Real Lawyers Have Blogs : Advice On Law Blogs and Social Media

Good read in this morning's New York Times by Alex Williams explaining that a law degree from a top law school is no longer a ticket to riches in large law.

Jacqueline Muna Musiitwa, an associate in 2006 at Pillsbury in San Francisco was willing to work mammoth hours "for the prospect of Caribbean vacations, a convertible and a big loft apartment."

Those days are over. As the profession lurches through its worst slump in decades, with jobs and bonuses cut and internal pressures to perform rising, associates do not just feel as if they are diving into the deep end, but rather, drowning.

Lawyers who entered the field as recently as a few years ago could reasonably expect a life of comfort, security and social esteem. Many are now faced with a different landscape. Firms shed more than 4,600 lawyers last year..., and an increasing number of firms now compensate associates based on grades for performance -- shades of law school -- rather than automatically advancing them on the salary scale.

Knowing she'd have to work a million times harder just not to be laid off, Musiitwa left Pillsbury after a year to start her own firm.

It gets wilder.

One 2008 graduate of a top-10 law school, who worked at a large Chicago firm for a year, said she spent days trying to look busy as business dried up while not billing a single hour, before being laid off last fall along with a quarter of the other first-year hires.

"We used to gather in someone's office, close the door, and say, 'I hate my life, why are we doing this?' " she said.

Williams says the main reason for the associate 'squeeze out' is the recession with fewer deals in financial services, real estate, and high tech. In reality it's highly unlikely that law grads and associates are headed backs to the days of Camelot, even with an economic recovery.

Corporations are learning to operate with less. They're demanding reduced and flat fee billing. And with lawyers leaving large law and opening shops with far fewer trappings than at large law firms, those corporations are going to find lawyers ready and willing.

Rather than fine tuning your resume and knocking on doors, only to be rejected, it's time for graduating lawyers and young associates to develop their own brand. Developing a brand that makes you more valuable to a law firm than other associates or developing a brand that allows you to be successful outside large law.

Law firm marketing and business development people in law firms, as good as they may be, are not thinking about developing your career as a young lawyer and making you more valuable to the firm. They are thinking about developing the firm's brand and expertise - and maybe promoting the skill and expertise of one of the firm's heavy rainmakers.

Many placement people in law schools have never had to get out and get a law job like you. They've certainly never faced an economic decline and law firm re-structuring like we have today. I wouldn't be placing my future in their hands.

It's up to you to develop your brand. A brand in the professional service business is not a logo, a font on letterhead, a fancy website, or a tag line. A lawyer's brand is their expertise, usually in a niche area of the law.

Fortunately, there's never been a better time to develop your brand. One, Social media, including blogging, has been the great equalizer for lawyers. You don't need the budget of large law firm PR and marketing to develop a brand. Two, your competition is lazy and a child of the 'expecting generation.'

Sound and strategic blogging allows you to develop a name and network with leading authorities in a niche. A focused and professional use of Twitter allows you to become an intelligence agent in an area of the law or for a particular industry. Your tweets culled from highlights in your newsreader will get you followers from your target audience and be re-tweeted to even more. LinkedIn allows you to connect with the people you meet, that you'd like to meet, and network among groups of companies and professionals you would like to be hired by.

Second, and more importantly, your competition sucks. Sure they graduated from top law schools and had high LSAT's. But they are not Phd's - poor, hungry, and driven.

The vast majority of your competition has come to expect things to be handed to them. They are not used to hustling. They are not used to doing what they need to do to build a personal barnd. In my mind they are lazy.

I got my first full time job out of law school by cold calling on law firms. I knocked on the door and asked to see the top partner in the firm, whose name I looked up in Martindale-Hubbell. I did not have an appointment. The receptionist told me the firm was not hiring and that the lawyer was not available. I told them I'd wait. Heck, I didn't have a job, what else could I do that would be a better use of my time.

Maybe, you're too scared to knock on doors. But that doesn't prevent you from networking with the leaders in the area of law you want to get into. Getting to know them through blogging, Twitter, and LinkedIn would circumvent the 'cold knocking.' You could ask them to get to together for a cup of coffee. And they'd gladly accept an invite from a go getter like you who's developing niche expertise.

