Image via CrunchBaseI'm a lawyer who works for injured consumers. 100% of my practice is devoted to work on the Plaintiff's side of the aisle.Last week I attended the annual convention for the American Association for Justice, which was held in New York for a nearly one week period. The lineup? More than 2,000 lawyers. Bill Clinton speaking at one event. Quite literally a 100+ seminars, meetings, sessions, and networking events. A huge vendor area.
Now, if you are a social marketing "guru" touting twitter as the be-all, end-all for success for attorneys to gain clients, "leverage" yourself and all those other BS jargon terms, you'd guess that AAJ New York was fertile ground for tweets, tweet ups (almost impromptu meetings between attorneys), and "twitpics" (pix taken around town with the ever present AAJ lanyard front and center on your chest).
You'd be wrong.
No Twitter. Yes, you read that right. Go to Twitter.com and search for #AAJ. Not "AAJ" because that has a different meaning in the far off middle east.
What do you find? Zilch. A handful of tweets by a vendor or two, maybe a smattering of "just got to NYC" tweets.
The AAJ Convention had a multitude of events, not just seminars. Lawyers were spread across two massive hotels. To me it seemed like just about every hotel bar and restaurant was filled to capacity with attorneys during meal hours and after the CLE events ended. There were after hours events, invite only shindigs, and general meetings for candidates for office. Twitter as a means to convey information of meetups? MIA.
Why? I know why. I've known "why" for some time. At least as to personal injury attorneys, they have seen first hand that not many of us drink the Kool-Aid when it comes to Twitter allegedly making the phone ring and the caseload increase. It doesn't. Is Twitter a waste of time then? For PI attorneys, the proof is there - if you base it on usage. Twitter simply does not work for PI Attorneys. And by work, I mean - making the phone ring, making a firm web page work, increasing a caseload.
So what has been realized perhaps by those attorneys who attended was simply this - in the arena of personal injury litigation, nothing beats in person, real life networking. Number one on the list at any AAJ convention is doing what comes naturally to many successful injury lawyers - shaking hands, listening to and telling stories, and connecting. In person.
I know what some of you are thinking - PI attorneys must be Neanderthals! Nope. PI attorneys have long been on the cutting edge of technology in many areas. Attorneys like me have learned Google and adwords. I (and others) have learned that the quality of a good website or blog will work wonders on your practice. Private lists for groups of lawyers are fertile areas for connections, work sharing, and even gossip.
PI attorneys have been early adopters of products in the courtroom, for motion practice, depositions, site inspections, and client management. PI attorneys use voice recognition software, SMS texting systems for certain segments of their clientele, and have long ago mastered YouTube.com.
Twitter simply is not there yet for attorneys in personal injury practices, and the AAJ convention is Composite Exhibit A. Twitter added zero value to AAJ. Information was still shared mind you among the 2,000 attorneys.
If an attorney insists on jumping in to the very large and for the most part undefined "social media" arena, I suggest that you start at ground zero. Look at your website. Update it. Make it rise to at least page two on google.com for search results. Then, work on making a blog that is worthwhile. To me a blog is the best tool by far for your firm. We have three blogs and I'm very happy with each. Next, if you must jump in to Facebook. LEARN GOOGLE ADWORDS. You don't trust your closing argument to your receptionist do you? I've gone through google's adwords certification.Then and only then do you try Twitter.
So - you ask - what are you doing on it? For me, the Twitter account I use allows me to publicize my blogs by simply using Twitter Feed. In my niches my firm follows FDA related news, so the near instant access to news helps me. Lawyers, industry professionals, and reporters who are in the area of unsafe pharma products and supplements are worth following. I enjoy reading news information from my home state of Florida through another twitter account (my main account is @ageorgialawyer).
My unsolicited advice to personal injury attorneys and even the Plaintiffs' bar - those who think Twitter is an essential part of your tool kit for marketing is this: It's not. It may never be. Anyone who suggests it is, hey that is great. Just don't pay for someone to help you with Twitter.
Don't expect Twitter to even be on the radar screen at smaller TLA groups in some states. Because the most basic was to 'have a conversation' is to do just that - but in person.
