Forty percent of state court judges use social media profile sites, with the majority of them on Facebook. Even so, nearly half of judges strongly believe that they cannot participate professionally in social networking sites without compromising judicial ethics. These are among the findings of fascinating survey conducted over the summer by the Conference of [...]
A report this week on social media use by older adults has important implications for the legal profession — even though it never mentions the legal profession or any other profession.
A study by Pew Internet, Older Adults and Social Media, finds that social-networking use among Internet users aged 50 and older nearly doubled in the last year, from 22% in April 2009 to 42% in May 2010.
Even more noteworthy, among adult Internet users aged 50-64, social-networking use grew by 88%, from 25% to 47%. That means that nearly half of Internet users aged 50-64 use social networking. And within this 50-64 age group, one in five say they use social-networking sites virtually every day.
Another finding: One in 10 online adults aged 50-64 and one in 20 aged 65 and older uses Twitter or a similar service to share status updates.
The survey is of adults who are Internet users, not of the population at large. Of course, virtually all actively practicing lawyers these days are Internet users. That suggests that the survey’s findings can be applied to lawyers.
If roughly half of adults aged 50-64 are using social networking tools, it seems fair to assume that roughly half of lawyers in that age range are using these tools. That leads to two conclusions:
From one north-of-50 lawyer to all you others out there, a word of advice: If you haven’t started to engage in social networking, the time to do so is now.
A new online networking site for lawyers and other professionals, HubSTREET, is unusual in that it evolved out of a bricks-and-mortar networking event. The site’s founder, Nancy Fox, is a professional networking and business-development coach. In October, she launched a regular New York City networking program, The MetroRoundTable, to facilitate networking between lawyers and accountants. The two groups, it seemed to her, were a natural fit for referring business to each other. Soon after, she also brought bankers into the mix.
The events were such a success, Fox says, that she began to research how similar networking could be done online. Her conclusion, reinforced by feedback from her clients, was that existing professional networking sites such as LinkedIn were too broad to allow the kind of interaction she saw at the face-to-face events. Finding nothing out there that fit what she was looking for, she decided to start her won site.
HubSTREET went online in June and will not be formally launched until September. Fox describes it as a blend of Facebook and LinkedIn – less social than Facebook and less resume-driven than LinkedIn. From my perspective, I see it more as occupying a middle ground between LinkedIn’s broad horizontal approach to professional networking and the vertical, lawyer-specific approach taken by sites such as Legal OnRamp and Martindale-Hubbell Connected.
Rather than be overly broad or intentionally narrow, HubSTREET targets a narrow slice of the professional services sector – lawyers, accountants and lenders. The rationale is that these three groups share a natural affinity that makes sense for networking. “As natural referral partners, you will now have the opportunity to meet the right people on line to build a richer, more robust referral base and ultimately your practice,” HubSTREET says.
The truth, of course, is that some lawyers’ practices share natural affinities with accountants and lenders and others do not. It all depends on the practice. For me, as someone whose practice involves media and technology law and ADR, accountants and bankers are unlikely to be referral sources for me or I for them. Still, it can’t hurt to hobnob with people whose jobs are to lend and count money.
Why Another Site?
With so many networking sites already available and so few hours in a day, I approach any new site with the question, Why do we need another? For me, the only good answer to that question is that the new site offers me something different than what the others offer and that the “something different” is of value to me in some way.
As noted, HubSTREET’s “something different” is its community – its blend of lawyers, accountants and lenders. Without question, that sets it apart. But does it provide value?
Its claim is that it “takes the work out of networking by bringing you together with the right quality connections – professionals and experts that are relevant to your business.” Therein is the rub. If accountants and lenders are sufficiently relevant to your practice (and if they participate in sufficient numbers and with sufficient geographic diversity), then HubSTREET could prove to be of value. It seems to me, for example, that lawyers who represent small businesses and small entrepreneurs might find this useful.
But if accountants and lenders are not sufficiently relevant to your practice, then why bother? By positioning itself as the networking site for these three groups of professionals, HubSTREET is narrowing the slice of the legal community to which it is likely to appeal. I do not mean to suggest that is a negative — I think “niche” networking sites could come to have an important place in online networking.