You're scared because you've got large student loans, you need to get that large law job for the big bucks. You're afraid to use social media because your large law firm or your placement director frowns on it.

Get over it. Don't let that fear paralyze you. The future is always going to belong to those who think differently and hustle more than the next guy.

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A couple days ago I saw folks on Twitter mentioning a survey on the legal profession's use of social networking and social media. Performed by Hubbard One, part of Thomson Reuters Westlaw, the survey looked like it had some interesting information on large law's and in-house counsel's use of blogs, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Discussion of the survey and bits of info from the survey were emanating, via Twitter, from the Marketing Partners Forum, put on by Hildebrandt, a division of Thomson Reuters Westlaw.

Discussing the legal profession's use of social networking/social media here on my blog, in speaking engagements, and in talking to lawyers every day, I was interested in getting a copy of the survey. However the best I was able to get was a summary of a portion of the survey posted by Larry Bodine on his LawMarketing Blog.

I went to Hubbard One's press releases. Nothing. Hubbard One's blog. Nothing. Hubbard One's twitter feed. Nothing.

So I emailed Gretchen DeSutter, Sr. Communications Specialist at Thomson West who is listed as the press contact on Hubbard One press releases, copying John Simpson, Managing Account Director at Hubbard One, asking for a copy of the survey. John, apparently attending the Marketing Partners Forum, had furnished Larry Bodine a copy the survey. I figured it wouldn't take but a minute for someone to email me a link to the survey.

DeSutter kindly responded right away, not with the survey, but with the offer to 'connect me with the person who conducted the survey.' In that the person who conducted the survey had a medical emergency, DeSutter asked if waiting until next week would be okay. What else could I say than fine? DeSutter nicely followed up saying with Monday being a holiday, she'll contact me Tuesday to 'get this moving' for me.

DeSutter appears to be a very nice person, extremely responsive, and a fine corporate communications professional. But I wasn't looking to be 'connected' to the person who prepared the survey or to get my request moving. I asked for a copy of the survey which was already being released to bloggers.

Why do I get into all this? Because if you want to get word of your survey out, presumably as evidence of your knowledge on the use social networking/social media in the legal profession, you ought to be releasing a copy of the survey to anyone who asked. Especially after releasing it to one blogger and at least to those active and with some influence in the space.

Releasing a copy of the survey to one person and sharing snippets of the survey with people Tweeting from the audience at a conference put on by your company seems a terribly misguided use of social media and social networking.

With the advent of social media, the days of traditional PR, and its controlled release of information by large corporations, is coming to an end. Corporations cannot have their cake and eat it too, like here by making using of a blogger and few people using Twitter to release only what you want.

I suspect I'll get a copy of the survey next week, if not sooner now that I blogged the story. I share this story as the type of public relations you want to avoid today. Especially if you're holding yourself as consulting and providing services on social networking and social media.

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During my webinar about Twitter for law firm client development yesterday someone asked why they should use Twitter if their clients don't use Twitter. Legitimate question.

I'm regularly asked why our law firm's lawyers ought to care about social media and social networking - blogs, LinkedIn, Twitter, and the like when the vast majority of clients don't spend their time using social media.

Yesterday, Hubbard One, part of Thomson WestLaw, released their social networking survey. Though I have requested a copy of the survey, I've only seen a summary so far. There's little question that portions of that survey will be used by law firm leaders to argue that social networking/media is of questionable value as in-house counsel are not using social networking/media.

What everyone is missing is that it doesn't matter if your clients are using social media and social networking? Social Media and social networking are still integral to any law firm's client development program.

Why? Because you'll be engaging the influencers of your clients, prospective clients, and referral sources. You'll be building meaningful relationships with those influencers. The result is being viewed as a reliable and trusted authority, a leader in your field, and highly influential by those influencers.

Influencers include bloggers, reporters, editors, publishers, conference coordinators, and association leaders relevant to the industry you want to do more legal work for.

Who cares if in-house counsel are using Twitter, reading blogs or using LinkedIn?

