According to Mashable.com, while most law firms, big and small, tend to err on the traditional side, social media has created new opportunities for attorneys to flourish as thought leaders and entrepreneurs.
A recent survey from communications consultancy Greentarget notes that, “While the more traditional marketing channels for law firm credentialing continue to dominate … in-house attorneys now are using new media platforms to deepen their professional networks; to obtain their legal, business, and industry news and information; and to enrich their social and personal lives. Most importantly, they expect that trend to accelerate in the future.”
But social media is still uncharted territory for many lawyers, particularly in big firms, said Rachel Zahorsky, a legal affairs reporter for the ABA Journal. “Varied and outdated ethics rules in regards to online communication, as well as numerous examples of cases put in real jeopardy because of prosecutors and judges posting on Facebook or jurors twittering mid-trial, only fuel a general tendency in the legal profession to distrust new technologies.”
“A great example of this is Bob White, a partner-level attorney in Florida [who] uses Twitter to share the best tech articles he finds each week. After a few months of finding and sharing great tech articles, Bob was able to bring in a couple of tech companies as new clients,” Dayton notes. “They came to recognize, by the quality of his research and the articles he shared, that he really gets it.”
“I have used [Twitter] extensively to get information out there and to show my particular expertise in a way marketing dollars could never do,” said Dr. Lisa Haile, Partner and co-chair of DLA Piper’s global life sciences sector. “In addition to informing people about the firm and my expertise, I use Twitter to gather current news in my industry and generally,” said Haile.
Photo by kaikoura.govt.nz.