Aurora Donnelly is a solo practitioner always looking forward to the next exciting transition.
When I had my law office in Waukegan, most of my clients lived or worked in the Lake County area. My communication with them was usually through office visits, by snail mail or by phone. I could easily control what was said and, more importantly, what was recorded for posterity.
About half of my clients used e-mail, but no serious legal discussions were communicated via electronic mail.
The practice of law has changed drastically in the last 10 years. I was surprised to learn that a majority (70 to 80 percent) of new clients look online first when they need a lawyer. Through websites, blogs and professional networking sites like LinkedIn, lawyers can vastly expand their marketing and networking reach.
It is all pretty intimidating to me, not from the standpoint of the technology, because I have always been a technology lover and, for an untrained user, not bad at it, but from the “things-that- you-write-may-stay-there-forever” standpoint.
Many years later, I still feel uncomfortable when I think about a letter I wrote a friend when I was angry at her for choosing other friends over me. If I had posted that letter on Facebook or another social networking site, it might still be there to haunt me. As it is, that letter only stands out in my own mind as a specter of my poor judgment. I am sure my friend threw it away years ago.
The scary thing is that it is difficult sometimes to separate our professional and our personal lives, because ultimately we have little control over what happens online. An online presence can provide name recognition, establish your brand and expand your network of contacts with clients and colleagues — wonderful things in themselves. But I keep thinking about that letter I wrote a long time ago. I am glad that it didn’t get on Facebook for all the world to see, and that it only lives on in my memory. I know of attorneys who have gotten into serious difficulties because of using the Internet to increase exposure and communication.
As lawyers, when we use the Internet we have to ask ourselves whether any of the ways we are using such communications can get us in trouble.
When what we wrote was on paper, there was more time to deliberate over wording and to make sure that what we were communicating was appropriate. Now things move very quickly and Internet communication is much less formal, so the potential for serious error is much greater. And if such an error occurs, usually you can’t take it back.
Attorneys in Transition Event on May 8, 2009
