GENERAL INTEREST As you construct your social media profiles, bios, and even headlines, examine ethical rules of communication. Are you publishing client stories to generate word of mouth? Consider the impact on privilege, confidentiality, and then also make sure you examine provisions of the ethical rules that prevent lawyers from creating unjustified expectations or misleading the public. When sharing legal advice, make sure you have the disclaimers the ethical rules require. Also, examine the ethics decisions. When researching for this project, I learned quite a bit by reviewing the rules and ethics opinions. The VSB ethics decision page has two lists, one Legal Ethics Opinions (LEO) indexed by rules and another, courtesy of Tom Spahn, by topic. Explore those, not just in the area of marketing. Take some time to familiarize yourself with these rules and ethics decisions. For starters, always be cognizant of the jurisdictions where you are eligible to practice. Secondly, lawyers should be very careful not to give legal advice on social media to specific situations which is distinguishable from legal information, which is more general. Lawyers who interact casually with prospective clients need to ensure that they don’t inadvertently establish attorney-client relationships. Thirdly, lawyers should take care with their parallel partners who are other lawyers to make it clear to the public that they are not associat-ed in the same firm when they are not. When in doubt, don’t assume, ask a ques-tion. The VSB website has a place where you can submit questions for review. www.vsb.org/site/regulation/ethics. The VSB also has an ethics hotline (804) 775-0564 where lawyers can seek free, informal advice on ethi-cal questions. Networking is not over, it’s just moved online All networking is not over just because of COVID-19. Lawyers still have the ability to adapt and find new connections, opportunities, and clients via social media. While COVID-19 has limited what we can do physically for the time being, it has also increased our opportu-nities to connect socially. And the best part is, once COVID-19 has passed and we are able to move forward, social media networking can continue to be a tool you deploy to grow your business as you network and connect in person. NETWORK WITH THE VIRGINIA STATE BAR @Vastatebar /virginiastatebar Virginia State Bar @virginiastatebar Jennifer Jessie is a licensed attorney in Virginia who helps lawyers and small business owners find clients on social media. While studying for the Virginia bar exam, she started a TV blog that eventually landed her on the Emmy’s red-carpet. She’s been teaching profitable social media strategies for a decade. Her primary platform for marketing is LinkedIn, which is also the home for her course, Personal Branding on Social Media. www.vsb.org GENERAL INTEREST | VOL. 69 | DECEMBER 2020 | VIRGINIA LAWYER 29