THE TRIAL LAWYER RESOURCE CENTER: AN INTERVIEW WITH DAVE SWANNER , ONE OF THE FOUNDERS . . . Today's big news in the legal blogosphere is the grand opening of a new group weblog, The Trial Lawyer Resource Center. It's been in development for nearly a year, and went live only moments ago. Its tagline: "Trial tips and techniques from a group of the nation's leading trial lawyers."

Late last week, one of the founders, Dave Swanner, answered some of my questions about the project. Here's the interview--

Q. How did the Trial Lawyer Resource Center come about? Who's brainchild was it? How long have you been working on it?

A. Mark Zamora of A Georgia Lawyer blog and I started talking about a group blog in December, 2005. It's taken nearly a year to pull it together. We spent about 2-3 months going through different ideas for the blog, 1-2 months on the basic layout and design, 2-3 months on working with LexBlog on the design, 1-2 months getting lawyers to contribute and now about 1-2 months getting the bios, pics, initial contributions and working out all of the details with LexBlog.

LexBlog has really  been great to work with. I wanted to have a blog that looked more like a portal and had a newspaper feel. I had a good idea of the basics of what we wanted, and LexBlog's design and technical team did a superb job of taking my idea and turning it into reality. In fact, the technical and aesthetic end came out much better than I had anticipated.

Mark Zamora also did a great job in getting a number of his friends and colleagues in participating.

Q. What are the goals of the Trial Lawyer Resource Center? What do you hope to accomplish?

A. We wanted to bring some of the best legal education to the internet.

I've gone to ATLA Conventions where Howard Nations is one of the most popular speaker and they have him speak in the largest hall. He speaks to about 200 people. The hall is not only standing room only, the doors are held open and 30-40 people sit in the hallway, not seeing him, just listening to his voice to hear what he had to say. I know. I got to the presentation about 10 minutes late and was sitting in the hall.

If you want to understand the power of weblogs and the internet, my notes of his presentation got 3 times as many readers as his actual presentation.

The internet in general and blogs specifically get many more readers than even the biggest venue on a national level.

Mark and I saw a number of great trial lawyers on the national level giving such great advice and information that we worked on a way to bring their talent and information to the internet.

Q. Organizing lawyers is like herding cats. How did you get so many big-name lawyers to sign on?

A. Well, you're right about the herding cats. The top lawyers are busy and have a lot of projects going on. In my opinion, the best trial lawyers are giving back to the trial lawyer community, but at a certain point they have so many worthwhile projects to choose from that it's hard for them to find time for another project.

I spent a lot of time thinking about how to make the blog self sustaining so that it wouldn't require me to maintain the project, and would allow trial lawyers to commit to the blog, but have a relatively low time investment.

Mark and I had originally thought of having a group blog with about five attorneys. We decided to open it up and have a lot more lawyers. We're starting off with fifteen, will probably gradually grow to about 20 lawyers and then in a year or two max out at 25 lawyers.

With the higher number of lawyers, we are suggesting that they do about one post a week for about 4 posts a month. They can write more. They can write less. With the larger number of contributing lawyers, we don't have to schedule them for specific times or dates. Also, if they have a big trial, they can drop out for a month or two and then start writing again when they get back in the swing of things.

By opening up the cast of contributors we took the pressure and time demands off them. Most of the lawyers involved already have written many articles, books and presentations. I don't think that the number of posts will be any problem for them. I think the time commitment was the main issue. By thinking of the contributors and how it would fit into their lives, I think we were able to get a lot more talented trial lawyers.

Also, Mark and I know a number of people from the Southern Trial Lawyers Association, which is a fabulous group. There’s not another group like it in the country. While I think the set up made a difference, our first three contributors were John Romano, Gary Gober and Todd O'Malley. Once we started with those three great lawyers, it was fairly easy to get the others on board.

Also, I think a number of the 'big-name' lawyers wanted a way to establish more of an internet presence and this blog was an easy way to do this. Because of the talented contributors and the professional set up of LexBlog, we were also able to get Forge Consulting to foot the bill for LexBlog's services. So we are very grateful to Forge for underwriting this endeavor. Forge Consulting does not have any editorial control over the blog or anything to do with the content of the blog. They just sponsored the blog so that the contributors didn't have to chip in out of their pockets.

Q. The website is billed as a resource for "trial lawyers." Are you using the term to mean any lawyers who work on trials, whether for plaintiff or defense? Or is the site more geared to plaintiffs' lawyers?

A. Actually, all of the advice is coming from plaintiff's lawyers and will be geared towards plaintiff's lawyers. I'm sure defense attorneys can pick up a tip or two, but the site is designed to assist plaintiff's lawyers.

Q. Will the scope of the website always be limited to practice advice about litigation? Do you plan to branch into any other areas, such as law-firm  management, substantive law, or legal-political topics like tort reform?

A. Right now our goal is to give litigation advice. We want to give any advice on handling a case from the intake through the post settlement process. There will be some information on law firm management or case management, but the focus will be on the litigation process. I would like to cover issues like tort reform, but I think a separate blog that is devoted to tort reform would do a better job.  While I think practice management is critical to being a successful trial lawyer (you can't put together a good case if your office is a mess), I think right now we'll be content with trial advice.

Q. Where do you see the Trial Lawyer Resource Center going in the future?

A. We're going to give it 2-3 months to settle in, then we're going to start a feature where the contributing attorneys will engage in a monthly roundtable discussion. We'll use a private listserv to discuss a topic in e-mails and then have the e-mails combined into a discussion thread and published at the end of the month. 

Over a period of time, we'll branch out into podcasts with interviews and potentially sample opening statements and other arguments. After that we hope to branch out into videocasts.

But the first thing is to get the blog rolling and see what kind of response we get from the contributing authors and from the audience and do what feels right.

Q. On the Trial Lawyer Resource Center, lawyers will be giving away their secrets for free. As weblogs become more commonplace, I see lawyers doing that a lot. Do you think that's a new trend, or are weblogs just a new ways of recognizing an old trend?

A. I don't think it's a new trend. I think that it's something that's been going on for a long time. If you look at ATLA's (or the AAJ's as the new title goes) National College of Advocacy and the education programs that are being put on at national, regional and state levels, there has always been a tremendous amount of sharing of information on the plaintiff's side.

In fact, that was one of the things that motivated Mark and I to start the group blog: seeing all of the great information that was being put out to a small room of people. We knew that it would have a lot more value to good trial lawyers and to the presenters if we could get it on the internet. Weblogs allow us to do that.

I think this is a good way of using technology to bring presentations and information to a wider audience. Just like the tagline of my South Carolina Trial Law Blog: "Using Technology to be a Better Trial Lawyer." In this case, the technology is just the delivery vehicle for the great information that is already being put out there.

Q. To write regularly for a website like the Trial Lawyer Resource Center, you have to  spend as much time as you would preparing for a CLE presentation. Given that you are also likely to reach more people, do you think lawyers should receive CLE credit for their work? Do any states offer CLE credit for weblog writing?

A. You're probably right on the time commitment. Should states offer CLE credit? I think they should for the good ones, but I think the monitoring aspects as far as how many credits for how much work would be unworkable. I know CLE credits are important to some people, but I would imagine they are less of an issue to lawyers who write blogs.

I haven't heard of any states offering CLE credit for weblog writing. That’s a forward thinking concept and the legal field is known for being slightly behind the times and not ahead of the times.

Q. What else do you have planned?

A. We still have a few people that we are in discussion with for coming on board that would be very exciting to see regular or semi-regular contributions from. I’m very excited about this being a new way to share information and for the blog to become a resource for trial lawyers around the country.