Second Life for Lawyers

Ari Kaplan, a leading motivational speaker and author providing career development services to lawyers, recently published an interesting article on Larry Bodine's Law Marketing Portal about how lawyers can market their services on "Second Life."

For those who have never heard of Second Life, Wikipedia describes it as:

"an Internet-based 3D virtual world launched on June 23, 2003 and developed by Linden Research, Inc . . . A free downloadable client program called the Second Life Viewer enables its users, called "Residents", to interact with each other through motional avatars, providing an advanced level of a social network service combined with general aspects of a metaverse. Residents can explore, meet other residents, socialize, participate in individual and group activities, and create and trade items (virtual property) and services with one another."

In Kaplan's article, he shares the story of Stevan Lieberman, an intellectual property attorney with Greenberg & Lieberman in Washington, D.C., who joined Second Life to enhance his presence in the offline world. By interacting with the other almost nine million "Residents" of Second Life, Lieberman says he's reached a new demographic for his services that has resulted in $10,000 of new business.

While the opportunities presented to attorneys by Second Life seem promising, Kaplan offers some caveats to lawyers thinking about joining the virtual world, including avoiding the use of outrageous avatar figures (e.g., flaming head) that could prove embarassing, or avoiding the sharing of any information that could be misconstrued as legal advice.

So if you've just begun figuring out how to leverage MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter for marketing and business development, add "Second Life" to your list.