The Scottish Young Lawyers’ Association (SYLA) held their annual conference on 24 June 2011 at The Corinthian Hotel in Glasgow.

In association with

The conference featured speakers expert in many areas of the legal profession, with the programme as follows:-

Innovation in Commercial Practice: the future of commercial legal services
Professor Stewart Brymer (Brymer Legal); Philip Rodney (Burness LLP); Valerie Surgenor (Macroberts LLP)

The Future of Rights of Audience in Scotland
Representatives of the Faculty of Advocates and the Society of Solicitor Advocates

The Future of the Law in Scotland: a UK and International Perspective
Richard Susskind, Legal Commentator and Author of The End of Lawyers

Progressing your career in challenging economic times
Jim Moser, Director of Learning and Development, Dundas & Wilson CS LLP

New technology, social media and the law: how to develop, and not destroy, your career
Brian Inkster (Inksters Solicitors); Gavin Ward (WardblawG); Philip Knight (Biggart Baillie LLP)

The Future of the Law in Scotland: The Perspective of the Law Society of Scotland
Lorna Jack, Chief Executive of the Law Society of Scotland

While these presentations spanned a day’s worth of information and discussion, this blog post focusses mainly on the presentations and discussions on how and why young lawyers can use social media to advance and not hinder their careers. As I note below, for a feed of all of the updates from the SYLA conference see the Twitter hashtag #SYLAAnnualConference

Social Media for Young Lawyers

I was invited, alongside Philip Knight of Biggart Baillie and Brian Inkster of Inksters, to speak on social media and how it can help young lawyers advance their careers. Unfortunately I missed the morning’s speakers, the reason being that I had a conflicting meeting to attend that morning with a lawyer, which meeting was coincidentally brought about because of Twitter.

Philip Knight, Biggart Baillie

Phil Knight of Biggart Baillie presented on how Twitter has allowed him to develop a strong personal brand and network within the Scottish legal profession. He reported, also, on some lucrative results for his firm, with a measurable amount of fees coming directly from his own activities on Twitter in the past year, mainly from referrals from other contacts.

Not only did Phil explain the benefits of using Twitter for his career, he also took the audience through the basics and some of the more advanced features of twitter, in addition to making reference to a list of top 100 legal tweeters in Scotland which was helpfully prepared before the event.

Reference was also made to his firm, Biggart Baillie, which currently has over 50 of its lawyers tweeting in addition to 19 specialist legal departments delivering legal updates. With such a vast presence on twitter, a social media policy is a good idea. Philip discussed some of the various methods of control, with best advice being:-

“Participate online in a respectful, relevant way that protects business reputation and of course follows the letter and spirit of the law.”

For further discussion of social media policies I would highly recommend David Morgan’s Linkedin group Employment Law for Human Resources in Scotland, where David of Burness LLP has recently been sharing his thoughts on how a professional social media policy should be drafted.

Phil rounded off his presentation by looking at some useful examples from the Scottish legal twitterati, concluding by wondering how many people in the audience will increase their own social media efforts. He asked this question publicly on twitter the next day:-

Brian Inkster, Inksters

Brian Inkster of Inksters then spoke about his firm’s experiences, together with some of his own tips on how lawyers can use social media effectively. Brian has already written about the event with commentary on his own presentation on the Inksters website which is well worth viewing.

Noting that Inksters were the first Scottish Law Firm to tweet, Brian explained how various other Twitter accounts have been set up for niche areas of law that Inksters cover, with each lawyer having their own Twitter account. It’s always great to hear Brian explaining the theory of Tweeting in Convoy, as Jon Bloor named it. The following extract from Jon’s site sums it up well:-

“I think it makes sense to see the firm’s Twitter account as the giant battleship at the centre of a convoy. What is really needed is some more nimble destroyers, which are perhaps less powerful, but can dart around and engage the enemy where needed.

There are firms who are using this type of approach. Inksters (the first Scottish firm on Twitter!) have a corporate Twitter account backed up by founding partner Brian Inkster’s personal Twitter account which he uses for less formal Tweets (see Brian’s full comment on my recent post).”

Through various slides, as per the above SlideShare presentation, Brian then led the audience through a chronological display of some of Inksters’ most significant tweets and other online developments. One of the interesting comments Inksters have received is that they are perceived by some to be a much larger firm than they are because of their powerful online presence.

