In July, Microsoft deputy general counsel David Howard wrote about his company's revamped preferred partner program, posting the news on LinkedIn. More than 130 people gave the post a “thumbs up,” and more than 30 people shared the news directly through LinkedIn. On Twitter, lawyers raved.

“We're proud to be one of 13 law firms included in @Microsoft's new outside counsel Strategic Partner Program,” the official Twitter account for K&L Gates said in a post. Matt Wahlquist, legal operations manager at Paypal Inc., called Howard's piece “fantastic” in a tweet.

A rare occurrence: an in-house counsel authored a piece of external-facing news and shared it on social media, and after hitting publish, people shared, commented and liked it. Newspapers reported on it. A conversation about billable hours and alternative fee arrangements gained new life.