• You get quoted in the Wall Street Journal in a story relating to the industry in which this in-house counsel works, your measure of influence is going up in that in-house counsel's eyes.
• You present at an industry group conference attended by that in-house counsel and network with her afterwards, your measure of influence is going up in that in-house counsel's eyes.
• You get cited in a leading industry blog that in-house counsel found when doing a Google search on a legal issue your measure of influence is going up in that in-house counsel's eyes.
• When in-house does a Google search on your name and finds that you are cited routinely by legal and industry blogs, quoted in mainstream and industry publications, and regularly present at industry conferences, your measure of influence is going up in that in-house counsel's eyes.

Those citations in leading blogs, interviews in major publications and speaking engagements at leading conferences don't just fall into your lap. You need to go out and establish yourself as a reliable and trusted authority in your niche. You need to develop relationships with bloggers, reporters, editors, publishers, association leaders, and conference coordinators.

There's not a better way to establish yourself as an authority and build relationships with these influencers than using social media and social networking. Through blogging, the strategical use of Twitter, and the effective use of LinkedIn, you establish yourself as an authority with influencers.

LexBlog has 3,000 authors on its blog network. I am regularly cited by bloggers as an authority on the use of social media for client development. I get regular calls from reporters working on stories relating to the work I do. I travel the country speaking at conferences in front of potential clients.

How did it happen? By using social media and social networking. I blog to engage the influencers. I use Twitter to build relationships with the influencers and further establish my expertise in the eyes of those influencers. I use LinkedIn to connect and network with the influencers.

LexBlog's prospective clients are not heavy blog users. They don't use Twitter. And many of them have never heard of LinkedIn. That's okay. Word of our expertise is getting to our prospective clients by word of mouth via the influencers of our prospective clients.

It's the same for your law firm. Use social media and social networking strategically. Identify the influential bloggers, reporters, editors, publishers, conference coordinators, and association leaders in the industry you want to do more legal work for. Then get out and engage those folks and build meaningful relationships with them.

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LinkedIn Events is now being used to highlight upcoming legal conferences. LegalTech NewYork, running from April 1 to 3, and the ABA TechShow in Chicago, running from March 25 to 27, are already displayed at LinkedIn Events.

Go to the ABA TechShow and the LegalTech New York pages at LinkedIn to RSVP that you will be attending. Your attendance will then be displayed at the respective event page and your network will be notified that you'll be attending the conference on their LinkedIn home page.

LinkedIn Events allows you to see what events your LinkedIn network is attending and allows you to find events recommended to you based on your industry and job function. LinkedIn Events features allow you to:

• Search for conferences.
• Post important conferences to your profile.
• Promote a conference.
• See who will be attending a conference.
• Show when you are presenting or an exhibitor.
• Invite other contacts to attend.
• Send a Network update out to your network telling them you will be attending a conference.

Legal conferences can be listed by conference coordinators or by you as an attendee. As a conference coordinator you can promote the conference across your LinkedIn network, including to members of your LinkedIn association group.

If you're attending or presenting at a legal conference, LinkedIn Events is a perfect way to let your LinkedIn network know. You can even invite others to join you at the conference.

For legal solution providers, you'll want to list that you're attending or exhibiting at a conference. This will allow other attendees using LinkedIn will know you're there.

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As a young lawyer I used to think networking meant going out hustling work. Rather than just enjoying myself at social events or rotary meetings and the like, I felt the pressure of trying to get new clients. It wasn't enough for me to enjoy meeting good people and getting to know them as friends.

The funny thing is the more I would have relaxed and enjoyed myself, the more success I would have had in doing client development. The reason being that the best form of client development for lawyers is engaging others so as to learn more about them, their families, and what they do. In return, you'll get the opportunity to do the same.

This interaction could be at a Rotary meeting, playing in a softball league, or standing on the sidelines at your kid's soccer game. Just getting out there and enjoying yourself is the name of the game.

It's the same in online networking. Being active by publishing a blog, using Twitter, and the like, you get the opportunity to meet more people. And if you're using these social media tools strategically, you're meeting people within your target audience of clients, prospective clients, referral sources, and their influencers (bloggers, reporters, association leaders etc).

