How Are Lawyers Using Social Media?

If you're a solo lawyer, there's a good chance that you have at least some social media presence for your business. But have you ever wondered just how you stack up in comparison to other attorneys out there? What are the other lawyers and firms doing that you might not be?

To answer that question, we happily stumbled onto this infographic already put together by the practice management company MyCase.com. We think you should check it out.

Highlights of the Infographic

• Three Quarters of Lawyers Maintain an Online Presence: About 76 percent of lawyers have an online presence. This should tell you where you ought to be.
• Law Firms Clearly Love Social Media: More than four out of five law firms out there have some sort of website, and frankly, we wouldn't expect anything less. The cost to benefit ratio of a firm having a website clearly weighs in favor of maintaining a site for purposes of getting clients.
• LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Google+: By far the most-used social media platform for lawyers is Linkedin at 57 percent, followed by Facebook at 35 percent.
• Corporate Law Is the most "Social": Not too surprisingly: commercial, corporate, and contract lawyers/firms are most likely to spend time updating their bios, posting to social media, and generally dedicating time of the platforms mentioned above.
• It's About Networking, Not So Much the Clients: Social media platforms being what they are, it's no surprise that lawyers would rank networking and career development as the dominant reason they turn to social media. Client development came in at 48 percent after career development's 71 percent.
• Blogging Matters: We swear we didn't make this number up, but 39 percent of lawyers polled say that they were retained because of their blogging. That number is astronomical if one thinks about it. According to the infographic, lawyers who do maintain a personal blog spend approximately two hours a week doing so.

The Skinny

More lawyers are turning to social media for career advancement and LinkedIn appears to be their primary weapon of choice. Although they capture clients and maintain contact with them through the platforms, this is not their primary impetus. Finally, it turns out that blogging is a very useful means of capturing clients as almost 40 percent of attorneys have been retained because of their blogging material. Perhaps you should spend some time to get your word out.

Related Resources:

• 10 Tips for Avoiding Ethical Lapses When Using Social Media (American Bar Association)
• Tricky Lawyer Turns Defamation Battle Into Copyright Dispute (FindLaw's Technologist)
• BigLaw AI Wars: DLA Piper Strikes Deal With Kira Systems (FindLaw's Technologist)
• DOJ: Apple v. Samsung Should Go Back to Lower Court (FindLaw's Technologist)