Photo: Michael Manning

Gabriel Cheong’s savvy use of the Internet, including social networking sites, have made his young practice a success.

Photo: Chris Bohnhoff

Leora Maccabee '09 found Keesha Gaskins '99 through LinkedIn.

Many users of social networks don’t seem to realize that posting data on these sites means you’ve exposed yourself to the entire world.

Find Jobs, Friends through NUSL Groups on Facebook, LinkedIn

For Northeastern law graduates looking to find a new job or connect with long-lost classmates, there’s a brand-new option that offers an unprecedented opportunity for professional and social networking: the NUSL sections on both Facebook and LinkedIn.

The law school has a group page on LinkedIn, which allows 6,000 graduates as well as current students to join its network to connect with each other for a variety of reasons, including job searches or marketing to potential clients. In the same way, the law school has a page on Facebook — graduates, students and friends can choose to “become a fan” of the page. Joining the sites is free.

The NUSL spots on the two social networking sites were the brainchild of Leora Maccabee ’09, who was trying to organize an event for graduates and students in Minnesota but found that, for many graduates, the contact information provided by the law school was out of date. This was no fault of the school, Maccabee is quick to note, but simply a function of how difficult it is to get graduates to notify their alma maters when they change jobs, get married or have a new e-mail address. By contrast, information that graduates and students provide to Facebook or LinkedIn is usually current, since users are on the sites frequently.

“If you’re on LinkedIn or Facebook, you have an incentive to update because that’s how you meet friends,” Maccabee explains. “It’s working with people who’ve already decided they’ll be online, rather than forcing them to send you a letter once a year.” Through Facebook, the School of Law can contact all of its “fans” and notify them of upcoming events or news about the school. “It’s totally free publicity,” says Maccabee, “and I think it’s more effective and personal than e-mail.”

Maccabee hopes that graduates and students will quickly recognize how valuable these sites can be for their careers. As a LinkedIn user, you can search for jobs on the site and for colleagues and friends in your network who might assist you in getting that job, either because they work at the firm or company you are interested in, or are connected to someone who does.

To date, the law school’s Facebook page has more than 600 fans, and the LinkedIn profile has almost 1,000 connections. Maccabee expects the number to continue to grow rapidly as users recognize the many benefits. To access the School’s of Law’s pages on Facebook and LinkedIn, visit www.northeastern.edu/law

Spring 2009

Face It: Facebook and LinkedIn are Turning Online into a Professional Lifeline

But Experts Warn of Privacy Issues

By Elaine McArdle

Despite the tanking economy, Gabriel Cheong ’07 is doing so well in his solo law practice outside Boston that he expects to double his income this year. The day after he was sworn in as a lawyer in November 2007, Cheong launched his law firm, and just six months later had amassed enough capital to purchase another small firm. While other lawyers scramble for business, Cheong, 27, has a growing stream of divorce and estate-planning clients, and is so busy that catching him for an interview means talking while he’s on a lunch break during a two-day custody trial in Suffolk County probate court.

Perhaps most remarkably, Cheong has achieved this rocketing success all on his own. On his own, that is, if you don’t count the limitless network of potential clients, colleagues and other contacts Cheong is connected to through Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and other social networking websites. Indeed, it’s Cheong’s savvy use of the Internet, including social networking sites, that’s made his young practice such a success — and a tool he says today’s lawyers can’t live without.

“I find that with the Internet and the widespread use of Google, the traditional ways that law firms market their practice — usually through referrals and phone books — are a thing of the past,” says Cheong, who also lists his name with such free online legal directories as Justia and Avoo, hosts two blogs — one on legal issues, the other about his personal life, including his two pet rabbits — and links all of these to his firm’s website.

“I make a point to get linked into any social networking sites with a lot of estate planners because they can bring me business. For example, I network all the time with people from MetLife, New York Life,” he says.

Like Cheong, Leora Maccabee ’09 sees the enormous value of social networking sites for her legal career. Maccabee, a native of Minnesota who completed a co-op in February at the US Attorney’s Office in Minneapolis, used LinkedIn last summer to search for Northeastern law graduates living near her, and found the name of Keesha Gaskins ’99, executive director of the League of Women Voters in Minnesota.

