posted on July 11, 2017 by
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LinkedIn for Lawyers: Maximizing your Profile, Connections and Participation

I’ll be presenting a webinar with Dennis Kennedy, my co-author on the LinkedIn in One Hour for Lawyers books on July 11, 2017 from noon- 1 p.m. Eastern. The webinar is sponsored by Bloomberg BNA and the ABA Law Practice Division.

This program will help lawyers make the most of their online professional networking through LinkedIn by focusing on the three fundamental building blocks of LinkedIn: Profile, Connections and Participation. You will learn to create a robust dynamic profile, build your connections, use search tools for research and to enhance your network, monitor your network with ease, optimize your settings for privacy concerns, use LinkedIn effectively in the hiring process, and develop a LinkedIn strategy to grow your legal network, all while getting up to speed on features and the new changes recently implemented by LinkedIn.

This program brings something for everyone, from brand-new users of LinkedIn to those who have had a Profile for years. Whether you’re a brand-new associate, have just started your own practice, or you’ve been in practice for years and already have a robust network, the strategies in this program will help you use LinkedIn to your best advantage.

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posted on June 14, 2017 by
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LinkedIn Makes BIG Changes: What Lawyers Need to Know

Dennis Kennedy, my co-author on LinkedIn in One Hour for Lawyers, and I will be presenting a webinar with the ABA Law Practice Division on June 14, 2017 from 1-2:30 p.m. Eastern discussing the big changes LinkedIn has made with its new user interface this year, and what it means for lawyers using LinkedIn.

This program will walk you through the changes to LinkedIn, reorient you to what is available and how to find the features lawyers use the most, let you know what has been eliminated, and show you how to use LinkedIn’s new interface to your best advantage based on your individual goals and objectives.
This program is sponsored by the Law Practice Division, the ABA Center for Professional Development, and the ABA Young Lawyers Division.
  • List Price:$195.00
  • ABA Member Price:$150.00
  • Sponsor Member Price:$95.00
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posted on May 15, 2017 by
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[Infographic] Six Ways to Jumpstart Your LinkedIn Network

Is your LinkedIn network working for you?

In 2016, Dennis Kennedy, my co-author on LinkedIn in One Hour for Lawyers, and I wrote a two-part post on LinkedIn about how lawyers can reinvigorate their LinkedIn networks. That post was subsequently combined into one post on Law Technology Today.

As we say in the article, it’s usually best to send personalized invitations to connect and to always think strategically about who you want to connect with and why, as well as what might motivate that person to want to connect with you. But we also talk about some ways to add a lot of LinkedIn connections quickly at those times when that makes strategic sense for your practice.

We discuss these six ways to expand your LinkedIn network, whether you’re brand-new to LinkedIn or you’ve had a Profile for a number of years:

  1. Uploading your contacts/address book to LinkedIn to make connecting with those you already know in the “real world” easier
  2. Sending personalized invitations – your goal is to get the other person to accept your invitation to connect, so invite wisely!
  3. Using Groups to identify and reach out to potential new (targeted) connections
  4. Connecting with fellow alumni from your college or law school
  5. Searching 2nd level connections
  6. Using LinkedIn’s “People You May Know” suggestions

Although some things have changed since we wrote the initial piece because LinkedIn changed the user interface, the main ideas remain the same – you may just need to click in a different place to find what you’re looking for.

For example, now you’ll click Continue under add personal contacts on the left side of the page under My Network to upload your address book. And LinkedIn no longer provides the radio buttons to choose how you know someone when sending an invitation to connect. Find Alumni is no longer an option under the My Network menu, but you can still connect with fellow alumni by searching for your school and then clicking the See Alumni button.

You can find Part 1 of the article here (on my LinkedIn Profile) and Part 2 here (on Dennis’ LinkedIn Profile). Or check out this great infographic the folks at Venngage made for us for a quick visual reference:

Expand Your LinkedIn Network with Legal Ease Consulting

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posted on April 16, 2015 by
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LinkedIn’s Next Level – Getting More Return on Your Networking

Come join Dennis Kennedy and I at the ABA TECHSHOW 2015 for LinkedIn’s Next Level – Getting More Return on Your Networking, an advanced-level program for LinkedIn users.
You’ve already mastered the basics of LinkedIn: you’ve set up your LinkedIn account and filled in your Profile; you’re sending and accepting invitations and using LinkedIn to keep up with your professional network. So what’s the next step to make LinkedIn your powerhouse networking tool for your law practice? This session will show you how you can take advantage of the advanced and updated features of LinkedIn using the three building blocks of LinkedIn: Profiles, Connections, and Participation.

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posted on April 2, 2015 by
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LinkedIn for Lawyers: Reloaded ABA Center for Professional Development

This program was presented live on April 2, 2015, but is available for video download.

