LinkedIn for Dummies Lawyers, Part 2: Building Your LinkedIn Network

How can you leverage LinkedIn for your career as a lawyer? Follow these easy steps.

Ed note: This is the latest installment in a series of posts from Lateral Link’s team of expert contributors. Kristina Marlow is a Director with Lateral Link’s D.C. office who brings almost 20 years of experience in the Washington legal market to her work with associate and partner candidates. Prior to joining Lateral Link, Kristina spent a decade at Gibson Dunn, first as a litigation associate and then as the D.C. office’s recruiting manager. A Michigan native, Kristina earned her J.D., cum laude, from Georgetown University Law Center’s evening program and a B.A. in Journalism from Michigan State University, where she was named “Outstanding Senior.”

Dear Associate at a Biglaw Firm: I am the legal recruiter to whom you were introduced in a recent post on Above the Law. I am hoping we can connect regarding our shared interest in maximizing your use of LinkedIn…

Not sure how to respond? I understand your hesitation, both to accept my LinkedIn invitation and to waste spend any more billable time on social media. After all, you signed up for the site, posted a professional picture, edited your headline so that it no longer reads “Name, Title, at Employer,” and fleshed out your profile. And what came of it?!? Probably nothing. That may be because there are three building blocks of LinkedIn: Profiles, Connection, and Participation, and, according to LinkedIn in One Hour for Lawyers authors Dennis Kennedy and Allison Shields, lawyers are often completely unaware of at least one of those three key features. Digital media strategist Helen Pitlik observes on flipthemedia.com that “[m]any lawyers don’t use social media because they don’t think they can get clients from online activity.” Other lawyers “start using social media thinking that this will attract clients, and give up because it doesn’t,” Pitlick concludes in her article, Why Don’t Lawyers Use Social Media. “Traditional law firm marketing is designed to increase business, and this runs counter to the information- and relationship-based principles of social media.”

Nonetheless, Greentarget’s 2014 State of Digital & Content Marketing Survey of in-house counsel and law firm CMOs found LinkedIn to be the social network perceived to have the most professional relevance for lawyers. Moreover, Greentarget reported, “LinkedIn continues to be viewed as the ‘serious’ social network among in-house lawyers, generating the most use for professional reasons.” Why is it so popular? The reason is that second building block Kennedy and Shields mentioned: Connection. LinkedIn’s core value proposition, Linked Intelligence points out, is its ability to answer the question, “Who do I know who knows somebody who…?” That is consistent with Greentarget’s finding that nearly half of in-house counsel “envision a future in which the diversity of a lawyer’s engagement on LinkedIn — number of connections, participation in groups, use as a vehicle for distributing quality content — will play an important role in influencing clients to hire that lawyer.” Before LinkedIn, Linked Intelligence notes, an in-house counsel looking for a referral would either: (a) ask the people in his network most likely to know outside counsel with that specialty (although he may still miss the best candidate “because so often those connections aren’t necessarily obvious”); or (b) contact everybody he knows, which would quickly wear thin, since the same 1% usually responded.

HOW TO BE THAT “SOMEBODY WHO SOMEONE THINKS OF” WHEN ASKED FOR A REFERRAL
To be that “somebody who someone thinks of” when asked for a referral, you need to establish a more visible social media presence. And you can take that next step by inviting other users to connect. LinkedIn is “quick, easy, and cuts to the chase of wanting to make contacts but not spend a lot of time doing so,” content developer Lisa Wilson advises, in her article, Why Lawyers Should Be Using LinkedIn. “The beauty of LinkedIn is its simplicity…. LinkedIn is basically a virtual resume that’s all about marketing yourself and your business.” When used to its full capacity, Wilson advises, LinkedIn can help you establish your reputation among professionals and clients, build industry credibility, and even monitor your competition.

So, how do you build a network that will keep you in front of the right people? To start, because you will be using your law firm email address and professional identification, you should consult your firm’s social media policy. Some firms caution against “connecting” with anyone who you do not actually know or with whom you have not previously corresponded. Others specifically prohibit inviting clients to connect but allow attorneys to accept client invitations.

After you have ascertained your firm’s policy, develop the criteria for your connections. Could someone be a client? Could they be a referrer? If not, you may want to connect on Facebook or elsewhere instead to keep your LinkedIn contacts professional. LinkedIn guidelines even recommend that its users not connect with people they would not personally recommend although, as Michelle Golden notes in her book “Social Media Strategies for Professionals and Their Firms,” most LinkedIn users do not construe a connection as an implied endorsement, and therefore do not limit their connections to users they would recommend. Next, make a plan of attack. Keep in mind with whom you would ultimately like to connect. LinkedIn initially limits all users to 3,000 invitations, which should allow you to invite a reasonably large number of connections.

