Lawyers coming to LinkedIn

Lawyers are coming to LinkedIn quickly posts Steve Matthews this morning.

I mentioned LinkedIn during an in-house presentation at my law firm a few weeks back, and knew at that point about 15% of our Lawyers were on it. Checking back today, that number has jumped to around 35%……Lawyers already get networking for [business development] and the ‘it’s who you know’ concept, so these numbers really shouldn’t surprise. There’s a tipping point on any new technology, especially in the legal industry, where adoption suddenly becomes socially acceptable. Many newer web technologies — blogs, wikis, RSS, tagging, etc. — are building towards that tipping point. It seems strange to say this, but social networking might just be closer to that cultural break than any of the others.

As way of background, LinkedIn is a business oriented social networking site, mainly used for professional networking. As of May 2007, it had more than 11 million registered users, spanning 150 industries and more than 400 economic regions.

I’m advising LexBlog clients to used LinkedIn for building the network of people they’re meeting through their blog. That network should include:

• Bloggers whose content our clients reference in their own blog.
• Bloggers who reference our clients’ blog content.
• Reporters whose content our clients’ reference in their own blog.
• Bloggers who they admire and who blog they subscribe to.
• Reporters and journalists they have been interviewed by.
• Program coordinators for conferences the blogger has presented or wants to present at.
• Lawyers and other folks they meet whether via email or conference appearances.

Do this for 6 months and you are going to have hundreds of connections to reach out to for various purposes. And those connections are updating their profile and their connections on LinkedIn all the time. Much more powerful than your contact manager.

Technorati Tags: LinkedIn