Real Lawyers Have Blogs : Law Blogs, Social Media, Twitter

Attending ABA's TechShow in Chicago in a few weeks? A Twitter user? Please let me know.

LexTweet, a community of legal professionals using Twitter operated by LexBlog, will carve out a group for those attending TechShow just as we did for last month's LegalTech show in New York.

Twitter may have been the hottest topic of discussion at LegalTech. Not only were attendees looking to find out ways to harness the powers of Twitter in one of the most attended educational sessions, but attendees were connecting with each other via Twitter - for business and social meetings.

Personally, I met up with folks at LegalTech who I would not have known were in New York but for Twitter. Following attendees on Twitter before the conference, it was like we knew each other a bit when we did meet in person.

I even met up with one attendee I did not know before for beers when I asked where people were getting together to watch the Super Bowl. The attendee's company based in the UK is now a client of LexBlog's. No way it would not have happened but for using Twitter to meet people at LegalTech.

Send me an email. Send me a message via Twitter, @kevinokeefe. I'll get you into the TechShow group on LexTweet.

And look to see many of you at TechShow. If you're not registered yet, consider doing so. Flights have never been cheaper. And TechShow is a wonderful conference.

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At the request of many LexTweet users, we've added a feature where a community members profile is displayed when you mouse over a member's avatar or user name. The profile is displayed on the Community Members and the Community Tweets pages.

Here's an example of the displayed profiles on the members page.

And on the tweets page.

When creating a profile on Twitter, it's a good idea to include both a description of your professional background as well your personal interests. Such information is what attracts followers. Remember Twitter is for discovering the people you want to get to know.

LexTweet, a community of legal professionals using Twitter, continues to grow. We're over 2,000 members in only 30 some days.

If you're legal professional, or a in a profession serving the legal industry, please join LexTweet. You need not be a lawyer or employed by a law firm. Just go to the LexTweet sign up page.

It's a wonderful networking, learning, and sharing community. The growing camaraderie among members is really something to behold.

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At this week's LegalTech conference in New York (concluding today), Twitter was possibly the most buzzed-about topic among attendees, helped by a successful Twitter panel on Monday, "What is Twitter and How Can I Use it?" with Kevin as one of the panelists.

But Twitter was also vital to those who weren't able to attend LegalTech in person. As attendees unleashed a stream of updates hashtagged with "#LTNY", people were able to follow from afar. In addition, as Kevin blogged earlier, we set up a LegalTech '09 tab on LexTweet featuring attendees of LegalTech using Twitter and what those attendees are saying.

Alin Wagner-Lahmy, a senior project manager at Lexis-Nexis, blogged about how she was able to attend LegalTech without being there physically, simply by setting up a filter for the tag #LTNY on TweetDeck and searching for #LTNY on Twitter Search.

I was in training, miles away, and could still [using TweetDeck] monitor, listen, participate in the event. I was tuning in and out of the Twitter Conference, absorbing as much - or as little - as I chose to.

Thanks to the active Twitterers at LegalTech, the term #LTNY ranked as high as the No. 6 trend on Twitter on Monday. The RSS feed I set up for #LTNY gave me over 200 items for each of the first day of LegalTech.

It's not as if most attendees went in planning to "liveTweet" the panels. But microblogging just made more sense than traditional liveblogging (especially with WiFi access spotty). As the blog Above and Beyond KM posted, it also gave the sessions a relevance outside the doors of the Hilton.

I had gone to LegalTech fully expecting to write 3-4 paragraph blog posts at each session. Instead, I discovered the power of tweeting the conference. There was an immediacy and energy about Live Microblogging that was irresistible and effective. We were getting the information out as quickly as we could cram it into 140 character packages. And, we were getting responses back from other bloggers in the room, as well as tweeple around the world. In fact, tweeple outside the conference tweeted their questions to us and we put them to the panelists. Suddenly the sessions were relevant to far more than the hardy few who braved the bad weather in NYC to attend.

It would make sense to see more tweeting from conferences in the future, given that it provides accessibility to a wider audience than physically present. It would also be an effective way to increase your online presence, if you are taking control of disseminating the information to those following the topic.

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LexTweet, a community of legal professionals using Twitter, is now featuring attendees of LegalTech using Twitter and what those attendees are saying.

Go to LexTweet, hit the LegalTech '09 tab. You'll be presented with a flow of tweets from LegalTech attendees. Hit the 'Conference Attendees who Twitter tab' on that page and you'll be presented with a tile of avatars of those attending LegalTech who Twitter.

If you use Twitter and you're attending LegalTech in New York next week, but not in this LegalTech group on LexTweet, please let me know. You may email me or direct Twitter message me @kevinokeefe.

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LexBlog launched LexTweet.com, a community of legal professionals using Twitter, 22 days ago. The community has already grown to over 1,500 members.

Though we're playing around with ideas, LexBlog has not determined how we'll monetize LexTweet. Unlike many Web 2.0 companies, LexBlog cannot do a lot of work that it does not realize revenue on. We've got 17 people working on the team who need to be paid, we want to be around for years to come, and my wife, Jill, likes me more when I bring home a paycheck.

LexTweet has been a real joy though. I hope those of you using LexTweet to discover what legal professionals are saying and to find people to follow are having as much fun as I am.

