Zen & The Art of Legal Networking : Lawyers & Attorneys in an International Legal Network for Relationships & Referrals

Media is a Shared Experience

Kevin began by emphasizing the idea that media is a shared experience - where people used to get their information from a newspaper they had delivered to their house, they're now getting it from those they trust. 

Because of this, you want to be doing those things that cause your information to be shared by others who have people trusting them. Kevin challenged us to think about the information that we blog and share, and whether or not it's picked up and passed on to others - he cautioned that this didn't mean autofeeds. 

Along these lines, Kevin said that the goal is to get your information out there, but without forcing it on people. People don't join social networks just to have a law firm's information pushed on them - this would be like going to a cocktail party and shoving articles at people. It's not polite.  He added that just because another firm may be doing this, it doesn't make it right. 

Then Kevin said something which might seem earthshattering (but I whole-heartedly agree and almost wrote a separate post just on this subject last week) - It doesn't matter if any of your clients or prospective clients ever see your information getting shared in this type of way. It doesn't matter if they come to your blog.

To answer the question of "why not?" Kevin offered an example. He recently spoke in a room of 200 lawyers and towards the end of his comments, he asked if anyone knew he had a blog. No hands were raised. He asked if there was anyone who would want to read his blog after hearing him speak. Only about five hands raised. He asked if there were people who wanted to speak with him afterwards, want to know more about what his company does and maybe work with them and all hands were raised.  They didn't need to know that he has a blog or uses Twitter, but they would consider hiring him. 

Two weeks later, he has a client as a result and two requests to meet. This all came about because he built a relationship online with someone in Denver, Colorado. This person had a business relationship with a highly connected guy, who asked Kevin to speak at a keynote in Florida. Someone from Washington was in the audience and called him a month later to speak to two of the largest groups to gather there. During the presentation he first mentioned, a guy from PLI was in the audience and subsequently asked him to chair a conferences.  None of them had read his blog - but because he is using these tools to develop relationships with influencers and amplifiers, he is connected to the right people. 

Helen Pitlick broke in with an audience question - someone wanted to know why firms shouldn't use autofeed for feeding posts to LinkedIn, for example. Kevin asked how often users go to LinkedIn profiles and read their blogs - very rarely.  He's not sure it amounts to much, but there are ways to use LinkedIn more strategically.

Linkedin is a powerful networking tool.  For example, as a LinkedIn user, you can join groups, and you might attach a link to a blog post in a group.  Rather than just using the title of the post as the comment, he'd edit this and say that it's interesting, and ask people what they think. It gives them the opportunity to engage.

Kevin emphasized that this is what the internet is for - engaging and building relationships, which is why Facebook is so successful. These tools shouldn't be looked at as ways to drive traffic, but as tools to build relationships. 

Professional Development - It's Online

Kevin's next point was that everyone talks about business development and marketing, and to become a better lawyer, you need to be involved in professional associations. Social media is all about that. He said that when he was a young lawyer, he realized that he couldn't just sit in his office and wonder if this was as good as it would get. 

He had to join an association, network with its members, become a board member. Then he was networking with the who's who, and could ask them questions. He got active in other associations and learned to be a better lawyer, and got better work. 

Social media tools can help you to be a better at your job - he used the example of being in New York City in a coffee shop fifteen minutes before a meeting, when he received an email from the company he was meeting with asking him to bring sample social media policies with him. He went to Twitter because he has a substantial network there, and asked them for their help. Immediately he got links to policies both for law firms and business, which allowed him to do a better job. 

Another audience member said that it seems that less than 10% of firms are using Facebook. Kevin said that he didn't agree with this statistic - 100% of the 200 largest law firms in the country are using Facebook because it's personal. 

Facebook connects you with friends, relatives, close business associates, parents, etc. Maybe the parents of a friend of your child work at a bank or are in-house counsel. Lawyers tent to make more money and live in affluent neighborhoods, where their clients would also live. So the chances are good that connecting with the parents of your friends' children could give you a relationship with someone you want to know. Facebook is a reality today. 

Kevin noted that firms using Facebook versus attorneys using Facebook are different things, so he talked a little bit about what  a firm could use their page for. He suggested that firms don't put up information about awards and firm news, but instead think of Facebook as a way to engage people. Share articles that you've read that are of interest, put up things about the firm's people or recognize a client who's won an award. Make the firm real. 

Firm Websites - Advertising. Social Media - Building Trust

According to Kevin's statistics, only 14% of people trust advertising, and essentially that's what a law firm website is. In order to drive traffic there then, you need to get out in social media to establish trust. Kevin calls this "building social media equity" - when people like what you're sharing, you're building equity.  He recommended going to Twitter and sharing other people's content - this gives you the reputation for sharing other people's content instead of being pushy with your own. 

LinkedIn

Kevin said that LinkedIn is your professional profile of record, and in his opinion, there's no more important profile.  People (like reporters and bloggers) will Google your name and your LinkedIn profile will come up.  What are you saying to them if you have three connections and your name is all in lower case? You're saying that you don't network, you don't stay up to speed, you're not innovative and worse.  

LinkedIn is a networking hub - if you cite someone in your blog, drop them a note with the information. When they send a thank you, offer to connect with them on LinkedIn. Kevin said (and I agree) that you should customize any invitation, and shouldn't use the standard text. 

Some stats on LinkedIn:

• 100 million+ professionals around the world as of March 2011
• A new member joins every second
• As of January, LinkedIn has profiles for executives from all 2010 Fortune 500 companies

Kevin offered yet another way to use LinkedIn, saying that when he's heading to Portland, he can go to the advanced search section and look for people with a certain job title in a certain industry working for companies of more than 11 people within a 50 mile radius.  He can then see who he's already connected to and who else he can connect to, and can drop them a note, connect, or send a message, with the knowledge that people are three times more likely to respond to a LinkedIn message than an email. 

Twitter

The CEO of Twitter said that it instantly connects people with relevant information and people. Kevin showed us his Tweetdeck and said that he doesn't read the tweets of everyone he follows - instead, he organizes people in columns based on what he's interested in and search terms. He suggested setting up columns for your firm, your name, the name of your blog, your clients' name, etc.  

Kevin suggested that a lawyer who's working in a town can create a private list of the influencers in that area in that town, so that he can keep up with what they're doing.  Twitter is mobile, so you can also instantly connect to people while you're on the go.

An audience member wanted to know how a lawyer can effectively manage their limited amount of time. Kevin agreed that he's also very busy, but said he has an insatiable desire to stay up to speed. He said that lawyers can share what they've seen if they don't have the time to produce original content.  Instead, they can curate, edit and maybe provide quick insight into what they're sharing. 

Kevin said that Cordell Parvin used to spend 4-5 hours a week as a lawyer on business development. This shocked people, but he said that people will get hungry when they have a client base they haven't developed over time. Kevin said that lawyers need to do these things or get ready to be fired by their firm.  You'll be the person who is getting handed the work instead of bringing it in, which is a dangerous place to be. 

Some stats on Twitter:

• 200 million users
• 190 million tweets a day
• 1.6 billion search queries a day. 

