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Lawyers using or interested in learning more about social media who will be in St. Louis on March 23 have a great opportunity to learn about social media and ethics and pick up a couple of CLE ethics hours. I’m excited to be one of the speakers on an excellent panel with legal ethics expert Mike Downey and The Bar Plan’s Christina Lewis Abate.

The seminar is called “The Ethics of Social Media” and the details can be found here.

We’ll cover differences between LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, the basics of how to use each platform, including privacy settings, ad purchasing and disclaimer requirements, plus how to avoid potential pitfalls including a review of recent case law and rules of advertising, malpractice avoidance, and model social networking policies. We’re also planning to have plenty of Q & A.

The pricing ($95) is great, especially for the number of ethics credit. There’s a special deal ($30) for law students.

The Bar Assoication of Metropolitan St. Louis’ Young Lawyers Division is sponsoring the event at BAMSL’s downtown St. Louis headquarters.

Highly recommended. Help us get the word out about this one. Hope to see you there.

BAMSL members may register here.

Can’t make it on the 23rd? Give the new episode of The Kennedy-Mighell Report podcast, “Social Media Common Sense,” a listen.

[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (http://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]

Follow my microblog on Twitter - @dkennedyblog. Follow me - @denniskennedy

Now Available! The Lawyer’s Guide to Collaboration Tools and Technologies: Smart Ways to Work Together, by Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell. Visit the companion website for the book at LawyersGuidetoCollaboration.com. Twitter: @collabtools

Technorati tags: legal technology podcast social media ethics seminar CLE

The 2010 Hildebrandt Client Advisory paints a grim picture for Big Law. 

The report, prepared jointly by Hildebrandt and Citi Private Bank, notes that “While the year ended with some hopeful signs, we enter 2010 with little prospect of a robust recovery and with mounting evidence that the profession is entering …

Tom Mighell and I have recorded another episode of The Kennedy-Mighell Report podcast and it’s now available on the Legal Talk Network and on iTunes, with an RSS feed here. The episode is called “Social Media Common Sense” (show notes here), and it’s sponsored by Bill4Time. A special thank you to readers of this blog who listen to the podcast - we’re very pleased with the growing numbers of downloads the podcast is getting.

Here’s the episode description:

Hardly a day goes by without lawyers hearing that they need to be diving into social media. And many are already there - on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and other platforms. Google stumbled on privacy on its launch of its new social media platform, Buzz. The privacy and security concerns in social media are very real. Tom and Dennis take a practical at what you must understand to take control of your security and privacy, from basic account settings to smart approaches to social media common sense.

I recently wrote a column for the ABA Journal on the basics of privacy and security for lawyers using Facebook. The article got such a positive response that we thought it would make a good topic for our podcast. After the recent privacy stumbles at the launch of Google Buzz, we decided to expand the topic to cover social media in general.

The podcast takes a very practical look at some of the things you need to be wary of and, more important, practical steps you should be taking to protect your privacy and security while making effective use of social media platforms. From passwords to privacy settings and friend lists to good judgment, we make the case for applying common sense to use fo social media. Take a listen and see if we convince you.

I also suggest that you take a look at my ABA Journal column called Saving Face.

In our “things we’ve been talking about” segment, Tom and I talk about our actual experience with Google Buzz, including my concern that Buzz suggests that Google is abandoning Google Wave. I also express my frustration with the usability problems I find with Buzz. Tom takes a calmer approach.

We end the podcast with our Parting Shots - practical tips you can use right away. Tom points to another new Google tool - Google Moderator - that provides a way to obtain feedback. I note how I like a program called Mobipocket Creator for converting PDF documents into Kindle-ready formats and a cool new webpage you can use as your default home page in your browser at http://fav4.org.

Give our new episode a listen and let me know what you think. Show notes for the podcast are at here.

And try some of the back episodes as well.

THE KENNEDY-MIGHELL REPORT PODCAST IS NOW ON TWITTER. You can now follow the podcast on Twitter at @tkmreport.

