ABA: Lawyer use of blogs, social sites continues to rise

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The use of social media by lawyers – including blogs and social networking sites such as LinkedIn and Twitter – is continuing to increase, according to the annual technology survey conducted by the American Bar Association.

The 2012 ABA Legal Technology Survey consists of six different volumes: technology basics, law office technology, litigation and courtroom technology, web and communication technology, online research and mobile lawyers.

Volume IV, web and communication technology, addresses lawyers’ use of web-based technologies including blogs and social networking. It revealed an increase from 15 percent of law firms with a blog in 2011 to 22 percent this year.

Nine percent of attorneys said they maintain a personal, law-related blog, up from 5 percent last year. Blogging attorneys are more likely to be members of big firms (with 100 or more attorneys), with only 9 percent of sole practitioners maintaining a firm blog.

When asked if the blog had generated business for the firm, 39.1 percent of the blogging lawyers answered “yes.” The affirmative percentage increased to 53.3 percent for solos.

Other sites commonly used by lawyers include Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

LinkedIn is the most popular site, with 88 percent of respondents having a presence on the networking site; 55 percent indicated use of Facebook.

And use of Twitter almost doubled since 2011, with 11 percent of respondents indicating they use the micro-blogging site for professional reasons, up from 5 percent last year.