Large Law Firms in Australia and Twitter

I saw a retweet from @hollingsworth this week.

"RT @kcarruthers: who do you think has best use of social media by legal firm in Oz? /cc @mysocialpolicy @radhikar @ Rachael Falk (Telstra)"

Naturally, I responded by pointing toward @nortonrose_au. I was the Communications Manager for Norton Rose Australia from 2008-2010 and drove the firm's on-line activities.

But it got me thinking, unless you're in the legal industry you may not know who the largest law firms in Australia are.

So I thought I'd go back and look at what those firms have been doing since the concept first appeared on their collective radars last year (see The New Laywer and Lawyers Weekly stories).

For now, I've chosen to focus on Twitter.

Both the Australian Financial Review and The Australian publish twice yearly surveys of the largest firms in the country. Since the AFR's is behind a paywall and invisible to the Web, I'll use The Australian's and select the ten largest firms by revenue.

Firm	Twitter ID	Tweets	Followers	Listed
Allens Arthur Robinson	@AllensLegal	592	475	34
Baker & McKenzie	@BMCKAPM	48	80	7
Blake Dawson	@BlakeDawson	16	301	30
Clayton Utz	@ClaytonUtz	163	182	24
Corrs Chambers Westgarth	@Corrslawyers	186	387	35
DLA Phillips Fox	@DLAPhillipsFox	35	230	23
Freehills	@Freehills	53	145	17
Malleson Stephen Jacques	@Mallesons	107	318	27
Minter Ellison	@MintersTMT	138	182	19
Norton Rose	@nortonrose_au	786	1078	56

You'll find a list of these firms on Norton Rose Australia's page.

Of course, this is just a list of the firm's Twitter accounts, not those of their partners and lawyers. But I'd argue it's a good indicator of the partnerships' overall participation in Web 2.0.

And, as we know, Twitter is not all there is to social media. A more detailed comparison should also look at these firms' participation in other on-line communities (you can see Norton Rose's here).

It's also worth comparing the participation of Australian firms with those in the US and UK. But it's Saturday and we all have better things to do. But US author Adrian Dayton (@adriandayton) was in Australia and met with many of the large firms in March.

Why is this relevant?

It's stating the obvious to say that businesses' participation in social media will require input from their legal advisors. I'd argue that advice is more valuable if it's based on practical experience.

But, this is Web 2.0, you be the judge.

Update: http://www.thenewlawyer.com.au/law-firms/firms-ranked-on-social-media-use

Law firms and Linked-In

Kevin O'Keefe, who runs a prominent law blog in the US, contacted me recently about Deacons' social media work and so I've been reading his site.
Found lots of interesting posts but one in particular -- a story about US law firms and Linked-in, argubly the leading social networking site for business people.
LexBlog: Largest law firms all have expanding firm profiles at LinkedIn
I thought it might be interesting to see how my own firm, Deacons, faired given our focus on innovation. So I checked and found we currently have 180-odd people on Linked-in (ie around 15 per cent).
That's not a bad result in comparison but it got me wondering about other Australian firms and so plugged in some other top ten names and got some interesting numbers.
The exercise proves nothing of course but it might be a useful indicator of innovation within the firms -- and it's certainly something I'll keep an eye on from time to time.

Social Apps Will Thrive In A Recession?

To echo Josh Bernoff's disclaimer, I'm not an economist, but I'm pretty sure I don't agree with his reasoning in this Groundswell post (and I may be wrong but I think the Tech Wreck was well underway before September 11).
I do agree some things are different now -- one key point Josh doesn't mention is that on-line advertising is far more mature now, and so capable of demonstrating value, than it was in 2000.
But it looks to me like Josh is asking the wrong question. It's not whether or not Facebook etc will do well in a (US) recession but whether investors will continue to put money in at the same pace.
People didn't stop using email after 2000 and I suspect they wont stop using social networking tools now (incidentally, Mark Jones at Filtered had a great post about what's next, Email 3.0.)
But venture capital funding did become harder to get for Web businesses after the Tech Wreck and businesses did slow spending on new IT projects tools for a while afterwards.
In my view that's the challenge the social networking micro-economy is going to face if the US enters a recession -- a rapidly growing customer base at the same time sources of funding are becoming more risk averse.
And that's a recipe for currently those independant outfits being accquired by large IT and media companies I think-- just like after 2000 -- as they seek the protection of more finanically stable parents (witness the recent rumours re Digg).