Gina Furia Rubel has penned an article for the Legal Intelligencer in the US entitled Social Media for Lawyers Part 8: Martindale-Hubbell Connected
This is what she says…..
For the past several weeks in “To friend or Not to Friend – Social Media for Lawyers,” I have been writing about how attorneys can (and should) leverage social networking and similar sites to enhance their practices. Recognizing that attorneys have begun catching on to the utility of social networking, Martindale-Hubbell has launched Martindale-Hubbell Connected a professional networking platform dedicated exclusively to legal professionals.
What is Martindale-Hubbell Connected?
Martindale is currently at work reinventing itself for the 21st century. As part of the company’s ongoing effort to update its image and offerings from legal directory to prominent online destination, Martindale jumped on the Web 2.0 social networking bandwagon by launching Connected late last month.
In a March 31 press release, the company described its new professional networking site as “a dynamic, authenticated network enabling corporate counsel and private practice attorneys to uncover new relationships and trusted referrals, share information and insights, and to identify their connection to firms, corporate legal departments or other lawyers.” Translated by me, in terms of the public relations and marketing bottom line, this means building relationships for referral sources and having a stronger online presence for search engine optimization, or SEO.
Connected’s interface is similar to those familiar social media sites such as LinkedIn and Facebook. What seems to set it apart are its authentication of members and its connection to Martindale’s extensive database.
To provide lawyers with confidence in using online networking, Connected authenticates members before allowing them to join. In other words, Connected ensures that its members are practicing attorneys who are who they say they are. To do this, Martindale built validation checks into the registration process, relying on its database of more than one million lawyers, law firms and companies.
After learning this, the question arose as to whether or not one must be listed in Martindale to be “validated.” So I asked John Michaels, senior communications manager of LexisNexis U.S. legal markets. He said, “You do not need to be in the MH database or maintain an MH listing to be authenticated. Any lawyer who wants to join Connected, can join. If you already have a profile on Martindale.com, this will expedite the registration and profile creation process, as we can pre-populate fields the member would otherwise have to complete manually.”
Martindale is also touting Connected users’ ready access to LexisNexis content. In its press release, the company said members will be able to take advantage of tools providing access to “an exclusive combination of authoritative information from LexisNexis and other sources such as data, statistics, research, news, competitor profiles, marketing trends, ratings, polls and client reviews.”
In a September 2008 review of an early Connected beta version, Massachusetts lawyer and media consultant Robert Ambrogi in Law Technology News described some of Connected’s proposed database tie-ins. Among them will be knowledge centers including content mined from CLEs, webinars, articles and other sources; highly detailed client reviews of outside counsel to help in-house attorneys hire the right advisers; member-preferred provider lists; and an RFP builder.
What Are Other Professionals Saying About Connected?
Practicing what I preach, I turned to social media to gather fellow legal professionals’ opinions on Connected. I posted the following on several of my social networks: “I’m writing an article about Martindale-Hubbell’s Connected www.martindale.com/connected for lawyers. What do you think?”
Managing Director of Law Gravity LLC Jayne Navarre said, “I talk to a lot of lawyers who are still on the ledge about the ‘safety’ of social networking and so I believe this site, as well as Legal OnRamp and JDSupra, could be a real plus for them. There will be less concern over violating ethics restrictions as they are in a safe zone of their peers.”
Read the rest of the article at http://thelegalintelligencer.typepad.com/tli/2009/04/social-media-for-lawyers-part-8-martindalehubbell-connected.html
