The second edition of Law Practice Magazine‘s LegalWeb2.0 column is now online. This month, Doug Cornelius has authored a great roundup of the issues faced by law firms who block internal access to social media websites. His article, titled Online Social Networking: Is It a Productivity Bust or Boon for Law Firms? covers a broad range of issues, from productivity and virus exposure to bandwidth and brand monitoring.

A couple of additional notes I’d like to mention:

• First, there’s a nice web-only appendix on the magazine website that includes the comments received from the survey. I’m not sure how long this page will be available, so best to drop by this month.
• Second, a feature only blogging & the social web could provide, Doug has just posted his response to the survey process & the results. He also has a sample social networking/blogging policy for a law firm.  Both these items are worth checking out.
• Third, a big thanks goes out to David Lat and Above the Law for helping us get the word out about the survey.  ATL didn’t get a mention in the article, and that was an oversight. Chalk it up to the rookie column editor (me).
• Fourth, we can’t pin this on Big Law. The numbers were consistent across firms of all sizes. We segmented the results to isolate each of the firm size demographics, and the numbers were almost identical.
• Fifth, 45% of law firms blocking social networks surprises me, and also doesn’t surprise me. The sample size was admittedly pretty small, but the fact the percentages were so consistent across firm size gives me a bit more faith in the results. Even if that number drops to 33%, one-third of an industry blocking is still a big number.

Many thanks to Doug for putting this together. I’d like to encourage everyone to check out Doug’s article and review the materials noted above.

Related to my last post, Legal web2.0 guru Doug Cornelius (he’ll hate that I’m calling him a guru) and I are conducting a survey for an upcoming LegalWeb2.0 column. We’re trying to gather some intelligence about the practice of blocking social media websites by law firms. That is, you try to visit the Facebook’s, LinkedIn’s and Twitter’s of the world, and you get a big old access denied message.

Now, there are plenty of reasons for and against this practice, and that’s what will be addressed in the upcoming article. But before we get that far, we want you to tell us (anonymously, using this survey) if your firm is blocking, which sites are being blocked, and if you are in favour or against the practice.

Any help in spreading the word would be greatly appreciated! Especially if you know someone, say at another firm, is being blocked. They might not ever know about this survey, unless a kind friend discreetly emailed them this link. Would they? :)

Soon to be unveiled in the upcoming issue of the ABA LPM’s Law Practice magazine will be LegalWEB2.0, a new column to be edited by yours truly.  I’ve included a small image capture below to pique your interest! If you care to squint, you can probably get a sneak peak at the into blurb from the first article, written by PMA extraordinaire Erik Mazzone!

The focus of this new column will be on the practical aspects of web innovation within the legal community. My role, or at least as I see it, will be to track down stories (and authors) that highlight the latest methods of web engagement. The read write web is an environment that’s constantly evolving, both on the public-Internet and within law firms. My hope, is that this column will help lawyers decide which tactics & technologies are valuable investments of their time, and which are not.

I’m very excited to be expanding my role with Law Practice in 2009.  I’m also thankful to have the mentoring and guidance of Editor-in-Chief Dan Pinnington, as well as Joan Feldman and Joy White.  All three have been incredibly helpful, and I feel confident going forward knowing that I have their support.

And while I’m on the thank-you circuit… I’d also like to acknowledge former Editor-in-Chief Dave Bilinsky, who both got me involved in LPM and persuaded me to sign up for (yet) another volunteer gig. Thanks Dave! ;) Actually, all sarcasm aside, my time with LPM has been an exceptional experience.  It’s a extremely smart and fun group to be around. And I highly recommend it.