While in-house counsel are elbows-deep deciphering appropriate social media policy, they're also jumping into the social networking scene themselves. According to the 2013 In-House Counsel New Media Engagement Survey—conducted by InsideCounsel, Greentarget and Zeughauser Group—in-house lawyers are increasingly using new media tools to consume information and connect with colleagues and clients.

A mere three years ago, 43 percent of respondents said they did not use new media tools; in the most recent survey, that number dropped to just 27 percent among the 379 in-house counsel who participated. Those who are using new media tools are doing so on a variety of devices including smartphones (53 percent), tablets (39 percent) and mobile apps (23 percent), although more than half also continue to read print publications for industry news.

Of the professional sites that attorneys access with these devices, the most popular is the networking site LinkedIn, which 67 percent of respondents reported logging on to in the past week. But Wikipedia is also gaining traction as a valuable professional resource: The percentage of respondents who reported using the site to do company and industry research climbed from 51 percent in 2012 to 65 percent this year.

Attorney-authored blogs are another favorite information source for in-house counsel, who report reading law firm blogs as frequently as they read those penned by journalists. A well-written blog can translate into new clients for those firms: Fifty-three percent of inside counsel predicted that a high-quality blog could influence their hiring decisions in the future.

More survey results are available at insidecounsel.com. 

—Alanna Byrne

While in-house counsel are elbows-deep deciphering appropriate social media policy, they're also jumping into the social networking scene themselves. According to the 2013 In-House Counsel New Media Engagement Survey—conducted by InsideCounsel, Greentarget and Zeughauser Group—in-house lawyers are increasingly using new media tools to consume information and connect with colleagues and clients.

A mere three years ago, 43 percent of respondents said they did not use new media tools; in the most recent survey, that number dropped to just 27 percent among the 379 in-house counsel who participated. Those who are using new media tools are doing so on a variety of devices including smartphones (53 percent), tablets (39 percent) and mobile apps (23 percent), although more than half also continue to read print publications for industry news.

Of the professional sites that attorneys access with these devices, the most popular is the networking site LinkedIn, which 67 percent of respondents reported logging on to in the past week. But Wikipedia is also gaining traction as a valuable professional resource: The percentage of respondents who reported using the site to do company and industry research climbed from 51 percent in 2012 to 65 percent this year.

Attorney-authored blogs are another favorite information source for in-house counsel, who report reading law firm blogs as frequently as they read those penned by journalists. A well-written blog can translate into new clients for those firms: Fifty-three percent of inside counsel predicted that a high-quality blog could influence their hiring decisions in the future.

More survey results are available at insidecounsel.com. 

—Alanna Byrne