Leading by example with social media – lawyers

Over the past year I have been leading workshops on using social media for business with a focus on the main social networking sites and blogging.  Every so often someone tells me that they cannot use social media because they are limited by their profession in terms of sensitivity or confidentiality of what they do. Or  because what they do for a living isn’t interesting enough !

Actually I think what is stopping people from all walks of life engaging with social media is lack of inspiration and I have decided that the time has come to help.

There are great examples from all round the world but I want to focus this on UK based professionals.

And I want to start with lawyers because I used to work in a law firm and know a lot of lawyers! ( I used to work with accountants too – they’re next!)

And actually another very good reason for starting with lawyers is that a lawyer friend initially asked me to speak about using social media for business so I owe the fact that I now run workshops and coaching sessions on the topic to her!

So let me start with Linda Urquhart of Morton Fraser . Linda set up  the Morton Fraser Businesswomen’s Network Linkedin Group just over a year ago and it now has 340+ members. The discussions are on a variety of topics and the quality of contribution is high. I am sure it encouraged many of its members to develop their online presence!  ( also check out Morton Fraser’s employment law blog)

Then there’s Brian Inkster  who uses twitter as www.twitter.com/brianinkster tweeting interesting content and linking back to his blog. I loved this recent post about when technology goes wrong  – a lesson to us all.

And yet another is Richard Finlay of Tods Murray  whose Linkedin includes a range of what he is and has been involved in with a personal touch that many people looking for a lawyer in his field would find attractive.

I make no apologies for the fact that all 3 mentioned  here are Scottish locally based lawyers. They have caught my attention for that very reason . What would be great now would be for others to chip in with their suggestions of lawyers they either know or got to know using social media to help inspire  the others who are  maybe dipping their toe in the water – or who might just be changing into their bathing suits!

Please add your suggestions below .