Your Linkedin Summary as a lawyer is your elevator pitch

I am listening to Helen Pitlick, one of LexBlog’s social media account managers, conduct a social media lab session for a major law firm this afternoon. She’s excellent, but that’s a side note.

During a LinkedIn session she shared a piece of gold. That being that lawyers should look at their ‘Summary Section’ on their LinkedIn profile as their 30 second elevator pitch. The summary sits just below the snapshot of your background on your LinkedIn profile page and it’s the first thing people read.

You only get one chance to make a first impression. What do you want people to walk away thinking about you?

Do you want people to know that you know how to copy and paste your law firm website bio into your LinkedIn Summary?

Don’t laugh. For most of you, that’s exactly what you do. And I can tell you what I and others think about you when we read that. Not much.

As Pitlick explained to the group of lawyers, PR professionals, and business development folks in the lab, you want to write your own summary. You don’t want to have someone else write it for you.

Imagine being at a networking event and having someone else standing next to you, ala your firm’s marketing director, introduce who you are, what you do, and share a little something personal about you. Only after that would you would talk with the folks standing around you. That would be nuts – the anthesis of being social.

Unfortunately, that’s exactly what all too many lawyers do when it comes to their LinkedIn summary section.

Take Pitlick’s advice. Think of your LinkedIn Summary as your 30 second elevator pitch. You only get one chance to make a first impression.