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LinkedIn being wrongly dissed in legal community

LinkedIn for LawyersSome folks in the legal marketing circles started a legal marketing LinkedIn group last week. It took off. Hundreds of members within a few days.

Wow, I’m thinking law firms are seeing the light. Wrong. Legal marketing professionals, tethered to the past like a ball and chain and always skeptical about things they don’t understand start dismissing LinkedIn and other forms of social networking as tools of little, if any value, to lawyers looking to market their services.

Here’s just a sample from the nay-sayers.

  • The “buzz” on LinkedIn and social networking makes me remember the dot-com boom and cheers for Nasdaq 5000, and look how well that worked out.
  • Only 7% of lawyers rate LinkedIn as “very helpful” from a professional and or social networking perspective.
  • 81% of lawyers say that less than 20% of their networking was conducted on-line.

LinkedIn was barely heard of in the legal profession until the last year and we now have almost 7% of legal professionals saying it’s an important networking tool. Almost 20% of lawyers conducting their networking online. That rate of uptake is faster than email and websites.

Yesterday I had 8 different people look at my profile at LinkedIn, 5 of which were within our target for prospective clients. Another, I believe, was checking me out to speak in front of their group. I also picked up another recommendation from an existing client who posted it to my profile at LinkedIn.

I also use LinkedIn to network with reporters who interview me or whose stories I blog about as well as bloggers whose content I reference or who reference my content. Those are amplifiers who generate word of mouth discussion about me and my company.

The profiles at LinkedIn tell me and others a heck of a lot more than a profile at Martindale-Hubbell or at a law firm website. Much more of a 360 degree view and if they are not already, they soon will be, viewed by more business professionals across all industries.

I use LinkedIn for free. Have never paid for the upgrade. And it’s working like a charm. Like anything else, LinkedIn is not all I use, it’s a tool I use with a bunch of others.

Let’s ask better questions. Rather than ask how few people view LinkedIn as an important networking tool, why not ask is there an Internet networking tool that has an an adoption rate in the legal profession that far exceeds email and and websites? If the answer were yes, we’d all be running to check it out. That’s why so many people are checking out LinkedIn.

And if you haven’t tried LinkedIn mobile, its great.

And you’d have to guess it, when I rave about LinkedIn it goes down. :(

  • Rob La Gatta

    Some narrow minded folks within the legal community may be dissing LinkedIn, but it appears to be the direction in which younger generations are moving nonetheless. All of the fresh-out-of-law-school lawyers I know got on it before they had even graduated, and among my peers at Seattle University there has been a noticeable buzz as well.
    When I started using LinkedIn back in April 2007, there were less than 700 Seattle U. students with accounts. As of today, there are more than 2200. Granted, not all of them are going into the law…but those numbers are indicative of how young people view the business world and how they see the web as a tool to further enhance their reputation/network.
    I have little doubt that the business networking model seen on LinkedIn is of value to any working professional, regardless of their industry. Let all these folks stuck in the old model continue to ignore it…the only people they’re handicapping are themselves.

  • http://njeminentdomain.com Susan L Ward

    As a Boomer with a Gen Y soul and member of the legal marketing community who uses LinkedIn, I believe LinkedIn has not reached critical mass. The early adopters are still playing with the tools and exploring their synergies. Some people will always need to see the proof that something works, the ROI, the recommendation from someone in the AmLaw 100.
    Someone in my organization remarked that LinkedIn “takes time.” So does everything. It takes time to attend a face-time marketing event or a bar dinner. It takes time to attend seminars and give lectures. It takes time to do legal research. It takes time to write articles for journals. It takes time to post a blog. You have to make time to network. And this is NETWORKING!Pure and simple. Working the net…
    Do we have time to play? Can’t we enjoy the adventure and the process? No one person has the bandwidth to grasp all the technology out there. Technology keeps giving us new tools, and many of us are still curious whether we are Gen X, Y, Boomer or Beyond.

  • http://www.lukegilman.com/blawg/ Luke Gilman

    LinkedIn gets a lot more useful as momentum builds and it’s about to hit the tipping point in the legal community. For instance, the Houston Law Review is now requiring members to get a LinkedIn Account and join the law review group. For us, it’s a great way to keep in touch with folks we don’t talk to regularly and for future boards it becomes a lot easier to keep in touch with alumni.