Panelists:
Dennis M. Kennedy, President, DennisKennedy.com, LLC, Saint Louis, MO
Allison C. Shields, President, Legal Ease Consulting, Inc., Mount Sinai, NY

Like many lawyers (and 225 million other LinkedIn users), you may have a profile on LinkedIn, but do you really know what to do with it? Beyond putting up an online “résumé” and adding connections to your professional network, do you know all the ways that LinkedIn can help you in your career? In this essential program on LinkedIn for Lawyers, learn how to leverage the world’s largest professional network to boost your own practice and profile! Whether you are a new or long-term user, this CLE program will give you helpful instructions and useful strategies for taking advantage of all of LinkedIn’s features, including navigating LinkedIn’s new interface, maximizing your profile, and connecting with referral sources, former classmates, former practice colleagues, peers, experts, and others, in effective, mutually beneficial ways.

After attending this practical session, you will be able to:

Understand the many ways lawyers use LinkedIn and find the way(s) that work best for you

Know the “Three Essential Building Blocks” of LinkedIn and how to use them to get the most value for the time you spend on LinkedIn

Design and optimize your LinkedIn profile to create a strong professional social media presence

Engage LinkedIn in the job search, recruiting, and interviewing processes

Develop focused, strategic approaches to networking with others on LinkedIn

Use powerful advanced features of LinkedIn that many users are not even aware of

Take advantage of new features (such as Endorsements), interface changes, and mobile applications to take your use of LinkedIn to a new level

Boost your professional presence and establish your niche among the 225+ million members of the LinkedIn community
This video download includes an ebook co-authored by the speakers, LinkedIn in One Hour for Lawyers, (2nd Ed.), for a special discounted price of $25 (50% savings!). This package is excluded from ABAValue Pass.

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posted on March 24, 2015 by
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Nassau County Women’s Bar Association–LinkedIn for Lawyers

This program features an informal discussion about LinkedIn, including:

  • What LinkedIn is and why lawyers should learn about it
  • How lawyers can maximize the visibility of their Profile on LinkedIn
  • Making effective connections on LinkedIn
  • Beyond profiles and invitations – how lawyers can maximize their use of LinkedIn
  • Ethical issues with LinkedIn use
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posted on March 13, 2015 by
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Avoiding Ethical Problems in Online Legal Marketing

This live program is now available on CD or DVD from the New York State Trial Lawyers Association. The program offers a full 4 ethics credits – enough ethics for your biennial registration.

This important program on using social media to market your practice without falling into any ethical quagmires.

 

The program features top speakers on social media ethics who will address avoiding ethical pitfalls within your website, blogs, LinkedIn, Facebook as well as best practices.

We will also focus on the application of advertising rules to LinkedIn, specifically:
• NYS Rule 7.1: False or misleading statements
• Disclaimers on LinkedIn profiles (Rule 7.1 and 7.3)
• Solicitation (Rule 7.3)
• Specialization and “expertise” (Rule 7.1 and 7.3, NYSBA Opinion 972)
• LinkedIn Skills and Endorsements – reciprocal recommendations (Rule 7.2) and other issues
• Client recommendations on LinkedIn
• Confidentiality – what you can and cannot say about clients and cases on LinkedIn; confidentiality issues in communicating with clients/potential clients electronically (Rule 1.6)
• Unauthorized practice of law and inadvertent attorney-client relationships (Rules 1.18 and Rule 5.5)
• Who lawyers can and should connect to on social media

There is also be a discussion on the use of Facebook, including:
•“Friend” requests – which requests should and should not be accepted
• What ethical issues are there when “friending”
• Ethical considerations in researching juror’s, parties’, and witness’s social media presence
• What can and can’t attorneys advise clients about incriminating social media postings

The program also includes comments from the Grievance Committee concerning the Committee’s perspective as to how attorneys are getting into trouble with advertising rules using social media.

FACULTY:
Chair: Annamarie Bondi-Stoddard
Pegalis & Erickson LLC

Fred Cohen, Esq.
Founder, Amicus Creative Media, LLC

Stacey Sharpelletti, Esq.
Assistant Counsel to the Grievance Committee for the 10th Judicial District

Allison Shields, Esq.
President, Legal Ease Consulting

Aaron Zerykier, Esq.
Farrell Fritz, PC
Secretary of the Social Media Committee, Commercial and Federal Litigation Section of the NYSBA

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posted on August 21, 2014 by
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How to Make LinkedIn Work for Your Practice: MyCase Webinar

In this webinar, hosted by MyCase, I’ll show you how to use LinkedIn effectively for your practice. We’ll cover:

  1. Ensuring that your Profile “speaks to” your intended audience
  2. Using LinkedIn Updates wisely
  3. Why law firms should consider LinkedIn Company Pages and Showcase Pages and how to use them
  4. Making your connections work for you
  5. Finding Groups that make sense on LinkedIn
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posted on May 21, 2014 by
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Missing Links: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About LinkedIn But Were Afraid to Ask

About The Program

Whether you’re a seasoned LinkedIn user or just a beginner, you may have some burning questions that you need answered. This program will answer some of the most frequently asked questions from lawyers about their LinkedIn use, including:

• I accidentally sent someone (or my whole address book!) an invitation to connect on LinkedIn – can I withdraw it?
• I want to make changes to my Profile, but I don’t want everyone in my network to get a message every time I update it. What should I do?
• Do I need a LinkedIn premium account?
• What’s the deal with LinkedIn Endorsements? Are they worth it? I’ve heard that lawyers shouldn’t even use the “Skills and Expertise” section of LinkedIn.
• Are LinkedIn Groups really worth it? How do I make them work for me?
• I don’t think my clients are really using LinkedIn. Why should I spend time on it?

 

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posted on May 1, 2014 by
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ABA Law Practice Division Marketing Conference 2014

This year, I’ll be speaking on two separate panels as part of the ABA Law Practice Division Marketing Conference. Both panels will take place on Friday, May 2, 2014. On the first panel, I’ll be joined by legal marketing experts Kevin O’Keefe and Ernie Svenson, discussing social media. The second panel will be myself and Dee Schiavelli talking about how lawyers can maximize their LinkedIn presence.

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posted on April 7, 2014 by
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LinkedIn for Lawyers: Getting Real World Results from Online Networking

Like many lawyers (and more than 270 million other LinkedIn users), you may already have a profile on LinkedIn, but do you really know what to do with it? Beyond putting up an online “resumé” and adding connections to your professional network, do you know all the ways that LinkedIn can help you in your career, both online and, even more importantly, in the real world?

In this essential CLE program on LinkedIn for Lawyers, learn how to leverage the world’s largest professional network to boost your own practice and profile! Whether you are a new or long-term user, this CLE program will give you helpful instructions and useful strategies for taking advantage of all of LinkedIn’s features, including navigating LinkedIn’s new interface, maximizing your profile, and connecting with referral sources, former classmates, former practice colleagues, peers, experts, and others in effective, mutually beneficial ways.

Bonus! All registrants will receive a FREE copy of LinkedIn in One Hour for Lawyers (a $49.95 value) In addition, all registrants receive a set of downloadable course materials and free access to the archived online program later. Registrants will be able to view the archived online program on a mobile device.

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posted on March 25, 2014 by
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LinkedIn Updates and Changes Every Lawyer Should Know

LinkedIn logoLinkedIn has been busy making even more changes to its platform lately. Here’s a summary of some of the changes and updates you should know about:

Skills and Endorsements

LinkedIn’s previously named “Skills and Expertise” section has been re-named “Skills and Endorsements” in part due to feedback LinkedIn received from lawyers who advised that many jurisdictions (including mine – New York) would not allow lawyers to complete any section under the title “expertise” without special certifications. The newly-named “Skills and Endorsements” section should cause less ethics headaches for lawyers. However, there are still cautions. To learn more about endorsements, check out my article on Law Technology Today, LinkedIn Endorsements 101.

Changes to LinkedIn Company Pages

In another article on Law Technology Today, I talked about LinkedIn Company Pages. That article gives a good overview of what lawyers can do with LinkedIn Company Pages for their law firms, but as of April 14, 2014, LinkedIn will be eliminating the Products and Services tab from LinkedIn Company Pages. It turns out that not too many users were taking advantage of this feature of Company Pages. In place of the information that used to be contained in the Products and Services tab, LinkedIn recommends two options. First, you can post Updates to your Company Page about your services. These Updates will appear both on your Page and in your followers’ LinkedIn feeds. You can even include video in your Updates. While this is one option, you may want to use this option for announcements of new services or initiatives, news or other timely items, rather than general descriptions of your practice areas and services.

Your other option is to use Showcase Pages to highlight specific services that your firm might offer. Showcase Pages were introduced by LinkedIn in late 2013 as a way to highlight specific products or services, or to allow businesses to reach specific audiences who might be interested in only a segment of the company’s offerings, rather than their general Company Page updates.

Essentially, Showcase Pages are sub-pages under your main law firm Company Page on LinkedIn, but they are dedicated to one individual service that you provide. Showcase pages can be helpful for law firms who have diverse practice areas and want to post different content to different audiences. As legal marketing expert Nancy Myrland noted in her post announcing Showcase Pages last year, Showcase Pages can also be a great way to institutionalize cross-selling, because all of the Showcase Pages link back to the main Company Page and to one another.

