Women Lawyers Talk Social Media

My first social media event of November was a meeting of the Georgia Association for Women Lawyers, GAWL, held at the Georgia State Bar offices. The first thing I noticed was that this was an unusually well dressed crowd:-)  State Bar HQ is a superb facility. I like.

I was not too surprised to learn that the legal community is behind the general wave of social media users. The majority of those attending had very limited online experience, with Facebook being the most popular site in use. [It seems that I have some potential lawyer clients to woo, as the need is ubiquitous!]

Some simple advice given for those just beginning ..

• start with a mainstay like LinkedIn or Facebook, and simply begin with setting up an account.
• Check the registrars to see if your name is available as a domain and grab it if so.
  [I use, and like, GoDaddy.com for this.]
• While at it, register your kids or grandchild’s names as well! You’ll be glad later.
• I’d add accounts at Twitter,  Youtube & Flickr as well, just to lock in the names if you can.
• begin building your profile with accurate info and include only the contact info you want to make public.
• Look at profiles, sites and blogs of others you respect and see how they’re doing it. Use as a guide.
• Think about your own social media policy. Start very conservatively until you feel comfortable.
• Search Google, and set a Google alert for your name, [business name etcc]

All this activity doesn’t really replace the personal contact that is vitally important to this profession. It enhances your efforts and get you ‘out there’ to be noticed where the people are.

A local trainer, Taryn Pisaneschi, reminds professionals to ‘mind the gap’ and not to rely on social media connections, but to use the social networks to learn about more real life opportunities to be visible. Meetings, events, workshops etc..all give great opportunities to be visible IRL (in real life).  The social media component just strengthens your presence.

Two sites for lawyers were feature that are great if you’re in the business.  It’s odd that one is known as ATL, not Atlanta but Above The Law This site has major hot topics and new form the field of law. Elie Mystal, of ‘that other’ ATL, was one of the excellent panelists.

Also, appearing from Laterallink.com, Michael Allen brought some good ideas and information on the uses and benefits of their recruitment site and also LinkedIn.  Any lawyer that may not be in their last job should be working these two sites.

Two Atlanta women involved in social web businesses rounded out the panel. Jenny DeVaughn of Social Percission , and   Jackie Hutter of The Hutter Group shared some great ideas and insight into their experiences in advising attorney firms in the real world.

For me this event was lacking in my favorite aspects of social networking and media, and that’s video and SEO, [search engine optimization]. I wasn’t disappointed however as with only 90 minutes to cover the topic it was deliciously filled. I learned a lot, as did everyone there, but I could feel many in the room realizing that they’d only just begun. How true.

I give the event a solid A for content, and the box lunch was  super too. The gurls of GAWL can really be proud. Given the chance I’d go back for more.