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The Hidden Cost of Social Media Silence in Law Firms
By Iuliia Splavska
If your answer to social media risk is "tell lawyers not to post", you need to be aware that you may be creating a bigger business risk.
Keeping people silent may reduce the chance of one post becoming problematic, but it also removes one of your firm's strongest assets: the expertise of your lawyers.
The firms that are remembered are rarely the firms that no one has heard of. They are the firms whose lawyers regularly share knowledge, build trust and stay visible before a client ever needs legal advice.
When LinkedIn Becomes Legal Evidence
Social media risks have changed. One LinkedIn post can become evidence in an internal investigation or legal proceedings. I have seen this myself. Before starting my business, I worked as an employment lawyer for many years. More than once, I used social media posts as evidence in Employment Tribunal cases. This happens because we are responsible not only for what we write, but also for how other people understand what we write. Many problematic posts were never written to offend or discriminate against anyone. Very often they came from carelessness rather than bad intentions.
The Hidden Cost Of Silence
So how do many law firms respond? They simply tell people not to post. They may have a social media policy, but in reality the unwritten rule is often: "Do not post on LinkedIn."
And that reaction is understandable. Nobody wants to lose their job or create a public scandal because of an employee's post. Interestingly, these situations can involve anyone. It can be a junior lawyer or an experienced partner.
But when a firm tells people not to post, it creates another problem. It becomes invisible. Other firms continue showing up online. They are winning instructions, attracting better hires, increasing referrals and strengthening existing client relationships.
I regularly received LinkedIn messages from people asking whether I could help with their employment issues. I always referred them to my firm. At that time, I only had around 3,000 followers. The reason people contacted me was simple. I regularly talked about employment law. I shared photos near Employment Tribunals. I never discussed confidential details of my cases, but I showed people what I actually did.
I was not trying to generate work for myself. I was simply explaining Employment Law in plain English. People associated me with that area of law and contacted me when they needed help.
From fear to responsible visibility
So how do we move from a culture of fear to a culture of responsible LinkedIn use?
First, accept that employees are already on LinkedIn. Whether we like it or not, they are already using social media. They are posting, reading content, liking posts and commenting. This is already happening.
How firms can support lawyers
Second, support them. This could be through an employee advocacy programme, LinkedIn training or social media policy training. The goal is to give employees the knowledge they need to avoid creating unnecessary risks for themselves and for the firm.
Third, stay open to new technology that can make this process easier and safer.
Another way forward
So what does responsible LinkedIn use actually look like?
An employee writes a post. Before publishing, they check the post in one click against your firm's social media policy and guidelines. And if they are still unsure, they can submit it for human review before publishing.
What happens here? Instead of asking employees not to post, you give them confidence to post responsibly. This creates additional layers of protection while still allowing people to share their expertise, build their professional reputation and increase the visibility of the firm.
Combined with clear guidance, training and an employee advocacy programme, it helps firms move from a culture of fear to a culture of responsible visibility.
That is the approach I developed after years of working as an Employment lawyer. It became the Splavska Framework and is now built into my platform Adovira.
Iuliia Splavska,
Employment Lawyer,
Founder- Adovira