Kevin showed the group LexTweet, which brings together the tweets from those in the legal profession. He showed that it's happening in real time, and isn't some abstract thing. For those who are worried that their clients and prospective clients aren't using Twitter, he said it doesn't matter because influencers and amplifiers do. He challenged the audience to build a relationship with them. 

Kevin shared a few successes that resulted from his sharing information with people and building relationships on Twitter. He emphasized that these things need to come naturally, and it has to genuinely be about building relationships, not just looking for business. 

Facebook

Mark Zuckerberg called Facebook a tool to enhance your relationships with people you know in the flesh - your real world friends, acquaintances, classmates or coworkers. Kevin said it's in our DNA to be sociable and getting to know someone's kids through Facebook is more enjoyable than having them tell you what they do for a living. He said that clients don't want to talk about the law when they get together - they talk about family, baseball, whatever. That's what life is made of.

Some stats on Facebook:

• As of March 2011, 35% of users were between 35-64
• 17.4 million were between 45-54, surpassing the 13-17 age group
• 58.9% growth in users from 55+ from the last year

Mobile Networking

Kevin suggested that any of the lawyers on the call without an iPad should get one - there are so many apps that let you receive and share information, that in 5 years, we'll be laughing that we ever got our information by computer. According to Mobile Marketing Association, mobile social networking is the fastest growing mobile content category. 

Takeaways

• This was a high-level look at social networks, and Kevin will be covering Twitter in more depth on July 28th.
   
• If you're not using a Google reader, you're missing out on the world. It's better than Google alerts and can get the best information to you.
   
• Get a Twitter account - you don't need to tweet, you can just listen. Don't set it as private, and used your name, and not your blog name or otherwise, for your Twitter name. 

Questions

There were two final questions that Kevin took: 

• What advice would you give for someone nearing the end of their legal career? Kevin said two important things - 1) Think about the legacy you're leaving. Even if you don't need to create more relationships, you can get involved in social media to ensure the continuation of the firm's legacy. Empower people to do things at the very least. 2) Why not use social media? Connect with family you haven't seen in years, see pictures of your grandchildren, use the reader to stay up to speed. 
   
• Do you want to comment on the rules about social media put forth by the Florida bar? Kevin said that Florida will always be the state to set the ethics rules, and you have to comply with Florida if you're in Florida. He said the focus should be on better social media policies - are we doing enough to attract the right people to work here?  

Nathan said that as a best practice, they encourage their clients to upload their email contacts about once a quarter, so that every three months they're connecting with potential clients.  He added that connecting with people on LinkedIn is a good way to solidify a relationship and make sure that you're top of mind.  For example, if you emailed someone three months ago, but reconnect on LinkedIn, it may turn out that they have a referral opportunity for you and wouldn't have thought of you otherwise.

Groups - Another Way to Connect

Nathan said that in terms of leveraging groups for business development, they've found that for lawyers, alumni networks for universities or institutions where they've gotten their law degrees can be tremendous opportunities to get referrals and conflict business.  Inside of LinkedIn, there is an incredible number of groups (almost 800,000), and they're all their own niche communities.

He used the example of someone who went to Temple Law School, saying that if you type in Temple Law in the search box, you'll see several groups being populated that have Temple alumni networks.  Nathan also suggested typing in Temple University to find their group, which may have a sub-group specifically for lawyers.

By going into these groups, users reconnect with classmates, can update people on what they're up to and what their practice is.  Groups also present an opportunity to connect with people in your target market.  Nathan used Philadelphia as an example, and said that small business owners in Philadelphia wouldn't be joining legal groups - they'd be joining small business groups.

So a user could search for Philadelphia and see all types of groups, such as the Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce.  By joining a group like this, a user who has developed his or her profile the right way is embedding their profile, with rich context, relationships, previous successes, into the group. Now group members can see this and potentially help that user or ask for their help.

Nathan added that joining groups also allows users to send messages to other group members for free.  One of the limitations of LinkedIn is that users only have the ability to communicate with certain sectors of the LinkedIn community unless they upgrade.  But If Joe Smith is someone you'd like to talk to, and he's out of your network, you can join a group that he's in, go back to his profile once you're in the group, and send him a message for free internally.  Maybe offer to grab coffee the next time you're in a mutually agreeable area. Groups are a very powerful communication platform.

Nathan recommended coming up with a game plan for what groups to join, and said that as a best practice, join groups of your professional affiliations and alumni networks, as well as your target markets.  He advised not just associating with other lawyers, but associating with the economic buyers who could potentially be using your services.

In terms of the webinar, this was all that Nathan could cover in a short time, so he suggested that the attorneys explore groups on their own as well. He said that they should look both at other lawyers and at those outside of the industry to see how they're using LinkedIn in order to help them find the style that works for each of them.  

Account Settings

Nathan then went into the Account Settings in LinkedIn, saying that this enables user to control their own experience with LinkedIn, as well as what the world sees.  He said that the settings button is in the top right hand corner, under your name.

Once you click on it, it takes you to a comprehensive dashboard of settings - Nathan said that when he started working for LinkedIn, there were only five settings, including "Delete Your Account." Now, it's become very comprehensive.

One of the settings that might be useful to the audience is the ability to control how you receive messages. Nathan said that often people join groups and aren't happy with the amount of email they get from them - maybe they're just looking for access to the group members.  So they have the option to shut off the group's ability to send emails to them.

There might be other groups that send valuable information by email, so LinkedIn offers the ability to customize delivery options by group.  

There are also important privacy settings in terms of controlling the experience, such a profile views.  This controls whether another member of the LinkedIn community knows if you've looked at their profile. Nathan said that for some lawyers, this would be an attractive feature, because you want people to know you've looked at their profile.  It can trigger a page view back to your profile.

For example, if you look at a small business owner in the Philadelphia area, they might click to see who's viewed their profile.  If they see that a lawyer with a certain core competency has looked at their profile, and the timing is right for them to need this type of lawyer, that can result in a business opportunity.  Nathan said that looking at someone's profile can be an opportunity for a conversation to start.

He said that it's also possible to control your profile and status updates, and suggested that when working on updating your profile information, you shut off the status update feature.  He recommended shutting this off, then updating specialties, core competencies, etc. to make your profile shine, and then turning the setting back on.  That way, when your status is updated, it's with meaningful marketing updates that go out to the world.

Nathan said that if you build your profile first, then build your network, you'll drive page views to a meaningful profile. But if you do it in reverse, you'll be sending a lot of traffic to a sub-optimized profile that doesn't have good marketing information on it or the ability to create a referral.

There are a number of other settings that the time constraints of the webinar kept us from getting into, but Nathan suggested the audience read through them and decide what works for them.  He noted that contact settings allow you to decide whether you want people to be able to look through your first degree connections - he said for his settings, the answer is yes, because that has value. But for some lawyers, they might not want other lawyers to see who their connection is at a big company.  Nathan said this is an individual decision.

