Tag Archives: Roberta Gubbins

September 7, 2018 · 10:47 pm

Is Instagram for Lawyers?

Instagram is for Lawyers

“What is Instagram?” Lance asked Jennifer, an associate at L & L Law Firm. “It’s a social networking app,” she answered. “It’s made for sharing photos and videos from your smartphone.”

“Some of the lawyers were taking pictures around the courthouse this morning,” said Lance. “They said they were going to post them on Instagram. Should we be doing that?”

Instagram is a visual platform, based on pictures and videos. Like other social networks, you can interact with users by following them, being followed by them, liking, tagging, commenting, and private messaging. According to Instagram’s website, there are over 800M users and 500M daily active users. Eight out of ten users follow at least one business.

Instagram is good for building your brand by creating a visual story of your life in and out of the law. While the law may not be photogenic, the people working with the law are. Take pictures of the people behind the scenes at your office. Share a picture of a new associate coming in the door ready to work, or upload an image of your office manager blowing out the candles on their birthday cake.

Look for pictures of the firm’s community involvement. Take photos of lawyers and staff running in a marathon or distributing bicycle helmets. Some images might be connected to your legal expertise, such as a short clip of you speaking at a seminar. Others could connect to your niche practice, such as landscapes for environmental law, or office buildings for employment law. For a few ideas, spend some time researching to see what other lawyers are posting.

The law is a service business that’s all about building relationships. Using Instagram can help build a complete picture of who you are as a person and as a lawyer, making you more accessible to your clients.

How to Get Noticed on Instagram

Instagram users categorize their images using #hashtags. These hashtags help users find your posts. To help their search, the caption of your picture and the hashtags should be related. You can check out a hashtag before posting it by using Instagram’s search feature to see what other images and posts appear. You may find more hashtags that are applicable to your post.

Remember, Instagram is a social network, so keep ethics rules in mind, follow people, comment on their posts, and reply to the comments you have received.

Instagram is another marketing tool to have in your social media tool box. If you have clients who are in businesses such as food, fashion, design, or hospitality, they may be active on Instagram. Simply commenting or liking their post will help build a relationship with that client. Consider posting your own images and take some time to enjoy the images posted by others.

After years practicing law, Roberta Gubbins served as editor of the Ingham County Legal News. Since leaving the paper, she provides writing services to lawyers ghostwriting content for websites, blogs, and articles. She is editor of The Mentor, the SBM Master Lawyers Section newsletter.

Social Media & Lawyers in 2018 By Roberta M. Gubbins

Seven Common Mistakes

The lawyer sitting next to you at the conference is busy writing a tweet, another is taking a selfie to post on their Facebook, LinkedIn, or SBM Member Directory profile. It seems to you that everyone is busy using social media to market their practice. You could be right.

Although the legal profession has been slow to jump on the social media bandwagon, the 2017 Legal Technology Survey by the American Bar Association showed that more lawyers are maintaining a social media presence. Consider that 81% of lawyers use social media for professional reasons and that 77% reported their firms also maintain a presence.

The survey asked about practice areas and found that:

Employment and labor law lawyers are the most active (93%).
Personal injury and litigation next (84%).
Commercial law is third (82%).
Contract law is fourth (81%).

Career development, networking, and client development were the most popular reasons given for using social media.

What Social Media is Most Popular with Lawyers

The social network most used for professional purposes was LinkedIn; 90% have a LinkedIn profile, Facebook was second with 40%, and Twitter came in third at 26%. 99% of law firms with 100 or more attorneys used social media for career development while solo practitioners reflect a still impressive 81%.

The Advantages of Using Social Media

Social media builds relationships.
You will reach consumers that never come to your speaking events, read your newsletter, or view your blog. Your tweets can find new readers who will comment or retweet your message to their followers.
You gain name and brand recognition.
People come to know you by your choice of words, style of writing, and the topics you pick. Use an easy to read style, offer real information, and show them you are approachable and they will be loyal and frequent readers.
Use visitor analytics and reader comments to learn more about your audience. Knowing their interests will help you find topics for them.
You can post a link to social media on your website and your SBM profile, making it easy for readers to find you.

The Disadvantages of Using Social Media

Time is money and time spent on social media is not billable, which means if you start a social media platform be sure you understand that time must be set aside to continue posting.
Content must be written, edited, and revised.
Social media creates demands on your talent, so posts must be relevant to your practice and interesting to a wide variety of readers. Fortunately, you have access to many topics with the weekly e-Journal and SBM NewsLinks posted daily.
You lose control of your content, since everything is available for comment.

Statistics show that 81% of the surveyed lawyers thought that the advantages of social media outweighed its disadvantages. If you decide to add a social media account, you’ll be in good company.

Comprehensible Writing for Your Clients by Roberta Gubbins

Comprehensible Writing for Your Clients

Organize Contacts Long ago, the drafters of legal documents in the United Kingdom were paid by the word. This led to needless verbiage to raise the word count and fee. The practice was banned in the 19th century, but the habit of creating long wordy documents too dense to understand continued.

In the 90s, an executive memo from President Bill Clinton required government agencies to write in plain English. The Michigan legal community was ahead of the trend away from legalese to plain English with its Plain Language column in the Michigan Bar Journal which began in May 1984, and continues to this day.

Using plain language helps you to be precise in your writing, whether it be a legal contract, an e-mail to clients, or a blog post. Providing clear and succinct information the reader can access quickly and understand helps. Here are a few tips for improving your writing:

The Reader—What kind of client is reading the newsletter, blog, or article? Consider their occupation, age range, level of education, or experience in the field. Give readers as much as they need to understand the situation and explain how the law looks at the problem. Think of talking to the client rather than giving a speech about the topic to your peers.

Help the Reader—Change legalese into plain English, for example:

Delay for defer
Must for shall
Grant for confer
Stop for desist
Reduction for abatement
Follow for comply with

Replace wordy phrases such as prior to, with regard to, or in connection with; these words have little meaning for readers and get in the way of understanding.

Style & Structure

Create white space with bullet points, boldface, lists, or subheads.
Keep sentences and paragraphs short.
Edit ruthlessly cutting out unnecessary words. Using fewer words improves speed, clarity, and impact. Adding more words distracts and slows down reading speed.
Use action verbs. Instead of saying “The bill was passed by the legislature,” try “The legislature passed the bill.” Or, rather than “Billy was arrested by the FBI” use, “The FBI arrested Billy.”
Review the article. Did you start with the most important part? Read the story out loud to find the trouble spots.
Sleep on it. Stephen King advises putting the manuscript in a drawer for six weeks to age. You don’t have that amount of time, but even a few hours can make a big difference.

Clean Up

Don’t rely on a spell checker to catch all errors.
Check for correct use of ‘its’ (possessive) and ‘it’s’ (it is).
Use contractions consistently (e.g. don’t use ‘we’ll’ in one place and ‘we will’ in another.

Finally, have fun with it. It’s not a brief for a judge, it’s a story for your clients. Enjoy the telling.

Roberta Gubbins has served as the editor of the Ingham County Legal News. Since leaving the paper, she provides services as a ghostwriter editing articles, blogs, and e-blasts for lawyers and law firms. She is the editor of The Mentor, SBM Master Lawyers Section newsletter.