[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (http://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]

Follow my microblog on Twitter - @dkennedyblog. Follow me - @denniskennedy

Now Available! The Lawyer’s Guide to Collaboration Tools and Technologies: Smart Ways to Work Together, by Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell. Visit the companion website for the book at LawyersGuidetoCollaboration.com. Twitter: @collabtools

Technorati tags: legal technology podcast social media privacy collaboration

My latest technology column for the ABA Journal is out. It’s called “Saving Face: 5 tips to better security on Facebook .”

For a while, I’ve been concerned about the cavalier approach that many people, especially lawyers, have taken to privacy and security on Facebook. As Facebook approaches 400 million users, there’s little question that most of us need to address these concerns. As Facebook and other social media platforms continue to make changes to their privacy approaches and default settings, security and privacy has moved out of the realm of “set and forget” to something that you need to revisit on a regular basis.

I’ve wanted to write something simple and basic about how to understand and deal with these issues - or at least to make a good start - and point people in the right direction.

This column was my opportunity to do that. I’ve been gratified by the requests for reprints and the numerous comments to the article already. I recommend reading the comments because there some good insights and tips in the comments.

I went for a simple five-step approach. Not too many and just enough to make it easy to get started and make a difference,

The five steps:

1. Use a strong password and change it on a regular basis.

2. Review and make appropriate changes to your privacy settings.

3. Be discriminating in your use of Facebook apps.

4. Take control of what others can put on your page.

5. Consider using “friend lists.”

To make myself clear: This is serious stuff and you had better pay attention to what’s going on and what the implications are when you venture into the world of social media. A few basic steps will make a world of difference.

The money quote:

And I cannot stress too much the need to always use good judgment when using social media.

For more detailed advice and instructions, I like Leah Pearlman’s and Carolyn Abram’s Facebook For Dummies^® (updated in November 2009) - an inexpensive way to protect yourself against embarrassment at the least and real serious damage at the worst.

Tom Mighell and I also talk about this and related topics in our new podcast, “Social Media Common Sense.”

Check out my new column. Let’s all be more careful out there.

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[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (http://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]

Follow my microblog on Twitter - @dkennedyblog; Follow me - @denniskennedy.

Now Available! The Lawyer’s Guide to Collaboration Tools and Technologies: Smart Ways to Work Together, by Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell. Visit the companion website for the book at LawyersGuidetoCollaboration.com. Twitter: @collabtools

Listen to The Kennedy-Mighell Report podcast on the Legal Talk Network. Twitter: @tkmreport

Technorati tags: legal technology facebook privacy security column

On Tuesday, at St. Louis University Law School on March 2 at 5:00, I’ll be speaking to law students, recent law school graduates and anyone else who might be interested about social media, the Internet and tegal technology with a focus on how you can use these tools to effectively launch your legal career. Phi Delta Phi is sponsoring the event.

I’ll take an informal approach, with lots of Q & A, and I’m planning to let the audience pick the topics they most want me to cover. In other words,I’ll see if i can “crowdsource” the structure of the presentation.

I’ll highlight some of my ideas from this post on advice for 1Ls and my latest ABA Journal column called “Saving Face,” but I expect to share a lot of other information based on my own experience and what I’ve learned over the years. I’m also hoping to learn a lot from the perspecitives of law students who are facing these tough economic times.

There are two places you can find more information on the presentation - on the Law School’s calendar page and the Facebook page for the event. There’s also an email address for information - pdp@slu.edu.

Please mention the event to law students or others in St. Louis who might be interested. It’d be great to see you there.

[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (http://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]

Follow my microblog on Twitter - @dkennedyblog; Follow me - @denniskennedy

Now Available! The Lawyer’s Guide to Collaboration Tools and Technologies: Smart Ways to Work Together, by Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell. Visit the companion website for the book at LawyersGuidetoCollaboration.com. Twitter: @collabtools

Listen to The Kennedy-Mighell Report podcast on Legal Talk Network. Twitter: @tkmreport

Technorati tag: social media presentation law students

Will the legal market crash lead to a legal technology resurgence? I suggested so in my post January post Economist Magazine: Expect Profound Structural Shift in Legal Market. Two recent articles show how law firms add value with technology. Whether this is a new trend, however, remains to …