Right now, though, this is set up to be an "all or nothing" feature on LinkedIn.  He anticipates that LinkedIn will customize this down the line, so that users can dynamically show people only certain components of their personal networks, but right now, it's all or nothing.  

Nathan said that they also get a lot of questions about whether or not upgrading your account is necessary, and what they suggest is first maximizing your usage of the free account before upgrading.  He agreed that there are certain situations where upgrading for a month might make sense, perhaps if you want to get access to a potential decision maker inside of an account and you can't or don't have the time to use your network to triangulate on an economic buyer.  

There are workarounds for upgrading, as Nathan previously mentioned, such as joining a group so that you can communicate with someone without upgrading. However, considering the lives of a busy billing lawyer, who's also tasked with business development, upgrading might make sense - Nathan said that he couldn't make a universal recommendation here, but generally speaking, there is so much value in the free version that they encourage people to start there.

Company Pages

The last thing Nathan showed the audience was company pages, saying that LinkedIn recently completed a tremendous overhaul of these pages.  He said that under "companies," LinkedIn sorts your network based on your connectivity to companies. You can see your first degree connections to all of these companies, which you may not realize you have.  

This first degree can be very powerful, but Nathan said if you've already tapped out your first degree contacts for business, you could then go to your second degree list.  He said if he was calling Bank of America, for example, it's much better to use his LinkedIn connections there than to cold call them.  

He added that it also acts as a great marketing opportunity for the audience's firms, particularly since LinkedIn overhauled the pages to give away access and functionality that they were originally charging for.  Nathan said that you can really position your firms here - use keywords, tell the story of the firm and what you're good at, include the firm's logo. He showed his company page, and pointed out the tabs at the top that allow you to add careers (a feature that requires a paid upgrade), services, and see rich and deep analytics on who has been viewing the page.

Nathan said that if you can classify core practice areas as services or products, you have the ability to market them here as well - you can add them as an actual product, and even put a logo for that specific product or service.  When you click on it, you then have the ability to associate the right product and service with the right contact at your firm.

He showed how his co-founder, Patrick, had associated the members of Freesource to their company page, so that when people click on it they can see who they should be connecting to. Nathan said this is a powerful opportunity to connect a potential economic buyer to the right contact within the business.  

Nathan also showed that you can use keywords in the company description, and said that using the marketing keywords that you're already using on your corporate website can help you meet your business objectives because LinkedIn has high credentials with Google and other search platforms who are looking to social media as a way of validating expertise.

Question & Answer  

Alan mentioned to the audience that the ILN does have a members' only group on LinkedIn, which he invited them to join.  There was one audience question from Michael Slan of Fogler Rubinoff, who said that he tries to protect the people in his network from his competitors.  He said he sometimes gets requests from lawyers in other firms to connect, and he typically refuses them because he wants to keep his client contacts confidential.  He asked Nathan whether this was common, or if he should be handling this another way.

Nathan said that he agreed that if there is concern over this type of activity, it makes sense not to connect to them at all. He said if they do accept these contacts, they have the ability to allow that competitive lawyer into their network while shutting off their ability to browse their connections.  

Michael said that there is value for him to allow his contacts and clients to see who his other contacts and clients are, so that they know they aren't the only ones who he has a relationship with in his area of practice.  However, he doesn't want to leave it open to competitors.  

Nathan said in this case, because it is currently all or nothing, his advice would be not to make the connection. He suggested instead joining groups that could give the same community connectivity without allowing those contacts to see your list of connections.  

Alan asked whether Nathan knew the breakdown of LinkedIn users for the geographical regions around the world and Nathan said that of the 86 million professionals on LinkedIn, about 50% of them are in the US, and 50% are abroad, with high growth in Europe, Asia, Australia and South America.  LinkedIn is opening offices in those regions to drive this growth and their goal for 2011 is to have 200 million professionals in the community, which would be a truly international presence.  

So when you're in a meeting, working with clients, or even sleeping, your online profile is working on your behalf, developing clients for you, giving people context, giving them information about your background and core areas of expertise.  This is a powerful way to position yourself as a thought leader and share the context, the relationships, the experiences that you have in a dynamic way which boosts your ability to meet the business objectives of the firm.

The Basics

Nathan took the audience on a tour of his LinkedIn profile.  He started by suggesting that they keep their names clean, saying that it helps people to find you if you haven't cluttered your name with email addresses and certifications.  

He also emphasized the importance of having a professional headshot - this is a first impression opportunity, so if you're going to have picture online, it should be something professional that helps you shine.  Nathan cautioned against having a black and white employee photo from five years ago, which he said is not a good first impression.

Nathan said there are customizable options in LinkedIn, so that users can control who sees their picture, who has access to their information, so if anyone in the audience doesn't want people to see their information or connections, there is a way to control that. He said he would go through that in detail later.

Professional Headlines

Nathan next touched on the idea of professional headlines, found just below a person's name in their profile.  He said these are sometimes automatically generated from a person's job title, but suggested editing them to include more information.

By using professional headlines well, it's a nano-elevator pitch that gives you the opportunity to let people know what you're up to.  He illustrated why someone would want to do this by searching through his list of contacts.  He showed a short list of contacts, one of whom had just her title as her professional headline - "Director of Product Development."  Nathan said he would want to know where, but might be too busy to dig around.

But someone else had her title and the company that she worked for, which is interesting to him from a business development perspective, because she's a former client from a different company.  Nathan said that the opportunity for lawyers is to help their clients solve a problem, in terms of letting them know their expertise, who they work for, and how they can help.  He recommended that the audience members craft their professional headlines in a way that creates impact and lets people know what they're up to.

Nathan said that the professional headline is an opportunity to say "I'm a senior lawyer with these types of credentials servicing this type of litigation practice."  He said that the audience should think creatively about how they can work with their professional headline to make an impact and help people understand how they can help them.

Status Updates

Just below the professional headline and person's location, Nathan pointed out the status update, which he said is a marketing opportunity.  If you write articles and develop content for the firm, you can share that with a highly targeted network.

He revisited his earlier point that the audience should only be connecting with people that they know, saying that this creates a highly targeted audience.  If you win a new case and have some good content to share about it, the status update is a great marketing opportunity - it goes out to your network and people can "like" it, which will share it with their networks.

He used a recent new client announcement for Freesource as an example, saying that this win for them has now gone viral, with four people in their network sharing it with their networks.  Nathan added that this starts to give a very soft marketing impact as content starts to spread through the LinkedIn network.

He said that this becomes permanent inside the architecture of data, and six, ten, even 24 months later, it can help to win clients.  People will look at his profile, see that their company is doing business with the Rittenhouse Hotel, and maybe they run another five diamond property in Pittsburgh and it makes sense to send them an inbound request.  It's a great opportunity to share successes.

Profile Information

Nathan said that they get a lot of questions about how much information should be included in a profile. He said he couldn't answer that, but they help their clients understand the answer by having them ask themselves "Will this create value for my network? For my network's network?"

He said that if you've worked in four major firms over the last twenty years, you would want to have that experience included in your profile, because it gives a potential client confidence that you know what you're doing and you've been around - so it's not a risky proposition to potentially work with your organization.