Brian outlined the consequences of Inksters tweeting and compared the main social networks, with LinkedIn being seen as more professional and perhaps, as a result, more boring than Twitter, with FaceBook being for old friends rather than new connections.

Given that Brian is the founder of The Time Blawg, he gave some useful insights into law blogging, advising the young lawyers how easy it was to set up and publish a blog using the likes of WordPress, which is the platform used by The Time Blawg and this, WardblawG, among many others.

Brian concluded with a pertinent quote from Betsy Munnell commenting on Law Firm Twitteratigate at The Time Blawg:-

“Clearly, and the data in your post makes this point many times over, young lawyers need to teach themselves how to use social media for their careers. They cannot wait for their firms to catch up–not if they wish to build self-sustaining practices, not if they wish to survive this economy and the coming revolution in the delivery of legal services.”

Gavin Ward, Moore Legal Technology

Following this, I presented on some of my own experiences of using social media.

First, I explained my own path from qualifying as a solicitor at Maclay Murray & Spens LLP in 2010 to becoming engaged in blawging in order to share some of own legal knowledge and engage more with the legal profession, which all resulted in me becoming a search and social media consultant to law firms at Moore Legal Technology.

I then presented 10 tips on how lawyers can use Linkedin effectively. The illustrations can be viewed within the powerpoint above, which will become the subject of another blawg post. Essentially, I explained that young lawyers should learn how to do the following on Linkedin:-

Tip 1: Create a Solid Profile
Tip 2: Join Relevant Groups
Tip 3: Engage in Group Discussions
Tip 4: Find Relevant Contacts
Tip 5: Connect with relevant contacts
Tip 6: Start Recommending
Tip 7: Connect your website and twitter account(s)
Tip 8: Select a unique URL
Tip 9: Promote your linkedin profile to your social networks
Tip 10: Monitor who is viewing your profile

The main benefits of Linkedin for lawyers were explained as being greater online presence particularly through search engines, the ability to build and develop a professional network, generate new business directly or via referrals and also with the opportunity to scope out competition.

I then presented on the top five reasons for young lawyers and barristers to get blogging.

I also suggested that if lawyers are interested in blogging, they would be more than welcome to register on my sister site Youblawg, which is currently housed at http://wardblawg.com/youblawg. After registering for free via the upper right section of the site, they will get access to post blogs or see how other blog posts look before getting published, at least from a WordPress perspective. If looking to set up a standalone blog, please get in touch with me at @GavWard on twitter and I can answer any queries.

My final piece of advice was:-

“DO NOT Stick your head in the sand when new business is sitting waiting for you”

Q&A Session

Brian, Phil and I were then involved in a Q & A session, facilitated by Martin Raymond of Cloudline, with interesting discussions generated regarding, amongst other things, What not to tweet, Twittiquette and conflict within law firms between the partners and younger tweeting lawyers, with additional discussion regarding the regulation of social media both at firm level and on a more global level.

SYLA Annual Conference Tweets

For a full feed of all the updates from the SYLA conference see the hashtag #SYLAAnnualConference or #SYLAConference. As Brian suggested, next year’s conference should probably use the hashtag #SYLA2012 – the shorter the better.

The event was concluded with a keynote speech from the Chief Executive of the Law Society of Scotland, Lorna Jack, leaving us with an optimistic outlook on the future of the legal profession in Scotland:-

To round up, I’ve selected some memorable tweets from or about this year’s event below:-

Below are some of the top 10 twitter tips for law firms and solicitors looking to get the most from twitter.

Twitter Marmite

For a comprehensive list of the top 50 reasons why law firms and lawyers should be on twitter, see my good friend Michelle Hynes-McIlroy’s blawg. For more detailed tips, of which there are many, I would strongly encourage you to look at Brian Inkster’s The Time Blawg’s post on the Law Firm Twitteratigate and comments therein.

But, for the firms and lawyers starting out or looking to improve their social media presence and capabilities to expand their professional network and develop more business, these should be an ideal starting point which should hopefully foster a love-love relationship with the social media world:-

1. Create at least two twitter accounts, one with firm’s name and one with targeted keywords and/or under your own name as a lawyer #twittertip

2. Edit settings to include a branded logo and background #twittertip

3. Follow and follow-back relevant twitter accounts, perhaps assisted by #twittertip

4. Contribute more than you promote yourself or your firm #twittertip

5. Create lists on twitter accounts using targeted keywords as headings #twittertip

6. Engage with your connections by monitoring your lists or saved searches for relevant keywords #twittertip

7. Embed your firm’s main twitter feed onto your firm’s website #twittertip

8. Use the #ff hashtag on Fridays to recommend your favourite people on twitter #twittertip

9. Follow people who have been recommended by your connections #twittertip

10. Last, but certainly not least, connect as much as possible by commenting and retweeting but don’t just rely on an RSS feed from your firm’s website and don’t spam eg via mentions or DMs #twittertip

Twitter Marmite image courtesy of a great twitter blog post from LandingNet. Comments welcome below.

