The National Association for Law Placement, Inc. published an article in their August 2010 NALP Bulletin by Kristen Uhl Hulse titled, A Guide to E-Professionalism for Law Students: Five Steps to Create and Maintain a Professional Online Persona. This article, edited by OCP's Assistant Director, Marina Feehan, describes five easy steps that can help clean up and maintain your social networking image to ensure that your professional persona matches your online persona.
Step 1: Identify your online social networking goals and choose the social networking platform accordingly.
Be sure to err on the side of professionalism because it can be difficult to clean up “digital dirt” in the future. Any information you post on a social networking site creates an electronic record that may be accessible for years.
LinkedIn.com is the recommended website for lawyers, law students and other professionals. Think of it as "Facebook for Lawyers." Creating a profile on LinkedIn instantly results in a high search engine result with your LinkedIn profile appearing close to the top, if not the top, of a google search.
For tutorials on how to use LinkedIn professionally, visit the LinkedIn Learning Center and the LinkedIn Learning Center for attorneys.
Step 2: Conduct due diligence on your online presence
Many legal employers have admitted to running searches of a candidate’s name, the results of which can influence the employment process. Therefore, be sure to not only google yourself but conduct searches of your name and maiden name if applicable on all the major search engines such as yahoo.com, bing.com and pipl.com.
Step 3: Clean up your online presence to reflect a professional online persona.
Start by thoroughly examining the information you have posted on social networking sites, including status updates, photographs, and even responses to friends’ comments.
Even if your personal pages are private, your friends’ pages may be publicly accessible, allowing personal information you post on friends’ pages to be discoverable.
Review information you have posted online as if you are an easily offended employer and purge any questionable material.
Step 4: Actively manage your online persona to meet your social networking goals.
Online reputation management is a key component of e-professionalism. Join LinkIn groups or guest blog for sites which promote your career goals to reflect the type of lawyer you want to be.
Step 5: Be accountable for your online persona.
If you wish to engage in social media from your office, be sure to check whether your employer has an official social media policy governing employees' use of social media and abide by that policy.
If you have any questions or would like additional information on how to maintain a professional online persona, the above referenced article is available in the Office of Career Planning. Additionally, OCP will be holding a workshop on "Managing Your On-Line Persona" this Fall. Watch for announcements in your e-mail for date and time.