Nathan said that in many cases, the more information you have, the better. The goal here is to tell your story. He said that it shouldn't necessarily be a resume, adding that many times, clients aren't interested in that. They want to know how you can help them, what you are passionate about, what you're good at, and what your core areas of expertise are.

Recommendations

Nathan showed the next area of the profile - recommendations - which he said is a tremendous opportunity for the attorneys in the audience if it's ethically appropriate to get recommendations from previous clients. He said they become like status updates, in that they go out to your network, but they also live on the profile and become a way for people to self-select and decide if you're the right legal services firm to help with their very unique situation.

Nathan said that recommendations can be a very powerful business driver, but they can also be kind of lame - he cautioned against having the people who report to you directly or your peers writing recommendations, which are a sort of digital brown-nosing.  But when clients write recommendations, that can really make a difference.

He used the example of the largest account he sold while at LinkedIn selling their recruiting products.  It was a result of an inbound lead that was based on a recommendation that the Vice President of Sunrise Senior Living had written for him.  She was connected to the Vice President of Human Resources at BAE Systems, who saw the update in their  news feed and called Nathan two days later. They said that if this woman was willing to write a recommendation for him, he must be really good. And he sold the account two months later.  

Nathan commented that from a business development perspective, you could call BAE Systems all day long; but it's a lot better when they call you.  He said that's the type of trigger that you can set off if you position your profile and put that context and rich experience out there in a tangible way for people to touch and feel.

Websites

Nathan then showed the section of the profile where you can list your websites, saying that this is a tremendous opportunity from an SEO perspective. He said that hard linking to the corporate website, to specialty group or practice group websites, or to a corporate blog is a great opportunity. And if the firm has fifty lawyers, and they hard link them all with the same websites and keywords, they'll get natural optimization in the search engines that they really can't buy.

Nathan said there's a new, emerging field of social SEO, which is reliant on user-generated validation of a service or product, and whether it's really very good. He said that big firms can buy, through Google auctions, keywords around certain litigations or practice areas.  But this is an opportunity for smaller firms in a natural, passive and relatively ethical way to do it in the right manner to promote services and beat out the Google auction-based keyword bidding that can suck up a marketing budget.

Nathan also showed that he includes his Twitter handle in his profile, and said that he doesn't necessarily recommend this.  He suggested that the audience create things that work for them, not just what they see someone else doing, and said that Freesource's training is always centered around the goals of the client.

Applications

Scrolling down a little more, Nathan showed the Slide Share application on his profile, which has a presentation from his company.  He said that if he were a practicing lawyer, he might have the JD Supra and/or Lawyer Ratings Applications here.  He said if he had just written an article about something, this would be shared through the JD Supra application (again, as long as you are a client of theirs), and would be presented right on the profile.

Nathan again emphasized that your profile should be looking to solve the problem of a potential client in terms of what you can do.  He said that Freesource doesn't have the same brand recognition as some of the larger marketing firms, like Ogilvy or Razorfish, but the Slide Share application gives them the opportunity to share their story.

He cautioned against putting up content that's already been created, saying that his clients will often want to put up their corporate slide deck on their profile.  However, it's not a great way to market using this tool, because it often needs a voiceover.

But if you take a methodological approached, using large-type words and symbols that resonate with people and drive them to advance the slides, you create a powerful opportunity to market yourself and your services.

Nathan said that there's a tremendously diverse number of ways that firms with different business objectives can be using applications like this to distribute content, invite people to webinars, tap into alumni networks, and really drive these marketing efforts through free technologies.

Summaries

Nathan scrolled down again to show the summary section of his profile.  He said people often wonder what they should include in the summary field, and he said it's a personal mission statement opportunity that can be used in many ways.  He said that he's had three jobs since he created his LinkedIn profile, and each of the summaries was different, because it depended on his business objectives.

In his current summary, they're promoting the types of clients that they've worked with, as well as his personal mission statement that he loves new technologies and helping people.  He said it's consistent both with his real world business objectives and how he behaves in the business world.

Nathan also encouraged the audience to make it easy to contact them by including contact information in the summary section.  He said that LinkedIn makes it difficult to contact people within the platform, so by putting contact information in the summary, the right people can see this.  He added that they can control this and not include it if they don't want to open themselves up to being contacted.  

Skills & Specialties

Nathan scrolled down to show the Skills and Specialties sections of the profile. He said that the Skills section is a relatively new feature on LinkedIn that is different to the specialty section.  If a lawyer has specific practice areas that they're an expert at, these should be included under specialties.

Under skills, there's an opportunity to list your core competencies and accredit them.  Nathan said that there's a drop-down box with beginner, intermediate, and expert, and then you can include your years of experience.  He said that if you have a law firm with ten professionals, and they all have thirty years of experience in a certain area, if you weight the value of their years of experience here, that will augment search engine efforts.

He used the example of looking for an expert in the Philadelphia area, and typing in Financial Services for a certain type of practice - the lawyers with the most accreditation will start to pop up in the natural search results in Google.  Nathan said it's another great way to showcase your expertise and the ways that you can help people.

He summarized his walkthrough of the profile saying that it should be designed in a way to help you tell your story, connect  with people, and see your evolution. He suggested asking yourself, should I include this in here? Will it create value for the people I'm looking to connect to and create relationships with? 

Tune in to Part III next week, where we'll talk more about groups and account settings!

Nathan said that social media strategies, for LinkedIn or other tools, should be developed to meet the business objectives of the firm at large.  He said that many clients come to them and say, "Should we be blogging? Should we be using these tools?" and his answer to them is that they should be if it meets their business objectives.

LinkedIn - the basics

Using his LinkedIn home page, Nathan explained that he wanted to give the audience strategic and tactical takeaways from his presentation that they could use that would impact their business immediately, by finding new potential clients, and qualified business to repeat.  

Nathan said in looking at LinkedIn, there are a couple of things to keep in mind:

1. LinkedIn is by far the largest professional social network.  It is designed in a way that is for professionals, but everyone uses it differently.  
    
2. LinkedIn is a highly customizable platform.  Nathan suggested considering it to be a customizable software program that you can bend, shape and control to help you meet your business objectives.
    
3. LinkedIn gets three million new users each month, which equals a new user every second.  This has a tremendous impact on your ability to collaborate across the globe and build thought leadership in practice areas in markets that you'd like to tap into.
    
4. LinkedIn is looking to change the game of business - their goal is to help business professionals do their jobs more effectively.

Nathan pointed out to the audience that LinkedIn is there to help them do what they've traditionally been doing using these new tools.  Social media tools should augment what the attorneys are already doing and help them manage that in a way that conforms to ethics and the unique world that lawyers live in.

Nathan said that in the past, we've just talked about companies' brands, but people are really a subset of the brands, and these technologies allow for those people to come out.  So there are people already in law firms who are on LinkedIn and representing the company, but they may not be doing it in a way that's meaningful and making an impact for the business.  

