ATTORNEYS AND LINKEDIN

The New York County Lawyers Association Professional Ethics Committee on March 11, 2015 issued a "Formal Opinion 780" on attorney LinkedIn profiles.  The decision, states, in relevant part:

“A LinkedIn profile that contains only one’s education and current and past employment does not constitute Attorney Advertising. If an attorney includes additional information in his or her profile, such as a description of areas of practice or certain skills or endorsements, the profile may be considered Attorney Advertising, and should contain the disclaimers set forth in Rule 7.1.” For those of you on LinkedIn, please review your profile. If your profile fits into Attorney Advertising, as defined by the recent ethics opinion, you must include a disclaimer from Rule 7.1 (i.e., “Attorney Advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.”).

The full opinion can be found at this link:

http://www.nycla.org/siteFiles/Publications/Publications1748_0.pdf