Now this took guts.  When my two dear friends, Carolyn Elefant and Niki Black  asked me to review their new book, Social Media for Lawyers: The Next Frontier, published by the ABA Law Practice Management Section, they knew they were taking a huge risk.  I’ve not always been kind toward the promotion of social media.  In fact, on occasion, I’ve been rather critical of its promotion as the magic bullet to success, or the do-or-die bandwagon.  Yet they asked, and even sent me a free review copy.  Guts.

The book is really quite exceptional, both in its scope and and its balance.  I feared that it would lead the cheer for internet marketing for law practices, a pit into which so many of the early adopters have fallen, blindly asserting that it you don’t strut down digital Main Street in hot pants, your future as a lawyer is dead.  Not so.  Not even close.

Social Media for Lawyers is a quick read and well written.  Rather than treating its readers as virtual idiots, talking down to anyone who can’t distinguish a youtube video from a twit, Carolyn and Niki speak to readers like respected colleagues who need to ramp up on technology.  Their tone immediately sets this book apart from other efforts, where undistinguished authors talk down to readers, as if their facility with social media trumps the fact that the reader has tried a hundred cases while the author was still in diapers.

The book takes the reader through the gamut of the social media experience, from the nuts and bolts of the various popular platforms to the practical and ethical considerations that invariably crop up.  It hits critical points numerous times, emphasizing, for instance, Eric Turkewitz’s invaluable point that “outsourcing marketing = outsourcing ethics.”

While the mechanical focus tends to be on extant technologies, always a dangerous thing given how quickly things change in social media, with new technology coming out of nowhere and popular social media disappearing overnight, the book provides a sound and timely primer for lawyers who want to dip their feet in the pool but fear that they’ll drown.  Even though some technologies may not be around in a year or two, and new ones will take their place, Social Media for Lawyers demystifies what may seem to be too complex or daunting for any lawyer who has sat on the sidelines up to now.

More importantly, the book debunks many of the social media marketing myths, providing a remarkably balanced view of the benefits and risks associated with social media.  Bearing in mind that readers are likely inclined to become involved in social media and have missed out on the formative years, Carolyn and Niki have tried to bring them up to speed on the etiquette, the relative efficacy of the various media and the landmines that could blow them to bits as they start out.  They’ve even included some random foreboding quotes from an old curmudgeon.

Their explanations are bit nicer, and less colorful, than mine might have been, but they’re in there and serve as a crucial heads-up.  With all the social media gurus scamming lawyers into believing that they push their way into social media prominence with a dollar and some bluster, Niki and Carolyn take some of the wind out of their sails and help lawyers to see the scams that will come their way.

And yet, the book isn’t perfect.  Quite troubling was the forward by Ari Kaplan, setting a tone that nearly scared me into throwing the book into midtown traffic and running like hell.  Kaplan’s forward reads like vomit from a drunken night at a social media marketer conference, stringing meaningless marketing jargon-words together in an embarrassing attempt to pass as thought.  This is either brilliant, in its juxtaposition with the valuable substance offered by the book itself, or a huge risk that no thoughtful lawyer will read beyond the foreword.

Then there’s Chapter 6, a standout in that it lacks the balance otherwise found throughout the book.  Entitled Goals: Networking and Building Relationships, the chapter unfortunately offers an unabashed suggestion that one can manufacture social media popularity by pretending to be “authentic”.  Some of its suggestions, like commenting on other people’s blawgs and including a link to one’s own, are roadmaps to unadulterated and intolerable self-promotion that are more likely to make someone a pariah on legitimate blawgs and amongst serious lawyers. 

Absent from Chapter 6 are the warnings, the countervailing concerns, that efforts to hype oneself unmercifully, sweetly called “networking”, that lawyers new to social media need to know.  It adopts the assumption that everyone is on board to market, and will be embraced by all the other marketing lawyers.  While this may fly in the Happysphere, it could have devastating consequences in the blawgosphere. 

Not every attempt to let your “personality shine through” will result in “camaraderie” that will “facilitate your professional networking relationships.”  Your personality is just as likely to get you a boot in the butt and destroy your online reputation in a flash.  This chapter needs a major reworking,

With those caveats, Social Media for Lawyers: The Next Frontier, offers a wealth of information and great advice.  Without a doubt, it stands hands above anything produced before it, as did Carolyn’s first book, Solo By Choice, which has become the bible for lawyers striking out in solo practice.  It would not surprise me in the least to find Social Media for Lawyers: The Next Frontier to do the same for lawyers who want to jump on board the social media bandwagon but were afraid to give it a try.  Read the book and go for it.  Just remember that there are sharks in the waters.