Rebels With a Cause: Savvy Use of Social Media Highlights ABA Journal’s Journey to Identify Innovators
24-Hours of Rebels Debuts Oct. 14-15
Maybe you’ve been following the ABA Journal’s Legal Rebels online. It’s been hard to miss—with its own Web site and links to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr, plus postings of video interviews, slide shows, graphics and blog entries to entice and engage readers. FolioMag.com cited the Journal for its innovative use of social media outlets and for “catching readers where they already are: Facebook and Twitter.”
Wednesday and Thursday Oct. 14-15, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. CT each day, Legal Rebels hosted a 24-hour marathon of online meetings, focusing on how to change the legal profession. In anticipation of that, readers were encouraged to phone in and leave a voicemail on what’s broken about the practice of law. “Not many professions are willing to take such a critical and also public look at themselves,” said Ed Adams, editor and publisher of ABA Journal.
Legal Rebels is Adams’ brainchild and an energetic demonstration of synergy between traditional and online media. “We built the project through a collaborative process among the staff,” said Adams, noting that they even added an experiential component. Piling himself, two staffers and a hired videographer into a Hertz Lincoln Navigator, the foursome visited local Rebels and law schools in a two-week road show from mid- to late-September. They began in New England, drove through Connecticut and New York, stopped in Washington D.C. and eventually landed in southern Virginia. Their daily tour diary documented the highs and lows of life on the road.
Why Rebels and not Leaders?
“This recession has hit the profession of law very hard. Emerging from this experience, I believe we will see a different kind of lawyering,” said Adams. “Leaders need followers. Rebels can act independently and do different things, as well as do things differently. We wanted to spotlight people who deserved attention for innovation, taking on an entrenched system, or thinking more broadly than their colleagues about the issues plaguing lawyers. By singling them out, we wanted to encourage emulation, or discussion, or even disagreement. But most of all we wanted engagement from our readers.”
Legal Rebels is an ambitious multi-month, multi-media promotion of 50 innovators in the legal world that takes place online and in the September through December issues of the ABA Journal. In addition, it features its own manifesto, Web site, blog and Twitter account. Readers can become fans on Facebook or view the photos from the tour on Flickr.
