American Bar Association / ABA, Social Media

How Do ABA Candidates For Board Of Governors And President-Elect Use Social Media?

Do they use Twitter and Facebook professionally? Do they blog?

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social-media-300x199The ABA Journal just shared a list and bio of the 13 candidates for the American Bar Association’s Board of Governors and President-Elect of the ABA.

I was struck that no where in the ABA Journal’s coverage of the candidates did it include the personal social media accounts or blogs of the candidates.

My cynical side wondered if the candidates used Twitter and Facebook professionally. Do they blog so as to express their passion and network with people with similar interests?

There was little I knew about these folks. I wondered how much other lawyers knew about the candidates. How were we going to find out about them — from them — if they didn’t use the Internet?

The days of marketing announcements, emails, and public relations to inform and shape opinion are behind us.

Today, we get to know people faster and in a more real way than ever before. It’s because of the Internet, and in particular social media (blogging, Twitter, and Facebook).

We hear people’s voices in a genuine and authentic fashion. We feel people’s passion as they speak to us directly. We establish trust with each other via immediate and personal online exchange. We even get to know people as people, outside of their professional lives.

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I could look up each candidate and find out how they use social media. I fear I’ll find that folks are not be doing what they can to connect with lawyers and the average people in this country.

I fear that they may not be serving as role models for American lawyers to jump on the Internet to learn, network, engage, build a name, and advance causes important to them.

These candidates are charged with advancing the causes of veteran’s legal rights, access to legal services, innovation/technology in law practice management, and human rights. To learn, connect, and engage lawyers and the American people so as to truly advance these causes, the candidates, more so than other lawyers, need to be using the same communication medium the rest of us use — social media.

Seven-in-ten Americans today use social media to connect with one another, engage with news content, and share information. That’s up from 1-in-20 just 10 years ago. Almost as many people use Facebook professionally as use LinkedIn professionally.

Young adults may have been the early adopters of social media, but the age, earning power, and education levels of social media users today mirrors that of lawyers and the consumers of legal services.

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Nothing prevents ABA leaders from using social media. In-house counsel, managing partners, and executives leading companies serving our industry use social media to communicate.

Dennis Garcia (@DennisCGarcia), Assistant General Counsel at Microsoft, sees Twitter as invaluable to lawyers for learning, networking, getting news, being an evangelist, and building a strong reputation.

Fred Headon, Assistant General Counsel of Air Canada, told a Chicago audience of lawyers last fall that lawyers are making themselves irrelevant to most people because lawyers fail to communicate like everyone else — on social media.

Those ABA leaders not using social media are making themselves, and with them, the ABA, irrelevant to lawyers and the American public.

There are exceptions. Current President of the ABA, Linda Klein, uses Twitter to engage lawyers (even yahoos like me) and the public. Tom Bolt of the Law Practice Division also uses social media via blogging and more. But I fear they are the exception, not the rule.

I hope that the ABA Journal and the candidates will come back at me showing me and lawyers everywhere how the candidates are indeed personally using social media to communicate, connect, engage and advance important causes in the law.

It wouldn’t be the first time I was “set right” by the ABA.

Kevin O’Keefe (@kevinokeefe) is the CEO and founder of LexBlog, which empowers lawyers to increase their visibility and accelerate business relationships online. With LexBlog’s help, legal professionals use their subject matter expertise to drive powerful business development through blogging and social media. Visit LexBlog.com.

LexBlog also hosts LXBN, the world’s largest network of professional blogs. With more than 8,000 authors, LXBN is the only media source featuring the latest lawyer-generated commentary on news and issues from around the globe. Visit lxbn.com now.

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