Hard to believe but yesterday was my 23rd year blogging anniversary. Someone recently asked me how I came to be one of the first lawyers to blog. The few other lawyers with a blog at that time blogged solely about marketing for lawyers; not about the law itself. I was unique.
Back in early ’02, I was reading one of the dying tech magazines – the ones that disappeared with the Internet bust – and the term “blog” was mentioned in passing. I looked it up and I had a college intern who worked with me download the blogging software to give it a try. Back then, setting up a blog took a week – now it’s turnkey.
It was timely – albeit rudimentary – because the blog was launched just before Sarbanes-Oxley was enacted, seemingly out of nowhere. Sarbanes-Oxley had a number of provisions that didn’t require the SEC to conduct rulemaking that took effect pretty quick, particularly the CEO-CFO certifications – which was a big deal at the time because all of a sudden, you had to ask your senior officers to sign a document saying they were criminally liable for the SEC filings that you primarily drafted. So on the blog, I reported on the SOX-related developments as they happened and the audience grew.
I never imagined it would amount to much as I wondered who would want to read my “diary.” For the first few years, I had to constantly explain what a “blog” was. Anyway, I doubt there are many others out there in any field that have been blogging as long as me – so I have that going for me, which is nice. Here is the first blog that I wrote…
Authored by
Broc Romanek