Louisville employment and civil rights attorney, Dan Cannon, a regular blogger and Twitter user explains how simple the concept is in an interview at 22 Tweets with Lance Godard.

I've had a lot more opportunity to let people know what I do. So, of course, you're more likely to get the right clients ... I've tried to run a really transparent practice, letting tweeps know what kind of cases I'm working on, etc.

People like to do business with the people they like. We like to buy from people we consider our friends.

It's even more true in the case of legal services, where people trust lawyers so little. When people meet a lawyer and get to know them as friend, that's who they're coming to in a time of need. They'll even tell others who need a lawyer that they know a lawyer 'who's actually a pretty nice guy.'

So relax, have some fun blogging and using social media tools such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, and meet some new colleagues and friends. You'll be surprised at the results.

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There's no question that LinkedIn is the leading directory for professionals, including lawyers. But far too many lawyers mistakenly look at LinkedIn as a directory and nothing more.

CIO Magazine's Kristin Burnham offers 5 ways you can get more from Linkedin in 2010 in an article this morning. Burnham may not have been addressing lawyers, but she may as well have been.

1. Groups. Participate in groups related to your area of practice or the industries you are looking to serve. Search for "Groups" on the LinkedIn navigation bar. Network with individuals in the group by adding them to your professional network on LinkedIn, adding your blog to news feeding the group via the news feature, or by asking or answering questions in the discussions feature. If there's not a relevant group, start one of your own.
2. Recommendations. A recommendation from a client (assuming allowed in your state), coworkers, association leaders, publishers, people who have heard you present, bloggers, or others who can vouch for your expertise make your LinkedIn profile more dynamic and bring more credit and validity to your profile. Word of mouth and peer reviews are huge in the selection of a lawyer. Recommendations give you both.
3. Events. Find the Events module on the right side of your home page and click on 'See events your connections are attending' at the bottom of the module. You can view events (including webinars) that your connections are attending, search popular events and find ones to attend. Though I haven't used Events and didn't see much Events activity among my connections who are legal professionals, I could see Events growing in popularity among lawyers.
4. Advanced People Search. The "Advanced People Search" allows you to find contacts based on geographic area, company, keyword, industry and more. Advanced People Search also gives you the option to search based on when users joined LinkedIn, which you can use to you introduce yourself and welcome those new to LinkedIn.
5. Company Buzz. Under Applications on the right bottom of your LinkedIn page, click on Add an application and you'll see a list of applications that you can add to your homepage and profile. Company Buzz is an application that allows you to see what people are saying about companies and topics you care about. Company Buzz uses information from your profile such as companies and schools to find relevant discussions on Twitter. Company Buzz also shows you how frequently your company or topic has been mentioned and the top words associated with your company and the topic. You may add new topics and customize existing topics with new search terms to get just the results you are interested in. Again, not a feature I use, but I'm going to start testing it tonight.

I'm experiencing great success using LinkedIn for client development at LexBlog. I also hear from lawyers they're expanding their network and experiencing client development success through LinkedIn.

As with networking offline, using LinkedIn takes time and effort. We're not talking about a directory where people look up a lawyer, their area of practice, their locale and dial the lawyer with largest ad and 800 phone number. We're talking something much better, a place to build a reputation as a trusted and reliable authority.

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The Legal Blogging Group on LinkedIn has grown to over 3,400 professionals. The group is for legal professionals and others interested in the use of blogging, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and other social media by lawyers and other professionals.

With that growth, we've seen a number of people take advantage of the group's discussion board by posting messages unrelated to blogging and social media or posting spam touting their services. Discussion should be limited to questions and commentary related to blogging and other forms of social media.

I spent the last couple hours deleting irrelevant postings and spam. I gave deference to some unrelated posts which had already drawn a number of comments. If I deleted one of your posts, I'm sorry. I just wanted to get us started with a cleaner slate and make the group more attractive to folks with an interest in legal blogging and social media.

Going forward I'll monitor the posts more closely and delete items that are beyond the group's focus. I'll also try to answer your questions and invite others to do the same. When I can, I'll post items being discussed here on my blog and in Twitter. That way we attract more users and generate more discussion.

