Can social networking benefit Biglaw firms? On the one hand, any way for firms to directly reach prospective clients and new hires sounds like something that should garner Biglaw interest. On the other hand, sites like Twitter have yet to prove themselves as a business generation tool.

But regardless of whether you think Biglaw firms should be in on the Twitter game or not, certainly firms should be protecting their brand names on Twitter. (Ed. Note: Above the Law is on Twitter. And so are your editors, David Lat, Kashmir Hill, and me). It appears that if Biglaw firms ever join the Twitter age, they’ll have to fight with cyber-squatters to get their names back. Legal Blog Watch reports:

Going through a list of the top 50 law firms, I was quite surprised to see that no less than 95 percent of the names that I thought these top 50 law firms would eventually want to use were unregistered. I suggested in a post on my own blog that day that anyone reading from BigLaw should “take 30 seconds and register your law firm’s name today … Even if you don’t understand what Twitter is, please just trust me and do this. Your law firm will thank you later, I promise!” I listed about 35 no-brainer Twitter usernames that I felt BigLaw needed to immediately lock up (e.g., @dlapiper, @jonesday, @akingump).

Just a few days later, the Biglaw Twitter names were gone. But were they snapped up by law firms?

More after the jump.

* Struggling to compete for business in a shrinking market, law firms are hiring image and marketing consultants to improve their chances—one Philadelphia-based image consultant even tells them how to dress for the courtroom. Lay-off problem solved—apparently all you need is a makeover. [The Wall Street Journal]

* Not only that, but in an effort to be more business savvy, more firms are investing in management courses for their top lawyers. [The Wall Street Journal]

* Tweets lawyers should follow. [Law.com]

* Jeffrey Toobin on John Roberts. [The New Yorker]

UPDATE: * Kash on Toobin on Roberts. [Above The Law]

* The District US Court of Appeals ruled that the White House can keep emails from the public because the White House Office of Administration is not subject to The Freedom of Information Act. [The Philadelphia Inquirer]

Just to be clear, I substantially agree with Futurelawyer on the abject horror of twittering. If God wanted people to have Twitter pages he wouldn’t have made sphincters; there are some things that should be kept inside until the appropriate time.

Given that, it is disturbing that Yammer took home the top prize at TechCrunch50. Yammer brings Twitter to internal corporate communications. TechCrunch claims that 10,000 people and 2,000 organizations signed up for the service Monday, the day it launched.

Firms already have associates on the short electronic leash known as the BlackBerry. Many firms internally IM. What possible good could come from bringing this Yammer thing into the workplace?

From Yammer’s website:

Yammer is a tool for making companies and organizations more productive through the exchange of short frequent answers to one simple question: “What are you working on?”

As employees answer that question, a feed is created in one central location enabling co-workers to discuss ideas, post news, ask questions, and share links and other information. Yammer also serves as a company directory in which every employee has a profile and as a knowledge base where past conversations can be easily accessed and referenced.

Excuse me while I go to the bathroom, get a coke from the fridge, take a drag, stare longingly out of the window, and go back to blogging after the jump.