We're bring a real community of lawyers together, a tribe if you will. As marketing professional and author Seth Godin, says, 'All you need for a tribe is people with a common interest and a means of communicating.'

Since working with legal communities on AOL 13 years ago, I've loved bring people with similar interests together. In the case of lawyers, I think we're some pretty good folks who offer the American people a great deal. And over the years I've found lawyers to be some of the finest people you'd ever want to meet, both personally and professionally.

LexTweet not only allows us to get to know those we already know a little better, but allows us to discover those we don't already know. Tim O'Reilly, founder of O'Reilly Media and a supporter of the free software and open source movements, says 'Facebook is for the people you already know. Twitter is for discovering the people you want to know.'

3 weeks into LexTweet, I know it's a project LexBlog will continue to work on. In the coming weeks and months expect to see:

• Groups of users by area of law, specific professions within the law, geography, and memberships to organizations.
• Profiles of users making it easy to get to know who to follow.
• Display of brief profiles when mousing over a person's avatar.
• Event grouping of LexTweet users ala LegalTech in New York next week.

As with any good community, we'll listen to you, the members. Continue to share ideas how to improve LexTweet.

LexBlog will work with you to make LexTweet a community that we'll all find personally and professionally rewarding.

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Many of you (we hope) are familiar with LexTweet, the website LexBlog launched on New Years Day. As Kevin explained last Friday, the goal of the site is to showcase members of the legal community who are using Twitter as well as what they are tweeting.

There has been a lot of feedback and a fair share of suggestions for how to improve LexTweet. It still has a few kinks that need to be worked out, and look for faq and disclaimers coming soon -- but the early response has been overwhelmingly positive.

• Ed Adams (@edadams), Editor and Publisher of the ABA Journal, tweeted that LexTweet is a 'Massive game-changer for social media adoption by lawyers.'
• Edmund Scanlan (@edscanlan), CEO of Total Attorneys, called LexTweet 'a great business vertical specific site built around Twitter.'
• Author and legal commentator, Walter Olson, (@walterolson) tweets, 'Now we have faces: outstanding resource for anyone interested in law/lawyers and Twitter.'
• Attorney Alexis Neely (@AlexisNeely) had a rave response of 'Dude, I LOVE LexTweet.com. You are so awesome. Lawyers on Twitter go to LexTweet.com and join now.'
• M. Stucky, an ungrad with an interest in law (@stupub13) said, 'I'm incredibly pleased with LexTweet. A great tool to find people to follow when you're new to Twitter. Thanks!'

Already, people are seeing a bounce in followers after joining LexTweet, like attorney Erich Rapp (@erichrapp): 'I Like Lextweet. I have had an increase in the rate of new followers joining my log in the last day or so. Probably attributable.'

Along with the positive there has been constructive criticism.

• Attorney Daniel Schwartz (@ctemplawyer) questioned, 'Is ranking people on lextweet by followers the best way? You wouldn't rank blogs by lexblog by hits, would you?'
• Bruce Carton (@brucecarton), Editor of 'Securities Docket' noted, 'The truth: LexTweet is a brilliant concept, visually beautiful. But without groups, not very useful to me because way too broad.'

Both good points, and under consideration by the LexBlog development team.

If you have feedback and suggestions on LexTweet, we want to hear from you. Tweet your suggestions while referencing the term lextweet (we monitor our name), reply or direct a tweet to Kevin O'Keefe (@kevinokeefe), or email Kevin.

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Lextweet is a new website developed by LexBlog showcasing members of the legal community who are using Twitter as well as what they are tweeting.

Lextweet community members include lawyers as well as other professionals serving our legal profession. I have learned equally from marketing professionals, publishers, service providers, law students, and other professionals as from other lawyers during my time on Twitter.

What Lextweet truly is and what it will become will be determined by you, members of the legal community. We want to hear your suggestions and ideas.

Right now I can see Lextweet being used in a number of ways.

• Finding legal professionals to follow on Twitter. Till now the best way to find people to follow on Twitter was to look at who another legal professional was following and browse those followers. I heard that Twitter users in the Lextweet community saw a bump in Twitter followers late last night and this morning with the launch of Lextweet.
• Seeing what legal professionals are tweeting about. New users of Twitter are at a loss as to what to key into that text field asking 'What are you doing now?' Reading some of the Tweets at Lextweet will remove some of the cloud as to how other legal professionals are using Twitter.
• See how those members with the most followers are using Twitter. The number of Twitter followers is not definitive of one's influence or importance. However, it may be worth a peek at what how a user with a high number of followers is using Twitter. Why are people following them?
• Getting to know other legal professionals in a real and meaningful way. I have met and networked with legal professionals from around the world while tweeting about professional and personal matters. I'm sure others can attest to the same. Bringing like minded people together may at the end of the day be the biggest thing Lextweet does.

I also see Lextweet advancing the adoption rate of Twitter among legal professionals. Seeing first hand how others are benefitting from Twitter and how easily Twitter can be used has got to make Twitter more approachable.

Suggestions are already coming in. Forming groups by locale, area of practice, and profession leads the way. Second is a quick way to see one's profile, perhaps by browsing over a member's avitar. Keep making suggestions. It'll help guide us with future development.

And Lextweet, like any new website, is in beta. There will be bugs along the way, both that we'll discover and that community members will find. Nothing major so far, but do keep letting us know what you find.

Continued success in the new year and let me know what you think about Lextweet.

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