In addition to the discussion, you may submit a relevant news article to the group with an accompanying link. This can include news items or blog posts.

Posting of items to the discussion board and news articles you submit, in addition to being posted at the group's site in LinkedIn, will be distributed by email to group members who have opted for that feature.

Head to the Legal Blogging Group LinkedIn Page to join the group.

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'If you don't have social media, it's like having an unlisted phone number,' says Charlie Wollborg, a partner at a marketing strategy and creative design firm in Pontiac, Michigan. This from an article on the business of social media by Jennifer Youssef in the The Detroit News.

A growing number of smaller companies are beginning to see the business value of social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn that let users post information and communicate with others. Users also can meet new people through their contacts, giving them access to a broader audience.

Marketing experts say if used correctly, the sites can be of tremendous value, allowing businesses to inform customers about activities within the company, creating a personal connection and giving the company more exposure.

While Attorney Henry Baskin, quoted by Youssef in the story, doesn't believe social media works for marketing professional services because his clients don't use social media, business people using social media seem to prove him wrong.

• Madeleine Miehls, who operates an online oral history and writing business used to feel like Baskin until she found clients through LinkedIn. She used to laugh off social media as a waste of time. Now she finds it not a waste of time at all but a faster way to connect with people for business.
• Jeff Antaya, chief marketing officer for a midsized accounting, tax and management consulting agency encourages employees to use LinkedIn account to meet potential clients and peers. By showing new hires how to build up their circle of professional peers on LinkedIn, they become more comfortable networking. Social media also gives gives his company another way to publicize job openings, events and industry-based publications.
• Jennifer Cherry, vice president of a public relations and marketing firm finds social media a powerful PR tool for building and maintaining a brand among your constituents. "It tells a company's audience and prospective clients who they are and what they do. Retailers should be using social media as a tool to hear what people are saying about the company and their competitors."

Like websites 10 or 12 years ago, social media is not mainstream for law firms yet, but as Antaya says "It's like a snowball rolling down the hill, it's picking up speed. Five years from now, it's going to be the standard."

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How do we measure the ROI on social media, including blogging? I'm asked that all the time by law firm marketing and client development professionals.

Ultimately it's easy, an increase in legal business. No question that's the case with a strategic and well run blogging initiative.

I tell lawyers and firms joining the LexBlog network that if I'm not hearing from them at the end of a year that the decision to blog was the best client development decision we ever made, then LexBlog did something wrong. That's because I hear about client development success all the time, with success being defined as an increase in business.

With social media and blogging being engagement and networking tools it's important though that there be some interim milestones we can use as a measurement of ROI. We're dealing with a process that takes time. Cordell Parvin, a nationally recognized career and client development coach for lawyers, says it can take up to two years to reap the rewards of such efforts.

Marketing consultant and speaker, Valeria Maltoni, in a blog post this morning, offers some sound advice for measuring the ROI on social media.

I suggest that performance can and should be measured as part of a process along a continuum designed to expand reach, increase engagement, build influence, and request action on behalf of your business - with social media integrated in the communications mix.

When looking at social media and blogging don't compare them how to you measure the return on a website. Client development through blogging is closer to going to a Rotary meeting where all the Rotarians are your target audience than web or Internet marketing. And you don't measure the ROI of networking through civic involvement by looking at webstats.

Ask these questions when looking at the ROI on your law firm's social media and blogging efforts:

• Am I expanding my reach? Are more people within my target audience seeing me? It could be via search engines, but more importantly do they see you quoted in blogs and by reporters? Do they see you speaking at conferences or seminars they attend?
• Am I engaging my target audience of clients, prospective clients, referral sources, and the influencers of those three (reporters, bloggers, association leaders, conference coordinators, and publishers)?
• Am I building my influence among this target audience? Measure influence by how often you are cited in other blogs, Twitter, and the like. Citations are a measure of whether you're viewed as a reliable and trusted authority in your niche.
• Does your target audience request action? Are they asking to talk with you? Do they want to review with you a matter they are working on?

If you're getting good answers to these questions, you're headed in the right direction. You're engaging your target audience, building a reputation in your niche, and increasing your influence. All things smart law firm client development professionals would love to accomplish.

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