LEVERAGE YOUR INBOX
If you have not already, start by accessing your email contacts. Go to the Connections tab on your LinkedIn Home Page, which is the third bookmark from the left along the top. Pull down to Add Connections. On the screen titled “See Who You Already Know on LinkedIn,” enter the email address/password tied to your LinkedIn account, and click on the “Continue” button. LinkedIn will ask to access and search your email account. (You can convert from Outlook to a .txt or .cvf file, but that is not necessary.) It will import your address book in order to suggest LinkedIn users to whom you might want to connect; however, it will not email anyone without your permission. Initially, LinkedIn will pull up the profiles of people you know who are already members. DO NOT SELECT ALL unless you are sure that you want to connect to everyone you have ever emailed. Instead, uncheck “Select all” and choose your contacts individually. (Note: You cannot personalize the invitations that are sent this way, so, per the discussion below, you may want to make a list and invite each individually depending on how many you have.) Next, LinkedIn will give you the option of emailing your contacts who are not members, to invite them to join LinkedIn. You can skip this step, because the people with whom you want to connect are likely to be already on LinkedIn.

WELCOME LINKEDIN’S SUGGESTIONS
LinkedIn will then bring you to the People You May Know screen, which will display a number of thumbnails of other members. (In the future, you can access this screen again from your home page by clicking on the People You May Know heading in the right-hand column.) From the People You May Know screen, you can:

(1) Dismiss the suggestion (and get a new one) by hovering over the top right-hand corner of the person’s photo and clicking the “X”;

(2) Click on the person’s photo, which will take you to their profile. From there, you can click on the “Connect” button in the heading of their profile, and then write a personalized invitation. This is the preferred method for connecting, discussed further below; or

(3) Invite suggested members to connect using the generic default message by clicking the “Connect” button under the person’s name. DO NOT DO THIS. HubSpot staff writer Lindsay Kolowich compares it to approaching a stranger at a business conference (maybe someone whose recent article in Business Insider you enjoyed), extending your hand, and saying (without introduction): “I’d like to add you to my professional network.” It would be awkward. And rude. Which is why some users refuse to accept these generic messages. Moreover, as Dennis Kennedy and Shields told YourABA in LinkedIn: How to Grow, Nurture Your Network and Obtain Results, “Don’t count on your invitees clicking over to LinkedIn to view your Profile or to searching for you online when they get your invitation. Give them enough information to identify who you are and why connecting with you makes sense for them.” As Kolowich advises in How to Write the Perfect LinkedIn Invitation [Template], “your message should show them that you actually care about connecting with them — you weren’t just trolling LinkedIn, hoping to get your connections past the 500 mark.” Lindsay Griffiths offers some tips in her book, LinkedIn for Lawyers: A Step-by-Step Guide: (1) Be direct; (2) Let them know who you are; and (3) Let them know how you know each other.

HOW TO CONNECT WITH COMPLETE STRANGERS
Before you send a personalized invitation, LinkedIn asks how you know the intended recipient. Is she a colleague? Former classmate? Friend? Someone with whom you have done business? No? Then how can you connect with that stranger from the conference? If you say “Other,” you will be asked to provide that her email address to prove that you really know each other. (But if you had her email address, you would likely contact her directly.) If you are honest and admit that you do not actually know this person, you will be scolded by a LinkedIn message reminding you that “Invitations should be sent only to people you know personally.” You can always lie and misrepresent how you know her. But in addition to being unethical (and not the best way to start any relationship), LinkedIn will punish you if too many recipients click “I don’t know this person” after getting your invitations.

Your options then include requesting an introduction through a mutual connection (a cumbersome process better accomplished by emailing your contact directly) or by paid InMail, which Tech for Luddites writer Elizabeth Kricfalusi explains how to do most cost-effectively in Send Messages to People You Don’t Know on LinkedIn. Also, if you are members of the same group, you can send a message to her directly. (You can find out which groups she belongs to by scrolling to the bottom of her profile.)

One lesser-known work-around: Go mobile and invite her to connect by using one of the LinkedIn apps called “Connected.” From the app Home page (swipe down), link to the search page using the “Find a Contact.” Click on the magnifying glass to search by name. Because that person is not already a contact, you will get a “No contact found. Continue Search on LinkedIn” message. That link will take you to the LinkedIn search results, where you can click on the profile picture of the person for whom you are searching. (The search feature is is another way to connect on your computer as well.) Scroll down and click on the button to view the person’s full profile. Touch the square with an arrow pointing up in the right-hand corner, then choose “customize invite.” This will allow you to send a message to the member without specifying how you know him or her.

If she accepts your invitation, she becomes what is known as a “first-degree” connection. By default, first-degree connections can see each other’s list of connections, which allows you to browse her network to find mutual (and potential) friends and colleagues. Even if you choose to hide your connections (by rolling over your thumbnail picture at the top right, then choosing “Privacy and Settings” from the pull-down menu), your first-degree connections will always be able to see which connections you share.

It’s the beginning of a beautiful relationship.


Lateral Link is one of the top-rated international legal recruiting firms. With over 14 offices world-wide, Lateral Link specializes in placing attorneys at the most prestigious law firms in the world. Managed by former practicing attorneys from top law schools, Lateral Link has a tradition of hiring lawyers to execute the lateral leaps of practicing attorneys. Click ::here:: to find out more about us.

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