One other “something different” HubSTREET offers is what Fox describes as “facilitation.” Until the site grows to the point where it develops a momentum of its own, she intends to help it along. She will do this through two techniques:
I like this idea of facilitated online networking. From what I see, lawyers often hit a speed bump in their online networking where they connect with someone but then have no idea of how to build on that connection. Advice from a biz-dev coach and opportunities to chat by phone about mutual interests could help nudge professionals over that bump.
Apart from these features, HubSTREET looks much like any other networking site – make connections, join groups, participate in discussion forums and post content. Ultimately, the proof of a networking site is in the pudding. Does it attract members and become a vital hub of constructive activity? It is too early to tell for this site. As of this writing, it has fewer than 100 total members. Of its groups, the lawyers’ group is the largest, with 10 members. The accountants’ group has six members and the lenders’ group has four.
Gina F. Rubel, someone whose opinion I respect, wrote a positive review of HubSTREET for The Legal Intelligencer. The site could “serve as yet another excellent social networking tool for lawyers, perhaps one those who tend to be more conservative will be inclined to embrace,” she said.
My gut instinct is that this site will never attract large numbers of lawyers as members. At best, it could prove useful to the subset of the legal profession that wants targeted networking with accountants and lenders. Even then, there are a couple of big “ifs” – if accountants and lenders also buy into using the site in sufficient numbers and if those accountants and lenders are ones with whom the lawyers share some community of interest, be it through geography or industry.
Here are the bar associations I have found with pages on LinkedIn. With the exception of the International Bar Association and the Canadian Bar Associations, I include only U.S. bar associations. Let me know of others that I have missed.
International Bar Associations
National Bar Associations
State Bar Associations
Local Bar Associations
I am in the process of researching how bar associations are using social media. Here is a list of state bar associations I have found with Facebook pages. Not included in this list are national and local bars. Please let me know of any state bars missing from this list. (Some of these links do not work unless you are logged in to Facebook.)
I have been researching how bar associations are using social media. One aspect of that is identifying bar associations with Twitter feeds. Here is what I have found so far. Please let me know of others. As you will see, some are active, some are not.
In conjunction with this week’s official launch of Martindale-Hubbell Connected, the professional networking site asked several legal bloggers to be part of a week-long series on social and professional networking. Today you get me. Tomorrow’s post will be by Monica Bay at The Common Scold. Others who have already posted in the series were Sean Doherty yesterday, Rees Morrison Tuesday and Kathleen Delaney on Monday. We are not receiving payment or any other gratuity for participating in this series.
I wanted to write to attempt an answer to the question I hear often about online networking, “Why bother?” My answer: To build and strengthen trusted relationships.
The goal of all legal networking, I believe, can be summed up in those two words: trusted relationships. Just as consumers buy brand names over generics, legal consumers hire the lawyer their cousin recommended and corporate counsel retain firms based on colleagues’ referrals. In each case, what sways the decision is trust.
Trust is a strong word, but in the consumer context, it takes only a little to make a difference. Faced with multiple choices, the consumer wants help making the decision. The consumer wants reassurance that the decision will not later come back to haunt. Put another way, the consumer wants a reason to trust that the choice is the right one, or at least a good one.
For general consumer goods, trust comes in many forms. A brand name can invoke trust. Editorial and consumer reviews can build trust. Friends’ experiences with the item reinforce trust. Simple familiarity can build trust.
Legal consumers are no different. In selecting a lawyer, they are looking for reasons to trust one over another. They have little objective help in this. Someone buying a car or a washing machine can find plenty of guidance. They can buy consumer guides, compare test results and read online reviews from others who have purchased the product. Legal consumers have few such reference points.
A recent survey asked lawyers, “What is the most effective method currently in use for finding new business?” The results were hardly a surprise. Fifty-nine percent said that the most effective way of getting new business was through client referrals and recommendations. The second most effective source of new business was peer referrals and recommendations. Other top sources of new business cited by the lawyers surveyed were networking events, alumni relationships, conferences and seminars, responding to RFPs and publishing.
Implicit in these is trust. When a new client walks in based on a former client’s referral, it is because the former client’s experience gave the new client a reason to trust you. When a new client retains you because another lawyer recommended you, it is because the new client trusted the other lawyer and therefore had a reason to trust you. When you speak at a seminar, you demonstrate your knowledge and command of your area of law and give those in the audience a reason to trust you. The same is true when you publish an article in a bar journal or legal periodical.