He said that as we look at LinkedIn from an individual perspective, it's a chance for individuals to shine, but it's also an opportunity for firms to take their teams and approach the market with some consistent messaging and marketing.

Your LinkedIn Home Page

Nathan began his demo of LinkedIn by saying that they recommend to their clients that they should make LinkedIn their internet home page, because it will change the way they interact with the system.  If users make this their home page, so it's the first thing they see when they log in to Internet Explorer, and they've developed a meaningful network of people and professionals, they have a powerful river of news.

If users only log in to LinkedIn once a week or once a month, they're missing a river of activity that's in real time and can help them do their job.  From a business intelligence perspective, Nathan said that it's a best practice to log into LinkedIn every day and scan the news.

He showed an example of how this might work, showing that one of his connections (we'll call him John Smith) is now connected to another new person (we'll call him Tom Jones).  Since John Smith is a client, Nathan knows that anyone he is connected to might be meaningful to him as well. 

So he'll mouse over Tom Jones' name and put that information into his mental database, so the next time he's talking to John Smith, he can ask for an introduction.  

Nathan emphasized that the home page has a great deal of value, and said that another best practice that his company preaches is to only connect to people that you know.  If a user does this, then their home page is only filled with meaningful information.

He then took the audience on a tour of the architecture of the home page, saying that the attorneys can customize the apps so that they have meaning for them. He said that they could move, delete or add an app, and showed at the bottom that there is a whole catalogue of apps that might be beneficial to the attorneys, including JD Supra's legal news feeds and a legal rankings app:

• People You May Know: In the top right hand corner is a box called "People you may know."  This is a way that LinkedIn is trying to serve you with potentially meaningful contacts.  
   
• Legal Updates: Rather than using newswires to share updates, you can now do that through legal updates (I'll point out that in order to do this, you must be a client of JD Supra - the ILN is a client, and I'll say that we've found their service to be both economical and highly successful, particularly since their LinkedIn integration).  
  
  Nathan pointed out that posting articles to the legal updates app has a more permanent and meaningful shelf life as well.  The articles are served up to users based on their profiles, so that they're more relevant to them, which in turn gives the posters a more targeted audience for their articles.
  
  It's another way to distribute the content that firms are already producing in a viral form, so people can share your articles on LinkedIn, and they become part of the living architecture of data inside of LinkedIn.  As a result, they can also show up outside of LinkedIn.  Content that is produced on LinkedIn has a very high level of credibility, so it will be pushed out of LinkedIn and become searchable and findable on the major search engines, like Google.

Nathan said that making LinkedIn your home page helps it to become part of your work flow, and keeps it from being something that you have to remember to do.  

"Tune in" tomorrow for Part II of our re-cap on Nathan's LinkedIn presentation.

It's difficult to block social media at work, since so many people have smart phones and can access Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and more - I think this is certainly the case at law firms, where smart phone are a necessary tool for business these days.  Over time, it will be less and less possible to stop people from logging on, so as others have said before me, the solution is education.

Firms can sit down with their attorneys and other employees and explain to them that they expect them to be brand advocates.  Everyone at the firm who blogs, tweets, or facebooks and mentions their affiliation with the firm (and in some cases, even if they don't) is making themselves a representative of the firm.

This can be done in a professional way, so it's important to educate them about the firm's expectations.  Additionally, if a firm is monitoring their employees' use of social media, it's fairly easy to see whether it's being used for professional or personal purposes.  If law firm management is actively using social networking tools, they'll have an understanding of how much time it should take to be blogging, updating Twitter, etc., and will be able to judge whether their employees are abusing this or not.  

Stuart Gerson of Epstein Becker & Green added that his firm has found a social media policy to be helpful in educating the members of the firm about their expectations.  He added that they've been asked by a number of clients to consult on developing social media policies, and even have an attorney in their New Jersey office who specializes in this.  

Stuart offered to share the firm's policy, and also recommended that the audience look to IBM's research and policy for assistance as well.  I mentioned that we have a post with links to sample social media policies here at Zen Legal Networking, and also said that the recaps from the Social Media Risks & Rewards conference that I attended recently might be useful in identifying some areas of concern (they can be found here, here, here, and here.

Although there are some concerns about the time investment for social media, I pointed out that people handle it in different ways - some will log on late at night after all their other work is finished and others will give themselves thirty minutes in the morning to do all their social media connecting.  It's a very flexible medium, which is one of the reasons that I like it.

As our Executive Director said at the end of this question and answer period, social media is an ongoing, evolving area, and I'm sure the questions will only continue. But I'm excited to see what's coming next!

In house counsel still rely primarily on referrals from trusted sources and credentialing activity to choose their outside counsel - and I venture to say that this will always be the case.  But they're increasingly taking blog posts and tweets into consideration.  

Since the audience might not have been convinced by a survey among corporate counsel, I thought I'd share with them a success story from Jayne Navarre's new book, social.lawyer: Transforming Business Development, so that they could see how social networking is working for other business lawyers.  

Glenn Manishin, an IP and Technology lawyer for Duane Morris in Washington, DC, is a pioneer in the synthesis of law and technology.  He's the only attorney of record for two major antitrust cases, the US v. AT&T and the US v. Microsoft.  Glenn told Jayne that through his social networking, blogging, and the use of Twitter, he has landed six clients in the past twelve months directly from his online activity.

In Jayne's book, there are many more success stories just like these, but I cautioned the audience that those of us who have embraced social media don't see it as a silver bullet - just another marketing tool to be considered.  I told the audience that those who have found success in social media emphasize that it takes work and requires personality - just like any other business development activity.  

And like other business development efforts, social media is about engagement (as Kevin O'Keefe said in his blog post, it's about developing relationships - I fully agree).  The point of being involved with these tools is to show people in the industry, from clients and potential clients, as well as journalists who can get media mentions, who attorneys are and why they're good at what they do.

I shared with the audience that the lawyers who have been successful in social media stress that shouting the highlights of resumes, exhaustive lists of services and accolades, or posting press releases to Twitter and Facebook is not the proper approach to online business development.

Instead, they should be figuring out how to add value to communities, start conversations and initiate relationships.  I used Kevin O'Keefe's example of sitting next to a general counsel on a plane - you wouldn't just throw your brochures at him or list awards and articles.  As an attorney, you would listen to him, try to identify his needs, and talk to him about the ways that you can help.  Social networking tools should be used similarly.

I concluded by telling the audience that I understand that there are a lot of tools out there, and a lot of opinions on how to use them, but they shouldn't be overwhelmed.  I offered to help them identify which tools might be beneficial to them, or to put them in touch with other social media consultants in the legal industry who could also walk them through the appropriate tools.  

There were a couple of questions from the audience, one of which I'll address in a separate post tomorrow.  One of the attorneys in the audience asked how many ILN members are on Twitter. I estimated it at about thirty, including individual attorneys and firms - I had mentioned to the audience that I had created a list of these attorneys and firms.

I mentioned to the audience that Twitter, and other social media tools, allow people to see a user's professional and personal side, which makes them more accessible to clients and potential clients.

