Social Network Review: Counsel.Net
Jan 10th, 2010 | By Rex Gradeless | Category: Featured, Lead Article, Practice Management, Social Media, Social NetworkingCounsel.Net claims to be the “first name in attorney-to-attorney connections online”. Counsel.Net has an attorney chatboard, a place for new attorneys & solo practitioners, attorney marketing, and several other attorney forums.
This social network is basically a mixed bag of forums to posts legal questions, hypotheticals, job openings, and pretty much anything you want. Attorneys can, and do, contribute in the attorney forums often posing legal questions that garner responses.
There does not seem to be any signing up required for this network. Instead, you simply “post a response” to a question and submit your information in the following window (click to enlarge).
This site is open to everyone. There are attorney forums, law student forums, and public forums where people can seek out legal services. There’s also a live chat service built into the website.
Interestingly, there seems to be a reasonable degree of participation. On an initial inspection, one forum had 6 different replies on a single day.
Becoming an involved member within your niche’s forum may help you stand out as a leader in your particular specialty. Answering questions for others in these public forums may lead to new business opportunities.
The legal jobs section seems to be on fire! There are several job posts seeking lawyers with various degrees of experience. Much like posting a job on Craigslist, applicants should be cautious when applying since this is a public forum and some of these jobs may be scams.
All in all, this site seems to have good participation but there is no way to manage new contacts obtained from the site. This is basically like a giant post-it board with various discussions occurring at one time. The search button seems to be one of the only ways to find a specific topic and you can also narrow by practice area.
Little to no networking occurs on this site (or so it appears) – it’s acting as a public information resource. You may only be able to connect with others if they post their real email address and contact information – which some attorneys on here are doing.
There seem to be some useful pieces of information buried within these forums. You could probably skip this network if your time is limited. However, answering questions within these forums may be a way to get noticed within your niche and expand your network.
Pros:
No password to remember.
Seems like a good amount of participation, could lead to business if you participate.
Lots of information.
Cons:
No filters for knowing who actually responding or communicating with you.
Lacks familiar social network characteristics. (i.e. no “friending”, personal profiles, or place to display your contact information)
Somewhat difficult to find specific information.
Have you used this site? If so, comment about your experience below.
Here are some of their categories:
Counsel.Net Nav
Attorney Forum
Practice Areas
• Torts
• Tax Law
Law School Forum
• Torts
• Property
• Evidence
Classified Ads
• For Sale
Most Popular
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Now a days social networking is hottest thing in our real life. People get new connection and find new friend either from their citiy, state, country or from abroad. This is also good way to find the people which you have forgot or don’t have their any contact info. Really it’s interesting. on new generation growing social networking site is MySocialPoint.com. People can chat, make blog, search jobs, post classified, watch videos-audios and lots of funny things to do. So why not you join today and get connected with whole world.
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Social Media Law Student reviews Counsel.net, “1st name in attorney-to-attorney connections online”: http://bit.ly/8WAIzU
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
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