Kevin O’Keefe believes that lawyers get their best work from relationships and a strong word-of-mouth reputation, and that blogging is the perfect way to build relationships and reputation. In 2003, he founded LexBlog, a company devoted to helping lawyers and law firms launch their own blogs. Today, LexBlog has grown to a network of nearly 20,000 legal professionals worldwide blogging on the platform.

More recently, LexBlog launched a global legal news and commentary network based on legal blogs. The network is open to any legal blog, without cost and regardless of whether the blog is a LexBlog customer. And just last week, LexBlog announced a national campaign to help bridge the legal services gap by enabling lawyers to connect with consumers in real and authentic ways through blogs.

In this episode of LawNext, host Bob Ambrogi -- who has worked with LexBlog since January 2018 as publisher and editor-in-chief -- talks with O’Keefe about LexBlog, blogging, and the important of building trust and relationships for lawyers to connect with clients.

Before founding LexBlog, O’Keefe was a trial lawyer in Wisconsin for 17 years. In 1998, he founded a virtual law community, PrairieLaw.com. After selling PrairieLaw to LexisNexis in 2001, he became vice president of business development for its Martindale-Hubbell division. He is a graduate of University of the Pacific -- McGeorge School of Law and the University of Notre Dame.