Based on information from an article in the ABA Journal by G. M. Filisko, a lawyer and freelance journalist in Chicago.
Online social networks are creating true believers. According to a recent ABA Journal article, lawyers are utilizing a number of these sites to generate new clients. But as you consider what is happening among professionals, keep in mind that political action groups as diverse as the NRA and the Obama campaign have moved up the network learning curve much faster than most legal professionals.
“MySpace was really the first. It’s for the younger crowd, but it’s OK,” says the associate at Bochetto & Lentz in Philadelphia. “Friendster is pretty much dead in the water. LinkedIn and Facebook are the two most popular, and Facebook is unbelievable. It has many of my attorney colleagues and high school and undergraduate friends. It’s an amazing way to connect with people from my past.”
According to the ABA article, some lawyers are constantly working the sites to build more contacts in the quest for new business. But be careful. Cyber-terrorists use these social mash-ups to identify valuable targets, including military and corporate personnel. That may be you and your family, Counselor. They also seem to be using networks like Twitter to surveil and plan events like the recent small arms attack on Mumbai.
“My LinkedIn connections are probably near 1,000,” one lawyer boasts in the article, “and I have about 965 friends on Facebook.”
It’s paying off, according to at least one lawyer who gets numerous requests for representation through LinkedIn and Facebook—at least 20 e-mails a month between the two sites. The lawyer is a former Philadelphia assistant district attorney. “I bring in an average of three to five cases a month from those contacts, whether it’s a driving-under-the-influence criminal case, civil representation or someone asking for a referral.”
The article explains that there are varying degrees of acceptance for the technology and whether the time spent is justified by the additional revenue generated.
"Are social networks worth it? How much time, effort and money must be spent to maximize their potential? And what is the reward? In the end, the answers vary depending on what you do online, how you do it and why."
According to the ABA’s annual Legal Technology Survey Report, only 15 percent of respondents say they’ve joined such a network.
“I have absolutely no interest in people I don’t know saying they want to be my friend,” jokes Gary Griffin, chief, General Law Bureau, Illinois Attorney General’s Office. “It’s not like I haven’t looked at these sites, but the fact that Kelly from Arkansas wants to be my friend —what do I care?”
The recent attack in Mumbai brought the citizen journalist to the forefront as people trapped during the mass executions sent reports to the outside world via Twitter. We are already asking via our powerful online shooter's network how things might have developed differently if the one or two of the photographers that followed the Mumbai shooter teams had guns instead of the cameras with which they took pictures at various locations. At least one photographer followed a team closely:
"Sebastian D'Souza, a picture editor at the Mumbai Mirror, whose offices are just opposite the city's Chhatrapati Shivaji station, heard the gunfire erupt and ran towards the terminus. "I ran into the first carriage of one of the trains on the platform to try and get a shot but couldn't get a good angle, so I moved to the second carriage and waited for the gunmen to walk by," he said. "They were shooting from waist height and fired at anything that moved. I briefly had time to take a couple of frames using a telephoto lens. I think they saw me taking photographs but they didn't seem to care."
The gunmen were terrifyingly professional, making sure at least one of them was able to fire their rifle while the other reloaded. By the time he managed to capture the killer on camera, Mr D'Souza had already seen two gunmen calmly stroll across the station concourse shooting both civilians and policemen, many of whom, he said, were armed but did not fire back. "I first saw the gunmen outside the station," Mr D'Souza said. "With their rucksacks and Western clothes they looked like backpackers, not terrorists, but they were very heavily armed and clearly knew how to use their rifles.
"Towards the station entrance, there are a number of bookshops and one of the bookstore owners was trying to close his shop," he recalled. "The gunmen opened fire and the shopkeeper fell down."
But what angered Mr D'Souza almost as much were the masses of armed police hiding in the area who simply refused to shoot back. "There were armed policemen hiding all around the station but none of them did anything," he said. "At one point, I ran up to them and told them to use their weapons. I said, 'Shoot them, they're sitting ducks!' but they just didn't shoot back."