For further information, please get in touch with me at wardblawg.com or Moore Legal Technology.

Despite the large availability of free social media and blogging platforms, there are still reports that some law firms have poor or, in extreme cases, non-existent brand awareness. Contrastingly, some are doing exceptionally well and winning business from social media and web presence. Below are seven top tips for law firms looking to improve their search engine optimisation (SEO):-

1. Choose targeted keywords for which your firm’s clients or prospective clients would search;

2. Include targeted keywords in the right places on your firm’s website, especially home page and key landing pages (think meta titles, headings and throughout the content itself), but don’t stuff keywords;

3. Create or integrate a blog that presents well to search engines and write content using targeted keywords;

4. Write great content and publish them either to your website or to other websites or blogs as guest posts.

5. Utilise several social media platforms like twitter or linkedin to send social signals to your firm’s website;

6. Don’t overdo it! Google’s Panda, Penguin and Exact match domain algorithm changes have meant that those trying to game the system will get caught out – always think about user experience;

7. Keep your firm’s website and blog updated with great quality content

If you have a tip you’d like to share or even a question you’d like to ask, please do so below or on twitter via the hashtag #SEOTip.

For further information, please get in touch Moore Legal Technology’s Legal SEO Experts.

Ever wondered how Google works? In becoming proficient in search engine optimisation (SEO), it is important to understand how Google’s spiders crawl the web. For a start, they tend NOT to look like this one:-

Seven Legged Spider Crawling Web

This flowchart below illustrates the basic things everybody serious about SEO and blogging should know. I hope it helps to improve your knowledge and understanding. Any questions or comments, please let me know.

Infographic by the Pay Per Click Blog

For further information, please get in touch with me at Wardblawg.com or, for a professional legal technology service for law firms, speak to Stephen Moore of Moore Legal Technology.

Social Media Statistics

To what extent is social media dominating the Internet and changing the face of business? Watch this video to discover out the figures:-

WardblawG Twitter Accounts to Follow

Twitter and the Law – Legal Issues For Twitter Video Marketing

Considering using Twitter for your law firm? What are the legal issues? http://www.reelseo.com/ interview a US IP attorney, Evan Brown for some general advice, including the answer to this fundamental question:-

03:27 I’d like to ask you, as an internet lawyer, what would you consider to be the most important legal issues today with using twitter for business purposes?

Evan 03:58 The same issues that you would have with anybody using twitter…It’s very easy to put up content on twitter; there’s very little preparation that needs to go into what you’re going to say. So, I think the over-arching issue for companies, is to remember how using twitter can affect the brand. That’s kind of a general notion that we can certainly unpack and break that down a little bit. But not only does a company need to be aware of what a company is saying about it’s own brand, it’s own goods, or services, or products, or what have you, to people in the marketplace, who may follow that company on twitter; but it also needs to be careful, the company needs to be careful about what it’s saying about other companies, other participants in the marketplace. So, you know, in this whole mixture of things that could possibly go wrong from a legal standpoint, I would say protecting the brand is probably the biggest single legal issue that could arise from twitter.

To summarise, protect your brand but don’t defame anyone or pass yourself off as another business. More discussion in the video here:-

Twitter and the Law – Developing Legal Business Through Twitter

How should your law firm be utilising Twitter? Explanations from Michelle Hynes-McIlroy aka LegalEagleMHM as interviewed by Stephen Moore of Moore Legal Technology and CaseCheck. See especially from 6:50 onwards. Michelle notes that she has adapted her use of Twitter over the course of 2010, so follow @LegalEagleMHM for an update in due course.

For further updates on social media use with particular focus on the legal profession and developing business for law firms, see the following links:-

WardblawG: Social Media Tips
WardblawG: Top 10 tips for law firms and lawyers on twitter
WardblawG: How to Dominate the Internet
WardblawG: Google Search Going Social