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Celebrating 10 Years Serving Nevada's Business Community For the Health of Your Business • Business Formation and Structure • Sales and Acquisitions • Contract Review and Negotiation • Healthcare Compliance/HIPAA • Fraud and Abuse/ Licensing Investigations • General Counsel Services Law firms bolster client bases through social media networks By Danielle Birkin / Contributing writer A s the prevalence and wide- spread popularity of social media has transitioned from innocuous personal web pages — think early MySpace — into the com- mercial and business mainstream, the world of law has begun to em- brace it. It's now an integral component of any comprehensive corporate mar- keting and communications strategy, and professionals and companies across myriad industries are embrac- ing the use of networking platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube. That allows unprec- edented opportunities for engage- ment and interaction with peers, colleagues, competitors, clients, po- tential clients and, of course, friends. Although admittedly Maria Nutile, esq. Susan M. Pitz, esq. Kelly S. McIntosh, esq. Lyn E. Beggs, esq. not early adaptors to the use of social media, some Southern Nevada attorneys and other individuals in the local le- gal community are cautiously utiliz- ing — and in some cases assertively embracing — the power of the Inter- net and connectivity as an invaluable outreach tool, most notably when it comes to building name and brand recognition. " As attorneys we may tend to be slow to the game, but I would say that in the last two or three years there has been a huge rush in the legal com- munity to utilize social media," said Matthew Friedman, a partner with two-year-old local boutique law firm Dawson Ford & Freidman, which fo- cuses on family law cases involving divorce, child custody, support and property issues, as well as orders for protection and appeals. " HENDERSON, NV 89012 • 702.307.4880 WWW.NUTILEPITZ.COM 1070 W. HORIZON RIDGE, STE 210 675 SIERRA ROSE DR, STE 101 RENO, NV 89511 • 775.284.1020 @NutilePitzLaw As a firm, we have a Facebook page that we regularly monitor and up- date, and we all maintain LinkedIn accounts, but I think the momentum of social media really comes from the integration aspect, where you have crossover among Facebook and LinkedIn and Twitter, and they are connected together, whereby a pop on Twitter will segue to Facebook and then continue to feed audiences and help Dawson Ford & Freidman stay top-of-mind and relevant." Derek Jamison — a patent attorney and associate with the Las Vegas of- fice of Armstrong Teasdale, which has about 250 lawyers in the U.S. and China, including some 15 locally — ex- pressed a similar sentiment. " Attorneys have been hesitant to enter the social media waters, be- cause we're a bit handcuffed by ethi- cal rules that govern things such as advertising and broadcasting legal advice," said. "But attorneys are start- ing to realize that social media can be used as a reputation-builder and as a successful means to establish a viable "Social media is here to stay, and in this competitive world, if attorneys and law firms don't utilize and embrace social media as part of their marketing mix, they will be left behind. We really want our clients to stay on the cutting edge of the social media revolution." — Darcy Neighbors online presence, and perhaps be seen as a subject matter-expert." Indeed, this distinction of exper- tise is becoming increasingly para- mount, according to Todd Moody, a partner specializing in adoption law with Hutchison & Steffen, which has about 40 attorneys practicing in Reno, Phoenix, Salt Lake City and Las V egas, with the bulk being local. Moody explained that the oft- utilized search engine Google now recognizes three factors: content, au- thority and architecture, with author- ity being increasingly paramount. "Content simply refers to relevant information related to search terms, "Certainly the most-used social me- dia across the board for attorneys is LinkedIn, because it's a really strong tool geared toward professional au- diences," Neighbors said. "So we try to make sure our clients have their profiles on LinkedIn as close to 100 percent compete as possible so they will rank higher on Google. Having a corporate Facebook page is also criti- cally important, and I also think that YouTube is the most up-and-coming platform for law firms, because it's so visual." A 2011 study conducted by Lexis- Nexis and online identity platform Vizibility Inc. in order to shed light on the use of social media in legal mar- and architecture is up to the IT guys, but it's authority today that's more important than ever," said Moody, who has been practicing locally for 18 years. "Authority relates to backlinks from other sites, such as if somebody blogged about an experience with me, or maybe there was an article where I was quoted. "The current Google algorithm has finally recognized that the number of backlinks is relevant in getting high- er-ranked hits. Ten years ago, if you needed an adoption attorney in Ne- vada, you would have gone to the Yel- low Pages, but today most people just jump on the Internet and do a search, and hopefully get a good representa- tion, with Todd Moody or Hutchison & Steffen showing up higher in those ranked hits." Darcy Neighbors, founder and CEO of CIM Marketing Partners and im- mediate past president of the south- west chapter of the Legal Marketing Association — a nonprofit profession- al marketing, business development and communications organization for members of the legal community, including lawyers and law firms — was the first legal marketing director ever hired for a marketing firm in Las Vegas back in 1991. She has witnessed the evolution and integration of so- cial networking into the local legal community.