Peter Altieri added his personal experience with blogging at Epstein Becker & Green. He said that the firm has eight or nine active blogs through LexBlog.  Some of the blogs are written by individuals, while others are written by practice group teams. 

He co-heads the Non-Compete group, which has a blog that they publish to once a week. They try to find current cases around the country, and the blog authors are from the firm's offices nationally.  He said that he's found that when he goes out to market himself, and people want to know if he's really an expert in that area, the blog is helpful.  He said although litigators can do anything and everything, it helps to have a niche area when marketing.  

Altieri said that he's had positive experiences through the blog, and talked about a significant financial services company in Iowa that learned about them through their blog.  They had invited them to be part of a beauty contest, and although they weren't chosen for that piece of work, the general counsel has continued to call on them on almost a monthly basis for other matters.

He added that another thing that blog authors can do through LexBlog is to see who subscribes to the blog - he said that through LexBlog, they can very inexpensively maintain their blog. LexBlog does all the heavy lifting and provides the authors with reports on how many people have accessed the blog and who subscribes.

Altieri said that keeping track of who is subscribing can help you to see when general counsel are subscribing and reading the posts monthly.  He said that this is an opportunity to reach out and make contact.  Altieri added that he's finding that he has some general counsel i their thirties, and clearly the next generation is going to be more in tune with getting their information and making and maintaining relationships online. He encouraged all the attorneys to be thinking about this daily.

Alan Griffiths added that Kevin O'Keefe is a wonderful resource, and in addition to providing a great product, would be willing to talk to the attorneys about how to approach social networking, and blogging in particular.

Reidenberg did an informal survey of the room to find out how many people were on LinkedIn. Almost everyone in the room raised their hands, but when he asked how many people had read the user agreement, it was only about five.  Only three of those had read the Privacy Policy.  

Next, he asked about Twitter - about 20% of the room said they were on Twitter. Reidenberg pointed out that Twitter requires you to agree to the User Agreement before signing up, but not even half of those in the room had read it.   

For Facebook, about half the room raised their hands to indicate that they have a profile.  Reidenberg asked how many had read the Terms of Service in the last week, pointing out that Facebook changes them frequently.  Only one person in the room could answer how information is shared by Facebook with third parties, and Reidenberg said he wasn't entirely correct in his answer.  

He said that the point of his questions was that even in a roomful of lawyers, most of them aren't reading these documents, which is a major problem.  His perspective is from a consumer advocate point of view, and he looks at these Terms of Services as being at the fault line of consumer service.  

Reidenberg said there are two forms of agreement consent:

1. Scroll down to read the terms
2. Click wrap

Illusion of Consent

In both forms, we're dealing with an illusion of consent as far as the consumer is concerned, because most consumers don't look at them at all. Those that do and try to parse them out, find them very difficult to understand. When they think they understand, chances are that they're wrong. The social media site itself may not know if they're accurately depicting what's being put on their site because of the sheer complexity of these services.  

Reidenberg pointed out that Facebook itself may not even realized what information is being passed on to third parties.  And if they don't, it's impossible for lawyers to write terms of services that explain and would be able to provide an informed terms of service going forward. 

It is possible to force users to recognize that the company is trying to make a contractual agreement of the collection of information on their site. Tools like pop-up windows can do this. On some sites, if you pass to a third party application, there is a pop-up window that warns you of this.  This alerts users to the business relationship.

There are technical ways to signal users that some change is taking place with the relationships that the users have with the website, but most of these haven't been successfully employed because the incentives aren't there. The law doesn't require it, so there isn't the motivation to invest in developing that type of architecture.

Reidenberg said that the architecture of these sites is driven by advertising, because that's how they're paid for. As a result, the notion of full transparency warnings is antithetical to the advertising-based model.  

Another reason that these can be problematic is that the technical mediation doesn't work as a legal proposition. Reidenberg talked about a Carnegie Mellon study which reviewed 30,000 websites that had the architecture to disclose to visitors how their information would be used on the site. It basically created a handshake deal. About 30% of those sites that were purporting to do this were wrong, and in many cases, they were actively misleading, so it's clear this is a challenging problem.

Substantive Fairness of Terms

Courts are increasingly exploring the substantive fairness of the terms that are found in this agreement and many terms of service are including arbitration clauses. They often put down California, because that's where most social media companies are headquartered. But in Europe, this can be problematic because European law favors the location where the consumer is located.

Reidenberg asked the question whether people believe that if a site has a privacy policy, it means that they won't share information with third policies.  78% of the public doesn't realize that this isn't true. He observed that an overwhelming majority of the public has a misunderstanding of these common terms of service, and said that almost no terms of service for a social media company says it won't disclose information, since they're based on advertising models.  The public misunderstands what they do, and they think it's lawful.   

Reidenberg talked about changes in terms of services, saying that it's typical for companies to reserve the right to make changes prospectively. He added that Facebook also reserved the right to make changes retroactively.  He asked whether the audience thought there was notice of these changes to the users, and answered his own question, saying that most policies instruct the user to come back.

From a consumer advocate point of view, this engenders mistrust. Since there is direct access, like in the form of a pop-up, it's easy to properly inform users. But instead, companies bury it, which raises significant legal risk. He said there are instances where the FTC may say that it's not a good practice. This opens the door for many challenges.

Legal Permeability for Terms of Services

Reidenberg had suggested earlier that terms of service are at a fault line. Companies are in a tough position because consumers are expecting one thing and are not clear on how the existing rules might apply. So companies are trying to come up with ways of insulating themselves from liability. 

Sites gives users the right to use their service in exchange for personal information. Reidenberg mentioned limited liability for providers; indemnification by users -  if information is provided by property rights, the user doesn't have the right to post it; perpetual use; saying that all of these things are there and they become permeable.

Reidenberg suggested that if those in the audience hadn't read a social media site's terms of service yet, they should read one after today's session and ask themselves if a normal person without seven years of university education and passing the bar would be able to understand what these policies say. Uniformly, the answer would be no.

These terms and policies are subject to significant risks and challenges, particularly challenges by the FTC as unfair and deceptive practices, so Reidenberg expects to see wide scale class action suits going forward.

He said that efforts to limit liability become hard because these companies also are targets as intermediaries. He gave the example of a model who alleged she was being defamed on a blog, where the blogger was using a pseudonym. The model wanted to unmask the blogger, and Google found itself in the middle of a lawsuit.

Reidenberg said that the more social media sites are at the forefront of "social dynamics," the more they're putting themselves in the middle of disputes between other third parties. Terms of service tries to deflect this as much as possible, but it's dubious. He added that Google will be unlikely to collect anything from the indemnification clause with regard to that particular blogger.

Intellectual property pressures will also be challenging.  One of the issues that has been cropping up is the use of trademarks as user IDs. People set up accounts and use celebrity names or a trademark as part of an ID. Reidenberg likened this to domain name disputes from a decade ago, and said it would be hard for user agreements to be an effective tool.

Reliance on consent as the model, where consent is almost fictitious in many of these cases, won't be a terribly good defense against the class actions that we're beginning to see, Reidenberg observed, citing the Google Buzz case.  

