Just a few weeks ago, we reported here about how wildly popular LinkedIn has become among lawyers and law firms, adding roughly tens of thousands of attorneys to its roles each month in 2008. Here's further proof that LinkedIn has emerged as

the killer ap in the world of lawyer and law firm directories. Martindale-Hubbell, the gold standard of traditional lawyer directories and attorney ratings, has now installed LinkedIn links within its attorney and law firm listings. Every attorney or law firm in Martindale-Hubbell's directory now has a LinkedIn link right beside their name. Hitting the link transports visitors to the attorney's or firm's dynamic online profile, which offers the ability to include expansive material about expertise and background, as well as an interactive social network of connections and peer or client recommendations. Credit goes to Kevin O'Keefe at Real Lawyers Have Blogs for reporting this first. Another reason to join: LinkedIn has also proven to do a powerful job attracting search-engine optimization through Google alogorithms. It's the first of the vast array of social media networking options that has clearly demonstrated its usefullness, and thus appears to be here to stay.   

Finally, a survey of 650 lawyers released last week found that nearly half are already members of some type of online social media network, and more than 40 percent believe online professional networking has great potential. The survey, which was bankrolled by Martindale-Hubbell, concludes that a need exists for a private, online legal network. The survey reports that lawyers are primarily interested in generating client and peer referrals(big surprise there) and are generally frustrated with their ability to stay connected with peers and colleagues. Fifty-four percent of in-house counsel and 41 percent of private-practice attorneys indicated that the ability to link to other attorneys and expand their networks as the most important feature of social media networks like LinkedIn.