LinkedIn Endorsements: Lawyers Proceed With Caution

LinkedIn endorsements may be good for the ego, but what they’re not good for is professional ethics. In a recent webcast on LexBlog, Megan McKeon, the senior marketing manager at Katten Muchin Rosenman, explains why the legal industry needs to be wary of endorsing attorneys over the social media site.

“With the ABA model rules regulating what we as attorneys can do for advertising and marketing, it’s important for us to know that endorsements pretty much do run afoul of those model rules,” McKeon explains. According to Rachel Zahorsky in an ABA Journal story, ABA Model Rule 7.1 prohibits a lawyer from making a false or misleading claim about his or her services. The problem with LinkedIn is that sometimes people will “endorse” the skill of a professional but have no firsthand experience with that person’s work. This is where lawyers can potentially run into problems, though the issue is not as black and white as the site itself. Zahorsky reports at least one professional ethics expert says just because an endorser doesn’t know the lawyer directly, doesn’t make it false.