He said he's seeing new kinds of statutory claims being brought and predicts that Facebook will be the subject of a class action suit under the Fair Credit Reporting Act.  He mentioned that it's public knowledge that social media sites are being used to screen employees, which raises the question of whether these sites are consumer reporting agencies, such that these statutes apply.  

Reidenberg said that litigators are looking for ways to make new law and grasping for statutes to use. Consent is a basis under the FCRA to disclose information, but under jurisprudence, it has to be clear that that's what it's for. None of the sites talk about the use of their sites for this purpose, so it won't be sufficiently conspicuous to work under the FCRA.

Lessons

Reidenberg's takeaway is that we're in an important period of legal flux to use the terms of service to satisfy the needs.  His lessons to the audience are: 

1. If you're advising clients, advise them to be as transparent as possible. Really push the transparency envelope and push using the technology tools to make transparency work for consumers.  It's challenging because if you say you'll be transparent, and you're not fully transparent, you're opening yourself up. But the reverse is even riskier. Scandals erupt and can cause bad law.
    
2. Focus on substantive fairness.  Could you describe the terms of service to your grandmother and not be ashamed? Reidenberg said it's amazing that some sites are willing to do some of the activities that they say they're going to do. The public is upset with the use of personal information on social media sites - when asked " What consequences should there be if a company violated the terms of service or breached privacy?" (this was asked of those who thought they had privacy rights, but didn't).  One third of respondents thought the executives of these companies should go to jail, and most thought they should be fined.  Therefore, substantive fairness is critically important.
    
3. Technology tools will be essential to make this work, and this goes back to making transparency acceptable. Be able to show what's happening.  Reidenberg mentioned when a user no longer wants to have a profile on a social media site and deletes it - what happens? Does the site still keep it? That should be transparent, and if they're keeping it in an archive, the user should be able to see what's being kept. Under the FCRA, you can get your credit report. But there's no legal obligation on social media sites for that kind of practice. However, technologically, it can be enabled and it goes a long way towards ameliorating the risks.
    
4. Think about public education - this is critical. Lawyers have an extremely important role to play. They engage with their clients about what to do, and should be encouraging them to engage with the public about this and informing them about their terms of service. He asked the audience to begin to think about how we educate children, young adults, more senior adults in the social media space, and how this can work economically. Reidenberg commented that Facebook is hugely valuable across the world because people want to be connected. But they don't like the risks and they don't understand them.

His closing point was that there will be increasing regulation of this space as societal expectations and business models fail to converge.  

Question & Answer

There were several audience questions, which Reidenberg answered:

Question: If consumers don't read policies, and they're not all that effective, they bring exposure. So why not just not have a policy? Who will notice and who will care?

Reidenberg: From the surveys that have been done, it's clear that consumers do care. The problem comes in the futility of looking at boilerplate contracts. If you put something in the policy, it might be enforced against you. So there's a disincentive to have long legalese policies for that reason. He used the Sears case as an example. A point was buried in their terms of service, and was considered to be an FTC violation.  But without disclosures, you're not transparent and that's a bigger risk.

He said that lawyers on behalf of their clients have to be thinking of ways to draft meaningful statements that aren't twenty pages of legal terminology that users can't understand if there's a plain language explanation.  

Question: Are you taking the position that any change to terms of service requires notice to users? 

Reidenberg: He answered that he'd go with materiality. He said suppose a change is the PO Box number where notices are to be sent - this is a small change, so because of the cumbersomeness and annoyance factor to the consumer, notification probably isn't justified.  The difficulty comes in determining whether or not it's material.

Reidenberg said it's tough for companies not to have a myopic view of what is material, so it behooves organizations to set up an external advisory board. It would be the notion that the company might want some kind of vetting board to break out of an internal myopia for how the changes in policies that they're adopting will be perceived by users. He said that some companies may want to use focus groups, but it's not the same as getting external advice on structuring the services that they're providing. This can help them to avoid finding themselves on the wrong side of a headline.

Follow-up Question: What about companies that are operating in many foreign countries, particularly with regard to children's privacy?

Reidenberg: It's not just children's privacy that is a concern, as Europe has more comprehensive privacy laws for everyone. What constitutes consent and informed consent is different in Europe than it is in the United States, and even varies among European countries. Reidenberg said that if you're operating websites in foreign languages targeting users with foreign language advertisements, you'll be stuck under their rules.  He added that some sites will try to deny that by putting in a governing law, but it won't work in many jurisdictions where there's active targeting  and the site is aware that users are in those countries.

He said that during a recent session with global data commissioners, they discussed this issue. They used to look at consent as the be all and end all, but there's a notion that that's not going to work anymore.  In some kinds of data processing, consent will have to be implicit because of the function for social media.  

His short answer to the question was "comply with local law."  This is why technology tools are essential. He said that if it's not possible to work with one law, the company will have to make arrangements on the back end to filter out those users.

Question: Has anyone put privacy policies in simple English? Would that establish informed consent? 

Reidenberg: Some have tried, but they haven't gotten very far.  Is it possible to do? Yes. In order to sign up for many sites, it's necessary for the user to click "I agree" and often, there will be a box with the policy in there. This isn't very user friendly. Suppose companies did improve the usability, would this improve the situation? Absolutely.  It would make the practices and the rules, the terms that the site wants to impose for use much more explicit for users.  

Would it provide fully informed consent? That would depend. Courts and regulation agencies will be able to look over companies' shoulders to decide whether it's substantively fair.There will always be that type of backstop no matter what the informed consent turns out to be.

Question: The demographics in the audience are more those people who advertise on the Facebooks of this world. What are the implications for advertisers if there is a policy, if there isn't, if it's broken? Are there issues that involve them? 

Reidenberg: The advertiser can be caught in the middle. The first line of the lawsuit will be the social media site, because they're the conduit of information for the site. The advertiser might be getting information, like metrics, and it depends on how the ad networks are established and what the relationship is between the network and the site. If the ad network is aware that the social media site is violating its policy by sharing information, it's going to be liable.

Question: The audience member had recently seen a mention of future LinkedIn advertising and asked about information being provided to advertisers.

Reidenberg: The question will be if you can see some aspect of what's being share, and there's a whole bunch of information that you can't see, does that open up a deception claim.  

Question: Is there clear law on the targeting of advertisements?

Reidenberg: No, but we will see more attempts to find theories to hold the advertisers responsible because they're driving the industry right now. He doesn't believe that purely advertising-supported sites will be around five years from now. The challenges for privacy will be very significant, so Reidenberg is skeptical that there will be a lot of success in generating enough income to pay for the services this way. He sees the internet going the same way as print newspapers and believes that we're in a transitional phase.    

Question: The audience member said that they work for a company that's highly regulated and was glad to see that there were more audience members from the pharmaceutical area in attendance, since they are struggling in this space.  She asked for Reidenberg's thoughts on liability as a page owner on a third party site, where you have content but can only post limited terms of use a as a page owner.

