Social Media for Lawyers [INFOGRAPHIC]

Although social media was originally met with a lukewarm reaction from most of the legal profession, lawyers are increasingly acknowledging the importance of understanding–and using–social media. For some lawyers it’s because social is being used as evidence in their clients’ cases, for others it’s shaping up to be a great networking and business development tool, and some lawyers are using it for those purposes and more.

Social Media for Lawyers: Stats and Basics

Regardless of the reasons, lawyers are participating on social media more often–and the most ABA’s annual legal technology survey offers further proof of this fact. The findings from the ABA’s 2014 Legal Technology Report indicate that lawyers are using social media tools more than ever before, with solo and small firm attorneys often leading the way, although large firm lawyers occasionally lead the pack.

LinkedIn is by far the most popular social network with lawyers. According to the ABA Report, 99% of individual lawyers from firms of 100 or more have a LinkedIn profile, followed by 97% of respondents from firms of 10-49 attorneys, 94% of respondents from firms of 2-9 attorneys, and 93% of solo respondents.

Facebook comes in second, with solo respondents being the most likely to report a presence in Facebook (45%), followed by respondents from firms of 2-9 attorneys (38%), compared to the lower participation rate of lawyers from firms of 100 or more attorneys (21%).

Likewise, smaller firms are more likely to have Facebook pages as well, with firms of 2-9 attorneys being the most likely to report a presence in Facebook (59% compared with 60% in year 2012), followed by firms of 100 or more attorneys (53%, compared with 67% in 2012), firms of 10-49 attorneys (53%, compared with 57% in 2012), and solo respondents (49%, compared with 42% in 2012).

In comparison, the larger the law firm, the more likely it is that the firm will have a Twitter presence. According to the ABA Report results, 36% of respondents from firms of 100 or more attorneys report that their firms maintain such a presence, followed by 16% of respondents from firms of 10-49, 13% of solo respondents, and 12% of respondents from firms of 2-9 attorneys.

These social media statistics are just the tip of the iceberg. There is a lot more data in the report and we summarized some of the most interesting takeaways in the infographic below. See any statistics that surprise you? Which ones?

And, as always, we encourage you to share and blog about our infographics. You can grab an embed of this infographic from Slideshare here.

Social Media for Lawyers