As the gunmen fired at policemen taking cover across the street, Mr D'Souza realised a train was pulling into the station unaware of the horror within. "I couldn't believe it. We rushed to the platform and told everyone to head towards the back of the station. Those who were older and couldn't run, we told them to stay put."
The militants returned inside the station and headed towards a rear exit towards Chowpatty Beach. Mr D'Souza added: "I told some policemen the gunmen had moved towards the rear of the station but they refused to follow them. What is the point if having policemen with guns if they refuse to use them? I only wish I had a gun rather than a camera."
Remember how Corporal Alvin C. York used his .45 caliber pistol? He shot the last German in the line and with so much shooting and confusion going on the Germans in front never realized that one man was picking them off in a "turkey-shoot", of sorts:
"York used a hunting skill he learned when faced with a flock of turkeys. He knew that if the first soldier was shot, those behind would take cover. To prevent that, he fired his M1911 Colt .45-caliber semi-automatic pistol, targeting the men from the back to the front. The last German he shot was Endriss, who fell to the ground screaming in agony. York later wrote in his diary that he had shot five German soldiers and an officer like wild turkeys with his pistol."
See Sergeant Alvin York.
Many of our Firearms Lawyer viewers have been networking via LinkedIn which provides an opportunity to research the qualifications of professionals with whom you may already may be in contact via online forums and/or shooting activities. At first we got a spate of e-mails asking, "What is LinkedIn and what is it good for?" These networks do take a great deal of time and are not a magic bullet for getting a new job or more consulting work. Nevertheless, many people are signing on because we sense the potential that exists through linking up with like-minded professionals and activists.
You may not join as many sites as some of the lawyers in the article and most of us have not spent a great deal of time building connections. Most lawyers are way behind in harnessing these powerful tools for marketing and sharing information. We experiment and test the waters because: Online social networking doesn’t generate business. It’s time-consuming. It’s confusing. It’s invasive. It’s not professional. It’s just for socializing among the younger crowd.
The author of the ABA article points out, "Many attorneys and other professionals made the same arguments about e-mail and websites just 15 years ago. Technology experts say the naysayers are wrong again."
“At this point, you’ll find a lot of the usual suspects on all the sites, but the sites haven’t come to the point of having widespread application. That time will come, however, because interest in them is growing.”
"...a tech-savvy sole practitioner who specializes in intellectual property and technology law in Newport Beach, Calif., says social networks are important to the legal profession today, “yet not too many attorneys are participating in them. That’s a function of generational forces. People coming out of law school today are very steeped in this. As those people come up and begin managing the biggest law firms, you’ll see this communication become commonplace.”
But you can create a powerful space in which to transform the social environment one contact at a time or by reaching out to great numbers of people with the same ease with which you send e-mail.
“It’s like a phone book but you have unique control to build your profile, so it’s really powerful.”
"The big names include MySpace, which many people consider to be youth-dominated and nonprofessional; Facebook, which has a mix of young and older, and personal and professional, members; LinkedIn, a business networking site..."
STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES
"Another issue is that many attorneys actively involved in online social networking have never heard of the lawyer-to-lawyer sites. “I’m not even familiar with them, and I’m pretty Internet-savvy,” says Jason Trumpler, a solo with offices in Texas and California who’s had success networking on MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn."
‘I’M IN. NOW WHAT?’
“I haven’t really advertised my LinkedIn presence too much, and I might have a better presence if I did but I’m not looking at it as a big marketing component. I’m experimenting a little to see where it goes."
In conclusion, for those of you like us that are wondering whether this new online social technology is worth the time and energy, keep in mind that online spaces are where society is being transformed and where we will be organizing in the future. Our enemies, competitors, friends and people that want to be friends and customers are using Twitter while the military is preparing to utilize similar technology to keep track of developments on the battlefield.
See Online Social Networks
See also American Bar Association Constitutional Law Blawgs.
