The June 2013 issue of the ABA Journal republished the 2013 Legal Technology Survey Report in the “Business of Law” section of their magazine.  As a legal content writer and practicing attorney, there is great interest in observing and reacting to the trends that relate to me.

All of the data excerpts except one included the last three years of surveys with bar graphs to visually depict the trends of questions posed to practicing attorneys.  All of the trends suggest that the use of technology is increasing steadily within the legal profession, yet not quite at the speed you may expect.

Just over 39% of attorneys reported retaining clients from as a result of their legal blog from a direct or referral, while another 26% said they were not sure.  Approximately 19% of polled attorneys said they directly or through a referral retained new clients through social networking and just over 21% said they did not know.  Interestingly enough, only 6% of all attorneys interviewed said they received clients from Twitter with almost another 19% saying they were not sure.

As for the data with trends, almost 56% of all law firms have a LinkedIn account up from 36% in 2011.  Only 35% of all law firms have a Facebook account, which is also up from 19% in 2011.  In 2011 a whopping 77% of firms denied having a legal blog, whereas in 2013 that number has decreased to 65%.

The data excerpts from the ABA Journal also showed that Twitter tends to lag behind in the legal profession.  Almost 83% of firms in 2011 said they did not have Twitter account whereas 68% still deny using the social media giant to help advertise their services.  Of individual attorneys, in 2011 94% said they did not maintain a Twitter account for professional purposes which has only slightly decreased to 86% in 2013.

What does this all mean?  Lawyers are slow to adjust to the advent of technology but the trends are showing increased usage.  The best use of technology for direct client contacts or referrals has been legal blogs with more than one-third of law firms reporting new clients from this medium–a full 20% more than just social media in general and a whopping 33% more than just Twitter.

But just having a legal blog–while it certainly will help your web presence–is useless unless it is properly maintained.  This does not include just posting interesting information, but also regular content and specially optimized content focused for your readers, in your local area, and even for the search engines to find you.

Notwithstanding, there is no reason why not to have a legal blog, social media account such as Facebook, and Twitter account all tethered together.  There are ways that you can actually link these accounts all together so that a post to Facebook will actual be reposted automatically to Twitter.  Thus, a practitioner may never even have to log into his or her Twitter account once it is created and linked.  This is why hiring a legal content writer to assist or perform this for you is crucial.

Retaining legal content writers such as NAB Legal Marketing, LLC can help draft your content and optimize it for both your readers and the search engines.  We have clients from New York to Illinois to California and in between.  But we do not just focus on law firms and attorneys, we also assist ancillary services such as data recovery recovery for lawyers, forensic science an investigations, medical experts, and related fields with their news articles and blogs as well.

If you have more questions or would like to learn more about our legal content writing services, please contact NAB Legal Marketing, LLC today.  We are legal content writers who understand how to use SEO effectively to improve your law firm’s web presence.  Contact us at inquiries@NABLegalMarketing.com