Online networking is no different than traditional networking – if you overlook the fact that it is plugged in, supercharged and global in reach. When done right and to full effect, social media tools add rocket fuel to all of the ways lawyers traditionally get new business. They support client referrals and recommendations, they support peer referrals and recommendations, they take in-person networking beyond physical limits, they strengthen alumni relationships, they simulate conferences and publishing by enabling you to highlight your knowledge and expertise, they even allow you to respond to RFPs.
In short, social media are a set of tools for broadening and strengthening your network of trusted relationships. Used properly and effectively, social media will enhance your reputation, strengthen confidence in your “brand,” and broaden your professional and personal networks. All of these combine to give others a reason to trust you – and you them.
Next up in the series tomorrow will be Monica Bay.
Last July, I posted one of the first reviews of the beta version of Martindale-Hubbell’s professional networking site, Martindale-Hubbell Connected. Today, the site officially came out of beta and had its formal launch.
For now, it remains open only to lawyers who are in private practice or who work as corporate counsel. Later this year, the site will become open to other legal professionals, today’s announcement said. It launches with 3,000 members from the beta stage and six alliance partners – the Minority Corporate Counsel Association, Lex Mundi, the Council on Litigation Management, Pro Bono Net, the National Association of Women Lawyers, and TerraLex.
[The following column originally appeared in print in June 2008. I am republishing it as part of my continuing effort to maintain an archive of my published columns. Important note: I have not updated this since its original publication. While most of the sites remain as described, some may have changed. All information was current as of the date of original publication.]
The problem with networking sites that limit their membership to lawyers is that lawyers are their only members. Compared with sites that are open to all comers, these restricted sites sometimes seem like the proverbial parties to which no one came.
In the first half of this two-part column, I looked at generic social and professional networking sites, ones designed for cross-sections of users. I promised in this second part to follow-up with a survey of sites designed specifically for legal professionals.
But as I looked at these lawyers-only sites, I was struck by how little networking went on within them. Whether online or off, networking anticipates a community, one defined by its members’ mutual interests. Call it symbiosis, call it the profit motive, but networking carries the expectation of mutual benefit. When a networking site is open broadly to lawyers of all ilks, that benefit may be far too attenuated to justify the effort.
That is not to condemn all lawyer-networking sites, particularly not those that are built around this theme of mutual benefit. That benefit is readily apparent in a site whose members are divided between general counsel looking to hire outside firms and outside lawyers looking their flirtatious best.
Such is the idea behind Legal OnRamp. Its members are inhouse lawyers at large companies and outside lawyers mostly at larger firms. The latter get multiple opportunities to strut their stuff and, with any luck, establish or strengthen relationships with those on the inside.
Of the lawyers-only networking sites I looked at, this one seemed to offer the most promise for productive networking. With its three-fold focus on connections, community and content, it struck me as a next-generation iteration of a site that’s been defunct for decade, Counsel Connect, arguably the first networking site for lawyers.
The similarity may not be accidental, given that Legal OnRamp’s advisory board includes David R. Johnson, the former Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering partner who was CC’s chairman. But Legal OnRamp’s more direct lineage is to the general counsel of nine blue chip companies, led by Cisco GC Mark Chandler.
They sought a tool by which to automate collaboration and content-sharing among inhouse and outside counsel. It had to allow sharing among broad communities of lawyers while also maintaining secure areas for privacy.
The end result is a multi-purpose platform that cherry-picks the best parts from multiple platforms: extranets, Facebook, news aggregators, research libraries, document-management systems and the proverbial water cooler.
CEO Paul Lippe, himself a former GC, calls it a dynamic social system. It is also a selective, invitation-only system. Only about half of private-firm lawyers who request entrée will be allowed in, and then only if they agree to pony up – not cash, but substantive articles or FAQs to be shared with other members.
Once inside, Legal OnRamp looks like other networking sites, revolving around connections among users. Unlike other sites, it puts as much emphasis on content as on connections. Up front are various news and blog feeds. Deeper in are libraries of FAQs, law firm bulletins, research materials and legal forms.
Within this networking superstructure, users can create private areas, called “ramps.” Most ramps are created by companies. Cisco has one, for example. These closed-access ramps have their own, secure layers of networking tools, content libraries and collaboration tools. Cisco’s, for example, includes a database of its contracts and another of its patents, among other items.
