Twitter Round-Up December 24, 2017
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Twitter Round-up: A glimpse of notable comments, ideas, links, and articles. Topics relate to: law/legal practice, digital, analytics, social media for lawyers, ethics, innovation, SEO, business development, marketing, and the future of law.
BELOW: Does your firm fit its business to clients'? · Learn more about clients with systems for data collections · DC bar ethics opinions (more of the same?) · What's Automation, and why should I use it in my law practice?
The item above (from Digital Summit Dallas) ties in with the tweet below. I emphasize these concepts for lawyers & law firms because those wise enough to envision their legal practice as partnership with the client (i.e. as a partner in the client's business) will deepen that relationship for long-term gain.
The more you learn about clients and prospects, the more data you accumulate, which can be synthesized into actionable information. Andy Wilson (below) makes the point we should be open to and create avenues for (clients) to provide data, though Alex Smith notes that legal hasn't seen high influx, compared with other industries. This is likely because legal hasn't pushed for the systems that enable data creation and collection. And, THAT won't receive emphasis until (marketers?) help demonstrate to legal the rich value of asking questions of clients and reassuring lawyers that, yes, client feedback should be a regular process, and, yes, clients are OPEN to being asked for their opinions and ideas.
I replied to the above with: Depends. Was asked in Spring 2016: "Why do we keep talking @ Big Data?" ...by legal marketer. As LMs, we must...understand, study, use data & analytics, then rinse and repeat. 😉 #LegalMarketing #PracticeDevelopment
Alex followed with a prediction:
In November, the DC Bar offered two ethics opinions...
Here's the link to the ABA Journal article. @KevinOKeefe succcinctly sums it up:
I teach a Social Media & Legal Ethics CLE, and agree with Kevin -- especially for one sentence in the opinion that is the root of what I teach, and of Kevin's point:
“Attorneys who choose to use social media must adhere to the Rules in the same way that they would if using more traditional forms of communication. ”
Here's the Ethics Opinion.
The opinion does mention that attorneys should be wary of allowing others to view their contacts. Since the most popular social media tool related to this issue is LinkedIn, here is the LI answer for how you secure your contacts....though you can't hide them from everyone. (Because - that's the deal in the first place: creating a place to harbor your connections and leveraging those for networking purposes.)
As for With Whom You Connect on LinkedIn, the rule of thumb followed by the State Bar of Texas is -- make sure you actually know your connections. The Bar's interest, and that of LI as well, is that you don't connect to everyone under the sun. That is seen as spammy. When I teach on this I say, "Network online as you would in real life. You wouldn't enter the room handing a business card to every person present including the wait staff, nor would you arrive with a stack of cards, yet linger in the corner not speaking with anyone. Similarly, you don't refrain from connecting with anyone on LI, and you don't click 'ACCEPT' on every invitation. Just follow the DC Bar (and logic) - network online as you do in real life.
From the Massachusetts Bar: What's Automation and Why Should I Use It in my Law Practice?
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