Larkin Hoffman Attorney Meeting
June 30 , 2009
Michael Fleming
Tracy Domish

• High-level view of the territory
• Suggested uses
• Getting started
• Firm policy

Leveraging collective intelligence
- From Tim O’Reilly, CEO of O’Reilly Media
“Web 2.0" refers to a perceived second generation of web
development and design, that facilitates communication,
secure information sharing, interoperability, and
collaboration on the World Wide Web. Web 2.0 concepts
have led to the development and evolution of web-based
communities, hosted services, and applications; such as
social-networking sites, video-sharing sites, wikis, and blogs.
- From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 Social Networking
 Predominant social networks are Facebook, LinkedIn,
MySpace, Friendster, Legal OnRamp, Martindale-Hubbell
Connected
 Primary focus is to allow people to connect and build user-
generated content
 “Ambient awareness”
▪ – Leisa Reichelt

 42,089,200 U.S. Facebook users*
 267% growth in users 35-54 years old in six month
time period
 4th most popular website***
 42 million worldwide LinkedIn members**
 A new member joins LinkedIn approximately every
second, and about half of our members are outside
the U.S.
 Executives from all Fortune 500 companies are
LinkedIn members.
*istrategylabs.com as of 1/4/2009, Facebook Social Ads
**LinkedIn.com
*** Alexa.com

 Blogs and
 Blog/Blawg – contraction of phrase “web log”
▪ 133 million blogs
▪ 2 new blogs/second*
▪ 18 updates/second
 Twitter is a “micro-blog” – post of no more than 140
characters
▪ 7 million users**
▪ Fastest growing community site with a 1382% increase in
visits Feb 09 vs Feb 08
▪ 35 - 49 - 42%
▪ 63% use from work
*Technorati, as of February 2008
**Nielsen NetView 2/09, U.S. Home and Work

 Internet Forums
 aka web forums, message boards, discussion boards,
discussion forums, bulletin boards
 Wikis
 Wikipedia.org
 Instant Messaging (IM)
 Flickr and YouTube
 Folksonomies
 Virtual Worlds
“Caught Up” in Web 2.0: Third Part Liability Risks of Employee
Blogging and Social Networking” presented by William R.
Denny at ABA Section of Business Law Spring meeting ,April 16,
2009

 Avoidance is not a strategy
 Stay connected
 Helps Google ranking/search results
 Competitive Intelligence
 Knowledge sharing and collaboration
 Monitor your firm and personal brands
 Reconnect with past co-workers, friends, classmates
Other businesses are using it for:
 Competitive Intelligence
 Special offers
 Customer service
 Recruiting

 Finding out facts regarding opposing party to
bolster case.
 Finding out facts about own client
 Finding out facts about opposing counsel
 Jury Selection
“What Lawyers Need to Know about Social Networking
Sites” – Business Litigation Department Meeting April
28, 2009 – Bruce Douglas, Chris Heffelbower

 Check-out the internet presence of opposing counsel, opposing parties,
witnesses, and your client to gain valuable information. Simply Google
their names.
 Consider asking questions in discovery regarding opposing party’s
internet presence.
 Consider obtaining the online contents of a party’s online account via
subpoena issued to Myspace, Facebook or other social networking sites.
Such a subpoena should demand that the internet service provider
prevent any possible spoliation of the contents of the account.
 Think about how this evidence will be used in trial by reviewing
relevance, authentication, etc.
 Consider asking potential jurors regarding their online presence.
“What Lawyers Need to Know about Social Networking
Sites” – Business Litigation Department Meeting April
28, 2009 – Bruce Douglas, Chris Heffelbower

 http://www.linkedin.com/home

http://twitter.com/home

 http://www.facebook.com

 Be Judicious
 Be Private
 80/20 Rule
 Be Transparent
 Add Value
 Social Etiquette Applies