Paradoxically, watching The Social Dilemma last night, I was shocked but not surprised to learn about the destructive structures the internet has been laying ground work for over the last ten or so years. Primarily set up to target the Gen Z population, companies like Google, Facebook, Twitter, Tik Tok and countless others are at each other’s throats, competing to keep users in the rat race we’ve found ourselves in.

This hour and a half long documentary poses the simple question: where did we (designers and engineers of the internet) go wrong, and how do we fix the problem? Because the problem is vastly complex, no one seems to be able to pin point exactly what the issue boils down to, and certainly no one seems to have answers. Users subject to the problem seemingly turn a blind eye and continue buying into the system without questioning its effects on our collective wellbeing. Influencers and engineers and CEO’s alike allegedly recognize a society that’s biting at the poisonous bit, but not a single advocate for change has a clear path for how to restructure the system. Though the current relationship between humanity and the internet appears to be destructive and getting progressively worse, no one knows how to turn off the responders in each of us that gravitate towards the capitalization and obsession of social media.Continue Reading 3 lessons I’ve learned about community and the internet at a legal tech company

All my life, I’ve leaned heavily on the extrovert side of the scale. My identity has been built up on the communities I’ve found myself in. Whether that be running cross country in high school, leading our tennis team, tutoring ESL students, participating in countless church groups or weaving myself into tight-knit friend packs wherever …