LEGAL CENTS: Arguing LinkedIn’s irrelevance

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Is LinkedIn past its prime?

I would argue yes.

In 2008, I gave LinkedIn a positive review, but now I’m starting to find it irrelevant.

As a journalist, I formerly used LinkedIn to find people to interview. Recently, that’s been limited substantially, when LinkedIn started allowing access to the complete profiles only of people I’m connected to or their connections, but not others.

I also find little value in LinkedIn’s recent endorsements. With a mouse click, someone can endorse the skills I list in my profile or add a skill for me they want to endorse. These endorsements require little thought or effort, though.

Some people have very kindly endorsed me. Being lame on LinkedIn etiquette, and also time-pressed, I haven’t endorsed them back yet. I guess I should.

Speaking of time, I’m starting to think LinkedIn doesn’t value mine. I receive almost daily emails: LinkedIn Today, suggestions for groups I should join, uninteresting updates on connections’ new connections and job advertisements for which I’m unqualified. None of these enhance my workday in any meaningful way.

But Milwaukee lawyer Catherine La Fleur argues LinkedIn remains useful if you’re willing to spend some time and money.

Its cost varies, but for $49 a month, La Fleur said she can see everyone’s full profiles. She frequently does so, she said, to find experts or get information on her opponent, witnesses, etc.

And with LinkedIn Premium, La Fleur said, she can see who’s viewed her profile recently. When she sees that opposing counsel has checked her out, she smiles.

She’s built up enough connections that using LinkedIn’s “inmail” is sometimes the quickest and easiest way to reach someone, she said, especially if they’re not already in her email address book.

And though she’s not taken advantage of it, LinkedIn also offers La Fleur the ability to create a company page for her law firm, which people can then follow. It’s another forum for firm news beside your own website, she said.

If, like La Fleur, you don’t have time to create a separate company page, you can just post status updates to your own profile, as La Fleur occasionally does. Either way, it helps keep your name out there, she said.

She agreed that the endorsements are “a little weird,” and confessed that sometimes when she endorses someone back, it’s a half-hearted gesture.

But most importantly, La Fleur said, she finds value in LinkedIn by joining and participating in groups. She said she’s learned a great deal from the information people share and even found at least two solid, paying cases via the groups. It cost her nothing but her time.

She cautioned, however, to be strategic about groups. Among the better ones, she recommended, are Trial Technology, Marquette Law Alumni, American Board of Trial Advocates and FUEL Milwaukee.

Like anything with LinkedIn these days, she said, it takes some work, but the results are relevant to her practice.

“It’s a lot of effort,” she said. “What groups do I want to belong to, and what’s working for me and what’s not? But it helps me, and if you’re not paying for a lot of advertising, like I don’t, it’s very useful to me to see the pulse of everything out there.”

Like most things in life, you get out of LinkedIn what you put into it. La Fleur has invested time and money to learn how to leverage LinkedIn, but I’m not interested in doing that right now. So I’ll put up with their excessive emails.

I’d never remove my profile, however, because in my opinion every career-minded professional in the 21st century needs some sort of web presence.

Jane Pribek is a former family law attorney and Wisconsin Law Journal’s editor-at-large. She can be reached at [email protected].