To find out how to drive traffic to your Company Page, you may want to read my post from the Legal Ease blog, “Driving Traffic to your Law Firm Company Page.” These concepts can be applied to your Showcase Pages as well.

LinkedIn Analytics

LinkedIn has been adding some tools within the platform to help you see how much attention your LinkedIn Profile, updates and Page are getting. For example, the “Who’s Viewed Your Profile” feature of LinkedIn now gives you lots of information about the industries and locations of the people who have viewed your Profile, as well as information about how they found you (LinkedIn search, Google search, etc.) – even with a free account (although premium accounts provide even more information). In addition, at the bottom of the “Who’s Viewed Your Profile” screen, LinkedIn will also give you suggestions about how you can garner more Profile views.

If you post Updates to your LinkedIn Profile, on your Home Page LinkedIn will provide you with information about how many views and likes your recent Updates have received under “Who’s Viewed Your Updates” in the right sidebar.

If you manage a Company Page for your firm, you’ll get Analytics (stats on the number of impressions, clicks, and interaction) and Page insights (Page views, unique visitors, page clicks).

Blocking Users

LinkedIn recently made some changes that will now allow you to block individual users on the platform. Simply go to the person’s Profile that you want to block and click the down arrow next to the blue button you see on their Profile and click on “block or report.” For more details, including what blocking means on LinkedIn, stay tuned for an upcoming post on Law Technology Today explaining how you can do it.

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posted on March 19, 2014 by
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LinkedIn for Managing Your Work Search Process

LinkedIn logoJoin me on March 19, 2014, at 12:30 p.m. Eastern for a webinar on how to optimize and use LinkedIn to improve your work search.  This program, co-hosted by Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers, Inc., and the Massachusetts Bar Association is intended to expand your understanding of how to optimize your LinkedIn profile and improve your LinkedIn networking skills in a 35 minute program with 10 minutes for questions and answers.

Allison will show the attendees how to optimize their profile by:

  1. Changing Your Public Profile Link
  2. Customizing the Website Links
  3. Adding Descriptive Keywords
  4. Improving the Profile Summary
  5. Focusing on the Right Skills

Allison will discuss how to improve LinkedIn networking by:

    1. Personalizing Invitations
    2. Advancing “Real Life” Relationships
    3. Posting Updates Regularly
    4. Joining Groups and Participating in Discussions.

For more information, or to register for this webinar, visit: http://www.lclma.org/2014/02/25/webinar-linkedin-for-managing-your-work-search-process/

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posted on March 3, 2014 by
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LinkedIn for Lawyers: The “How To” on Using the Internet’s Most Effective Business Development Tool

This 90 minute webinar will be brought to you by the ABA Center for Professional Development.

Almost every successful attorney networks. And there is simply no bigger platform than the Internet’s largest business-oriented social networking site–LinkedIn. With more than 240 million users (nearly 80% of whom are 35 years or older), LinkedIn has become the most valuable and effective business development tool in existence. However, many lawyers find the task of setting up a profile, inviting and accepting connections, building a network, joining groups, avoiding ethical missteps and seeking recommendations and endorsements daunting. It is not.

In just 90 minutes, Dennis Kennedy and I, authors of Linkedin in One Hour for Lawyers, will give you the tools and information to best position yourself on one of the most recognized websites in Corporate America. We’ll also be joined by Rob Humphrey, Senior Marketing Manager at LinkedIn. Whether you are a first-time user or seeking to better benefit from your LinkedIn visibility, this  ABA Center for Professional Development webinar will put you on the road to greater success. Learn how prospective clients and referring attorneys will reach out to you with legal matters, headhunters will find you with job offers and colleagues will come here first for reliable biographical and contact information.

Register by phone at 800.285.2221 and Select Option “2”, M-F, 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM Eastern, or online at: http://apps.americanbar.org/cle/programs/t14lfl1.html, Event Code: CET4LFL.

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posted on January 14, 2014 by

Harnessing the Power of LinkedIn for Your Law Firm

Like many lawyers (and 225 million other LinkedIn users), you may have a LinkedIn account, but do you really know what to do with it? Does your LinkedIn Profile contain good information about who you are, what you do and who you do it for? Are you passive when you could be active? Beyond putting up an online “resume” and adding connections to your professional network, do you know what all LinkedIn can do for you?

Whether you are a new or long-term user, this webinar will show you how to harness the power of LinkedIn to make the lawyers’ No. 1 social media tool work for you. LinkedIn has recently made major changes to its interface and features and this webinar will highlight and show you how to use these changes to your (and your network’s) benefit.

Register online here: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/377973562

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