The beauty-pageant aspect of Legal OnRamp is a strong allure for private-firm lawyers. By posting content, contributing FAQs, and participating in discussion groups, they get to show their stuff in front of an elite group of potential clientele. There is even a Marketplace where GC can post RFPs.
“We’re starting at the high end,” said Lippe. “It’s easy to move from elite to non-elite. It’s not so easy to move from non-elite to elite.”
Legal OnRamp may soon have some weighty competition. Later this year, Martindale-Hubbell will roll out a networking site, Martindale-Hubbell Connected. Like Legal OnRamp, a key focus will be on networking and knowledge-sharing between inhouse and outside counsel. For now, the service is in early beta testing with limited functionality and membership. A more in-depth review will follow in a subsequent column.
On Life Support
While the symbiosis between inhouse and outside counsel provides Legal OnRamp its fuel, the absence of immediate benefit may explain why sites that lack focus seem to falter. An example is one of the first of the current generation of lawyers-only networking sites, LawLink. A key measure of a networking site is its vitality – and this one was nearly comatose.
LawLink’s structure parallels that of LinkedIn. Users build networks of “trusted colleagues,” with networks extending through three degrees of relationships. The concept works well on LinkedIn, but not at all here.
Searching for lawyers from my state of Massachusetts, I found 107. Of those, fewer than a quarter had made even a single connection. Of those, only six had more than one and the most anyone had was five. These are some of the same people who are on LinkedIn and have hundreds of connections there.
LawLink hosts discussion forums around various topics, but these, too, are largely dormant. An umbrella “open forum” had a total of three posts, the most recent from November 2007.
Without more reason for its members to engage with one another, LawLink holds little promise for taking off. At least it still has a heartbeat.
A similar site, Lawyer-Link, appears to be comatose. The site’s front page remains, but my repeated attempts to register failed. Attempts to contact the site’s administrators by e-mail and phone did bring a voicemail from someone who said the site remains in operation. I’ll have to take his word for it, given that I was never able to get in.
Communities of Interest
If the success of a networking site is tied to its support for a community of interest, then a recent launch that holds promise is PivotalDiscovery.com. Still in beta, its target is a subset of the legal community: e-discovery and litigation professionals. The mission, according to Isaac Cooper, the company’s president, is to provide a platform where users can connect with each other individually and in common-interest groups.
Key features of the site include individual profiles and connections among members, group connections, forums organized by case phase, individual blogs, instructional and promotional videos uploaded by members, an industry events calendar, industry news headlines, and job postings.
Another promising group of networking sites are those designed for lawyers within a single state. The Minnesota State Bar Association, for example, is piloting a site for lawyers the
re called MyPractice. Still in testing, it was built using Ning, the make-it-yourself networking platform backed by Netscape cofounder Marc Andreesen.
For professional networking with an international flavor, sample Lawyrs.net. Launched in September 2007 by a German company, its membership is distinctly international, with members from more than 100 countries, ranging from Afghanistan to Vietnam.
One unique feature is an international directory of law firms. Each firm’s listing includes its practice areas and international offices, along with news and updates about the firm added by members of the Lawyrs.net community. Click on a particular office location and get contact information and maps specific to that office.
If retro is your thing, ESQChat.com may be your site. It describes itself as a private meeting place for attorneys to ask questions, learn more about the law, and make new acquaintances.
It seeks to accomplish this by taking a giant step backwards to an age of chat rooms and message forums. Legal message boards rarely take off and these prove the point. The bulk of the forums devoted to legal topics had no posts. The chat rooms, likewise, were empty. So much for networking.
All rights reserved. Copyright 2008 Robert J. Ambrogi
[The following column originally appeared in print in May 2008. I am republishing it as part of my continuing effort to maintain an archive of my published columns. Important note: I have not updated this since its original publication. While most of the sites remain as described, some may have changed. All information was current as of the date of original publication.]
At a recent panel I was on about social networking for lawyers, one participant told of his success with the professional networking site LinkedIn. Within a few weeks of joining, he had made several fruitful connections, including one with a former classmate who is now the GC at a company his firm had courted. Thanks to LinkedIn, the courtship became a long-term relationship.
Stories of instant success are rare among lawyers using social-networking sites. But instant success is rare for any form of marketing. Of greater interest is the longer-term, cumulative value of these sites. With their enrollments growing by leaps and bounds, you should be a prominent member of the club.