“I sent her a little note, saying, ‘I notice you’re in Minnesota and you do work with the League of Women Voters. I’d love to meet you for coffee,’” Maccabee recalls. Gaskins, whose LinkedIn profile states that she welcomes inquires related to career opportunities, business deals and “getting back in touch,” responded, and a friendship was born — one with the potential to assist Maccabee in her nascent career.

“LinkedIn or Facebook offer a less scary way of contacting someone than calling them up,” says Maccabee. “It’s a nice way to open the door” to professional contacts.

Going Native

For Maccabee, Cheong and most in their generation — termed “digital natives” for their easy fluency with computers, the Internet and other technologies — social networking sites are as natural a part of life as cell phones. Many of those in older generations, who stare from the other side of the digital divide, are wary of Facebook and similar sites. They worry about privacy, identity theft, cyberbullying and cyberstalking, or harbor vaguer fears born of unfamiliarity with these new media, which are proliferating so quickly that they’ve lost any hope of catching up.

In truth, both groups are right. Social networking sites offer significant benefits socially and professionally, but also pose substantial threats to imprudent users. For one thing, social network sites can border on the addictive, with people spending hours on them each day, the reason Facebook has earned the nickname “Crackbook.” (Maccabee says it’s almost impossible to hold yourself back from using these sites to keep tabs on ex-boyfriends, for example.) Then there’s the privacy issue. Once you place information about yourself online, it can end up in the wrong hands. While there are precautions to limit who can view your personal information, these so-called “privacy settings” aren’t infallible.

Barry Steinhardt ’78, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Program on Technology and Liberty, is an expert on privacy and information technology issues. He notes that many users of social networks don’t seem to realize that posting data on these sites means you’ve exposed yourself to the entire world and created an electronic record that can be accessed for years to come.

“Facebook has tools that allow you to try to control the information, but the reality is that you lose a measure of control whenever you post information to Facebook, Friendster, any of those sites,” he says. “I don’t think there’s a full appreciation of that. If you tell your online friends your secrets, the world knows them.”

Steinhardt says it’s important for users to master the privacy settings function of these sites; you may decide that your professional colleagues are allowed to see that you changed jobs but not to view the photos you post, for example. While users should take advantage of these privacy settings, they should also know that “when you expose personal information it can come back to haunt you,” Steinhardt says.

Maccabee agrees. “People put way too much up there,” she says. “All it takes is one Google search and an employer can find your drunken party photos. Or people will put, under ‘political orientation,’ something like, ‘I support the violent overthrow of the government.’ They’re joking, but an employer doesn’t know that. If the US Attorney is looking to hire you and finds that, you’re not going to get the job.”

Barry Steinhardt '78 says there's no such thing as a secret on the Internet
PHOTO: DENNIS DRENNER

More Questions Than Answers

Saskia Kim ’00, chief counsel of the California Senate Judiciary Committee and previously deputy director of the Office of Research for the State Senate, is an expert on privacy issues, which she studied as a Fulbright scholar in New Zealand. The issue of social networking sites has not come up directly in her work for the Senate, but she is cautious about the potential problems.

“Having dealt with other bills in this area, there are questions I have about these systems, including who can access the information and what happens to it, and what kind of control I have over it as a user,” she says. The other important issue is transparency and openness: do users have a clear understanding of who can access their information? “I’m sure [these sites] have privacy policies but those can be general, and vague in their generality, so it’s not necessarily clear to the user what will happen to the information.”

Then there’s the problem of numbers. Maccabee already has more than 900 “friends” on Facebook, ranging from actual friends to people she’s met briefly in social situations to the wife of a colleague whom she doesn’t know at all but doesn’t want to insult by refusing to “friend” her. It’s quite possible that over the next few years, the number of her “friends” will grow exponentially, which — if each is sending notifications and messages — presents a serious information management problem. Nonetheless, Maccabee says, “I think the potential for good is bigger than the potential for evil.”

And Cheong simply can’t imagine practicing — let alone achieving his remarkable career trajectory — without these techno-tools. “I think all attorneys should be doing this if they want to run a good business,” he says. “Social networking is an easy, cheap way to get better at the business of law.”

Saskia Kim '00 says users should be aware of this fine print when it comes to networking sites.
PHOTO: GRANT MAIDEN

Elaine McArdle is a contributing writer. Her first book, The Migraine Brain: Your Breakthrough Guide to Fewer Headaches, Better Health (Free Press, 2008), coauthored with Dr. Carolyn Bernstein, will come out in paperback this spring.