Reidenberg: You're going to have risk. If you have a page on someone else's service, the main service provider dictates what you can say and do in terms of rules with respect to your clients. Right now, it's an open field, determind by the terms of service provisions.  

There were no additional questions, so the session was ended.

• 81 of the AmLaw 100 are using Twitter.
   
• 38 of the AmLaw 100 are blogging.
   
• 96 of the AmLaw 200 are blogging (which is up 147% from August of 2007 when only 39 were blogging).
   
• Among those 96, there are 297 blogs, with 245 of those being firm branded.

 In terms of LinkedIn usage and lawyers:

• Every AmLaw 200 firm has a company profile on LinkedIn by default.
   
• Of the 50 million LinkedIn users, almost 1.5 million are lawyers, up from 118,000 in April of 2008. In two years, the number of lawyers on LinkedIn has risen over 1000%.
   
• Approximately 5,000 law firms have business profiles on LinkedIn.
   
• 4,000 groups included the word "law" on LinkedIn.

Although I know many lawyers are encouraged to move forward when they see what their colleagues at other firms are doing, I knew there would still be some in the audience who remained unconvinced. So I related some of the information revealed about corporate counsel social media usage in American Lawyer Media, Zeughauser Group & Greentarget's recent survey, "Corporate Counsel New Media Engagement Survey." (I know naysayers may point out that the very small sample size used in this survey might negate some of the impact of the results it provides, but I do believe it reveals a growing trend of social media usage among corporate counsel and my intent in the presentation was to show our attorneys why they shouldn't dismiss it.)

The survey shows that in-house counsel are interested in blogs (primarily), Twitter, LinkedIn and other social media sites to get their business and industry information. As indicated by the survey, blogs are the preferred mechanism for obtaining business and legal industry information, with more general counsel getting this information online than from other traditional sources. General counsel are primarily (and always will) rely on referrals from trusted sources and credentialing activity to choose their outside counsel, but importantly, they are increasingly taking blog posts and tweets into consideration. 

The statistics from the report that I felt were most relevant to my audience were the following:

• 43% of in-house counsel identify blogs as among their leading sources of news and information.
   
• 53% expect their consumption of industry news and information by these new media platforms to increase over the next six months to a year.
   
• Nearly half of in-house counsel aged 30-39 have used Facebook for professional reasons in the last week.
   
• 51% of in-house counsel said that they would receive content from their law firms via new media platforms if it were relevant to their business.

As you would expect, the report shows that there is higher adoption of social media among younger in-house counsel, who they classify as aged 30-39.  But over the next ten years, this group will become the primary purchasers of legal services, so their interest in these tools is not to be ignored.  Additionally, many smaller companies already have younger in-house counsel.

Not surprisingly, the survey revealed that the most popular social media tools are LinkedIn and blogs, with blogs finding consistent use among age groups and company size. However, interestingly, blogs are the most frequently used tool among in-house counsel at the largest companies (defined as those with revenues of US$1.5 - $9.9 billion). 35% of those in that group have visited a blog in the past 24 hours, with 54% visiting in the last week.

Larger legal departments (defined as those with 100+ lawyers) also rank blogs higher in terms of information sources.  I see this as a real opportunity for mid-sized firms like those in the ILN, because social media levels the playing field.

But I cautioned them not to send a quick email back to their marketing departments or a junior associate saying "Get us involved in this social media thing."  To me, social media is about ENGAGEMENT.  A lawyer would never send someone else to impersonate them at a cocktail party, so why do it online? 

To convince the remaining doubters, I shared some success stories from Jayne Navarre's upcoming book (being published in July by Thomson West), "social.lawyer: Transforming Business Development."  Jayne's book goes into more detail about:

• Robert Thomas, an appellate and eminent domain lawyer in Hawaii, whose blog has garnered him attention from ABA colleagues and national and international journalists, and has netted him two Fortune 100 clients.
   
• Glenn Manishin, IP and technology lawyer with Duane Morris, who has landed six clients in the past twelve months from his social media activity.
   
• Chrissie Lightfoot, as a trainee solicitor, brought in £562,000 of new client legal work enquiries and referrals, started a consultancy, and is now the blogger of record for the Law Society Gazette.
   
• Nils Montan, practicing lawyer in Brazil and LinkedIn junkie, who brought in new clients and is now 100% responsible for marketing his practice and bringing in new business via the social web.

 From these stories, it was easy for the audience to see that social networking does bring in new clients.  I did pass along the cautions that the lawyers had shared with Jayne, that social networking does take work and require time and personality, just like any other business development activity. I suggested that the audience need not feel overwhelmed by the tools and offered myself, their marketing departments and consultants as people who could aid them in getting started. 

I am firm in my belief that this is the case - that anyone who is looking to waste time at work will find a way to do it - either taking one too many smoking breaks, talking on the phone too much, sending long personal emails, or whatever.  But something I hadn't considered is what the next commenter pointed out - "The key differentiator is that a personal call, while interfering with productivity, is not recorded for all the world to see."  

And there's the rub.

If someone is unhappy with a company or sharing confidential information on a phone call, the worst that can happen is that the person they're speaking to will repeat that information.  But if an employee tweets about it, or posts it on their Facebook page, not only does that information get disseminated to every single person in their network, but it can also be retweeted or reposted endlessly. Then, suddenly it's a PR nightmare, much like when Mr. Andrews from Ketchum complained about Memphis via Twitter, the city where his client, FedEx, has their headquarters.  Had he called his wife and said the same thing to her, no one would have been the wiser. But because he chose a public forum for his complaints, his client picked up on it and it's a gaffe that continues to live on both on the internet and in people's minds.  Every time he tweets, I am reminded of it.

So what is the lesson here for law firms? Block as much social media as possible? 

I say no.  I think the answer is education.  Although education can be expensive and time-consuming, I believe that social media is here to stay and can actually be an asset to firms when used correctly.  So the key is to educate your employees on the ramifications of their online interactions and to have a plan for when the inevitable slip-up occurs.  Marilyn Davidoff, the founder of MGD Enterprises, commented on her Facebook stream, saying "Companies are going to have to stay flexible as Social Media and its use in business evolves. It's a new issue, but goes back to basic values of respecting and trusting people and managing in a way that gets commitment rather than just compliance."  I fully agree with her.

There was a time that I worked at a company that trusted none of their employees. We were micromanaged to such an extent that we were basically treated like high school interns, rather than the college graduates we were required to be to work there.  I quit that job after 7 weeks because it was stifling and never inspired my best work - everyone there was doing the bare minimum to survive and fly under the radar.  Now, I'm in a position where I have the freedom to explore opportunities for my company, where I'm encouraged to learn and grow both as a person and as an advocate for the organization, and it inspires loyalty and the commitment that Marilyn alludes to.  That, in turn, keeps me always focusing on the positive messages in my social networking.  Because I've also been witness to mistakes such as Mr. Andrews, I'm also cautious whenever I tweet or post something - that's where education is helpful.  

What are your thoughts on this? Do you think social media should be blocked at your firms? How can you empower your employees, partners and associates instead of restricting them so that they use social media to enhance the firm's image?