Doug Cornelius .com

I was one of the founding contributors to JD Supra. I was intrigued by the idea of a collective repository of legal documents. Intrigued enough that I was also a top ten contributor for a while.

One of criticisms was that a mere online repository of documents is not that compelling. Why should I publish to JD Supra? They started showing some value [See my post: JD Supra Revisited about how I was contacted to write a story based on my publications in JD Supra.] Now there are two new reasons.

One is their new connectivity with Facebook. You can “fan” JD Supra on their Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=26217609291.

Even better, your publications in JD Supra can show up in your Facebook news and profile. JD Supra created a new application that ties your publications to your Facebook profile.

Below you can see the three documents I published last week. They go into my update stream, so my “friends” in Facebook can see my publications.

There is also a “box” on my Facebook profile that accesses all of my documents in JD Supra through Facebook.

Second, JD Supra is tying the publication of documents in JD Supra to some Twitter stream. I noticed my Blogging / Social Internet Policy go into the twitter stream last week.

It looks like JD Supra is using these Twitter handles to re-publish alerts:

• @TechLawAlerts
• @CommLawAlerts
• @Legal_Alerts
• @Energy_Alerts

I am a huge fan of the connectivity between online communities. It creates much more value by republishing information in different ways so people can access and find the information they need in a way that works for them.

See some other takes on the new feature of JD Supra:

• JD Supra Facebook App Launches! by Steve Matthews of Stem Legal
• JD Supra Launches Facebook App by Connie Crosby the Canadian Law Librarian / Info Diva
• JD Supra Launches Facebook App by Bob Ambrogi of Lawsites
  (Congratulations on six years of blogging!)

Adrian Lurssen over at JD Scoop put together a list of lawyers and legal professionals on Twitter: 145 Lawyers (and Legal Professionals) to Follow on Twitter. The list started at 145 and has grown to 180. Tweet Adrian @jdtwit if you are not on the list. I have picked up a dozen or so followers already. I am @dougcornelius.

If you are not familiar with Twitter it is open communications platform, operating like an open instant messaging platform. Since it is an open platform, there are many programs that can tie into your twitter account and twitter feeds.  The folks over at Common Craft can explain it better than I can:

To find out more about Twitter, try some of these:

• Getting Started With Twitter from Laura Fitton of Pistachio Consulting
• Why Twitter Matters from Business Week
• Newbies Guide to Twitter from Chris Brogan
• 50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Business from Chris Brogan

Or just sign up for Twitter. It does not cost anything except a few minutes of your time.

When JD Supra launched backed in February, I jumped on board: JD Supra Launches.  I added a couple dozen documents and sat back and wondered what to do with JD Supra: Profile for Doug Cornelius on JD Supra. I have to admit I was a bit skeptical and had not been back to the site since.

Then I got this message:

I’m an editor at [...] magazine, planning a law office technology and practice management theme, and we absolutely need to have an article that deals with social networking as an attorney tool. I downloaded “LinkedIn to My Facebook on My Blog: Social Media for Lawyers and Law Firm ” on JDSupra, and that’s the kind of article we’re looking for. However, it would need to be focused for our readers, who are [...] . They are mostly small office or solo practitioners who work on a contingent fee basis and rely on networking to generate business — they’re generally a little slow to move to “new” technology and need to have its pros and cons clearly described. I’m envisioning an article that will describe using social networking sites and other tools to improve both trial lawyer image and a specific lawyer’s practice.

Is there any chance you could retool the article you and Jenn Steele wrote to our  [...] readership—or write an update from scratch, since the technology changes so quickly?

So I was wrong in being skeptical. JD Supra has created value for me. I went back and posted a few more articles.

Maybe you should post some of your documents and articles on JD Supra?
Have you used JD Supra?
Have you gotten anything back from JD Supra?

JD Supra launched as a place that “offers free access to a constantly expanding database of legal documents (filings, decisions, forms, articles) from the people whose work gives meaning to the law.”

I contributed an article a few weeks ago and earned “Founding Contributor” status as part of my profile. Wearing my real estate lawyer hat, I published my article on Financing Your Acquisition and Construction.

There is a fair amount of blogging about JD Supra. Connie Crosby wrote about it on her blog and on Slaw. Lawyer KM put up a post. Here are some others blog posts.

I found the site was well put together and functions well. It was easy for me to add my article. I plan to contribute a few more articles and other content.

But with any site like this I always ask “What’s In It For Me?” I need a reason to come back to the site and I need a reason to contribute information to the site.

Steve Matthews in his comment to LawyerKM’s post on JD Supra, points to bcrelinks.com as an example of a commercial real estate group that posted a great deal of information on a publicly available site. Of course the difference there is that bcrelinks.com is an extension of that firm’s brand. With JD Supra, I am competing with Morrison & Foerster’s 256 documents and the Electronic Frontier Foundation‘s 665 documents.

The other comparison is to Legal OnRamp which is also trying to be the social network and document repository for lawyers. The difference with Legal OnRamp is that it was set up by in-house counsel to make resources available to them. There I know that clients and potential clients are there in the site. That is an incentive to add content and visit the site.

JD Supra also has a blog in conjunction with the site: JD Scoop.

Of course, JD Supra is free for the moment, so it does not cost anything to join and add content. If you are a lawyer, go ahead and join and add content. It will only cost you your time.

I am not sure what’s in it for me. But it is interesting enough that I will continue to dabble.