The 6Ps of the BIG 3™Get Hired Using Social Networking

by Jack Whittington, 3L at Tulsa Law

NOTE:  The following blog post is the second in the on-going series, Success Stories, which profiles law students’ and lawyers’ positive results from social networking. Jack Whittington, a third-year law student at Tulsa Law, shared the following post.  You can follow Jack on Twitter – @j2_whittington, or read his blog – World Wide Whit.

Social media has permanently changed the way we do business and network in the professional world. I attended Amanda Ellis’s seminar on The 6P’s of the BIG 3™ in August at the University of Tulsa, College of Law Professionalism Day and was intrigued at the notion of using Facebook and Twitter (I wasn’t familiar with LinkedIn at the time) for career networking opportunities. The suggestions she made for Twitter use particularly struck me. I previously had only used Twitter during live sporting events to see what people were saying about the games and then to converse with other fans. The thought of using Twitter as a networking tool never even crossed my mind.

So with Amanda’s seminar fresh in mind I began to reach out to law school students and attorneys on Twitter. One of the first things I noticed was that a vast number of attorneys and law students had blogs. After reading several different blogs by law school students, I decided to venture into the blogging world myself. I felt it would be a good way to get my name out there and perhaps I could offer something to someone, somewhere, that would make a difference, regardless of how small. My first blogs were viewed by a hand full of people with readers seldom commenting on the posts. I didn’t expect overnight success and knew it would be a long road and made points to reach out to people who tweeted solid information about blogging techniques and strategies. Through a Twitter chat, #blogchat, I began to connect with some great people who offered some great advice to help me get through the lean times when I was wondering if it was all worth it. Particularly, Dawn Westerberg, Margie Clayman, Scott Zucker, and Betsy Munnell. All of these people were more than willing to help me and offered sound advice. It is amazing that so many people out there are willing to help; all you have to do is ask.

Blogging on a regular basis has challenged me in a lot ways and made me analyze real life situations in such a manner that it has shifted my thinking and certain aspects of my worldview. Two of my blog posts have been met with tremendous success in the legal community. My post entitled “Law School Mean Girls (And Guys) and Why They’ve Got to Go” made Wordpress.com’s Freshly Pressed page and I saw my readership skyrocket. Another post, “Dear Legal Community, Enough With the Cynicism” was a hot topic within the online legal community. In my observation it seemed that an inordinate amount of commentators had nothing but cynical and cryptic words directed at law school students and nothing positive to contribute to the conversation. Met with foreboding warnings of “get out while you can” and horror stories about debt and addiction did nothing to help me or direct me in what I needed to do to be successful in the field.  So I issued an open letter to the legal community to tell them enough with the noise and that you’re either part of the problem or part of the solution. I want to work with people who are part of the solution, and apparently they want to work with me too.

First, I received a direct message from Rocky Dhir of Atlas Legal Services – and he wanted to speak with me – he called and the first words out of his mouth were- “How can I help?” – It was so refreshing to hear a voice on the other end of the line wanting to actively do something about the “culture of unhappiness” within the legal field. The second thing to come out of this blog post was my partnership with Susan Cartier Liebel and Solo Practice University. Susan had been looking to bring a law school student on board to her site as a monthly columnist and my blog post was exactly the type of voice she was looking for. I am now authoring a monthly column entitled “Coming of Age in the New Economy” for SPU which chronicles my transition from law school into the legal profession. The opportunities that social media have already presented me in just a few short months are truly amazing. This is the wave of the future and I am truly thankful for Amanda pointing me in the right direction.