For all their hype, social-networking sites are just glorified directories – the 21st Century version of the phone book or the legal directory. But unlike their forbears, these directories give you far more control, enabling you to tailor your listing and manage your network in ways no traditional directory ever could.
Some question the value of professional networking sites, given that a critical mass has yet to join them. To my mind, avoiding social networking until it becomes widespread makes no more sense than waiting to launch a blog until everyone else has one. Would you rather lead the pack or trail behind it?
This two-part column will provide an introduction to some of the leading social-networking sites. This month, I discuss three “general-interest” sites – ones open to all comers. Next month, I will review sites that focus membership on legal professionals.
Three Degrees of Separation
While all of these sites are for networking, some cater to professional networking and others to social networking. Among the former, the leading site is LinkedIn. It claims an international membership of more than 20 million professionals from some 50,000 companies.
With his 1990 play and later movie, Six Degrees of Separation, John Guare popularized the idea that we are all connected through the networks of people we know. LinkedIn is built on that concept, although it reduces the degrees of separation to three.
When you create a profile on LinkedIn, it becomes the hub of your network, allowing you to connect with other professionals and them with you. Your network consists of the people you connect with directly, their connections and their connections’ connections, so that you are always within three degrees of connecting with anyone else.
Within your network and your extended network, you can mine for potential clients, service providers, subject experts and other contacts. You can also search for business opportunities and for jobs or job candidates. You can directly communicate with your first-degree contacts and, through them, request introductions to others.
What you get out of LinkedIn will turn on what you put into it. As soon as you sign up, add as many contacts as possible and continue to add more from then on. In addition, enhance your profile in other ways, such as by joining groups, endorsing other members, and posting or answering questions within your network.
LinkedIn costs nothing to join. Paid accounts offer extra features and options, but are not necessary to benefit from the site’s basic networking tools.
Finding Friends on Facebook
In contrast are sites where the emphasis is on “social.” The first of these was Friendster, launched in 2002, followed soon after by MySpace. But the one attracting the most buzz generally and among legal professionals is Facebook.
Launched as a virtual hangout for college kids, Facebook is on track to have the largest and most diverse membership of any such site by year end. As a social networking tool, Facebook is powerful. You can build networks around locations, interests, schools, companies or whatever. You can chat, share photos and videos, post bulletin-board style messages, play games, coordinate calendars and even advertise.
But for professional networking, Facebook falls short. One reason for this is that, unlike other sites, it hides your full profile from anyone you have not designated a “friend.” Since joining, I have connected with a number of friends, but they are all friends I already knew – all connections I already had through LinkedIn.
Facebook is adding features to make itself friendlier for businesses. For example, businesses can now sponsor custom pages that focus on their products or services. But its strength is in maintaining existing connections, not building new ones.
Feeling the Plaxo Pulse
A hybrid between professional and social networking is Plaxo. At its core, it is a contacts manager. But over the past year, it has reinvented itself. Once primarily used for updating Outlook, it is now a multifaceted tool for managing, tracking and networking with contacts across multiple platforms.
Where LinkedIn’s emphasis is on expanding your network, Plaxo’s is on strengthening it. It does this through two primary methods, synchronization and sharing.
Its cross-platform sync feature lets you tie together all your address books. Plaxo syncs with Outlook, Google, Yahoo!, AOL, Mac OS X, Hotmail and LinkedIn, as well as with mobile devices. It does the same with most calendar applications.
Sharing is where Plaxo shows its social networking side. With your address book as the launching point, you can connect with the people you know who are also using Plaxo. Once connected, any changes they make to their contact information is updated in your Plaxo address book and synchronized with your Outlook and other address books.
In addition, through a feature called Plaxo Pulse, it keeps you up to date with your contacts’ other activities. As your contacts update their status on Twitter, post items to their blogs, or add photos to Flickr, their updates appear on your Pulse stream.
You can also create a public profile for yourself and merge into it any of your own external feeds as a single stream. That way, someone viewing your profile will see the universe of your current activity online.
Of the three, LinkedIn is the stronger marketing tool. Facebook is a fun way to keep in contact with your circle of friends and colleagues. Plaxo is a sure route to maintaining your contacts over the long haul.
All rights reserved. Copyright 2008 Robert J. Ambrogi
