"Endorsements" on LinkedIn Forum

[Manali]

What exactly is the purpose of these? My undergrad gospel choir teacher endorsed me for "Legal Writing". He has never in his life seen anything that I have written. I also get "endorsements" from people I've never met IRL. It seems kind of meaningless. Should I keep these on my profile even though the people recommending me have absolutely no basis for an opinion about my skills?

[PennBull]

What exactly is the purpose of these? My undergrad gospel choir teacher endorsed me for "Legal Writing". He has never in his life seen anything that I have written. I also get "endorsements" from people I've never met IRL. It seems kind of meaningless. Should I keep these on my profile even though the people recommending me have absolutely no basis for an opinion about my skills?

An ethics dude at a CLE says it's a violation of the Rules if you don't actually have the skills. It's being strongly considered as attorney advertising, apparently.

[grand inquisitor]

yes and stop thinking about this its dumb

[Manali]

What exactly is the purpose of these? My undergrad gospel choir teacher endorsed me for "Legal Writing". He has never in his life seen anything that I have written. I also get "endorsements" from people I've never met IRL. It seems kind of meaningless. Should I keep these on my profile even though the people recommending me have absolutely no basis for an opinion about my skills?

An ethics dude at a CLE says it's a violation of the Rules if you don't actually have the skills. It's being strongly considered as attorney advertising, apparently.

I believe I actually have those skills, so no false advertising here. However the people "endorsing" me have no basis in recommending me.

[A. Nony Mouse]

I never accept endorsements for the above reasons.

[AReasonableMan]

What exactly is the purpose of these? My undergrad gospel choir teacher endorsed me for "Legal Writing". He has never in his life seen anything that I have written. I also get "endorsements" from people I've never met IRL. It seems kind of meaningless. Should I keep these on my profile even though the people recommending me have absolutely no basis for an opinion about my skills?

An ethics dude at a CLE says it's a violation of the Rules if you don't actually have the skills. It's being strongly considered as attorney advertising, apparently.

That's interesting, but I think it would only be a model rules violation if it's related to practice. If someone endorses you for trial skills and you've never done a trial, that's different than someone endorsing your knowledge of Powerpoint when you've never used Powerpoint.

[PennBull]

What exactly is the purpose of these? My undergrad gospel choir teacher endorsed me for "Legal Writing". He has never in his life seen anything that I have written. I also get "endorsements" from people I've never met IRL. It seems kind of meaningless. Should I keep these on my profile even though the people recommending me have absolutely no basis for an opinion about my skills?

An ethics dude at a CLE says it's a violation of the Rules if you don't actually have the skills. It's being strongly considered as attorney advertising, apparently.

That's interesting, but I think it would only be a model rules violation if it's related to practice. If someone endorses you for trial skills and you've never done a trial, that's different than someone endorsing your knowledge of Powerpoint when you've never used Powerpoint.

Well yeah, let's not dip into common sense land here. Was just noting that rules committees are analyzing legal skill endorsements on LinkedIn as probable attorney advertising.

[xael]

I thought people only got endorsements from their friends in things like "autism spectrum disorder"

[MCFC]

If you are desperate to explore this in more depth. https://www.nycla.org/siteFiles/Publica ... 1748_0.pdf

[North]

I never accept endorsements for the above reasons.

Same.

It's such a stupid and useless feature and I even kind of like Linkedin. Takes up a ton of space on the page with that useless information, too.

ETA: Same with the "Skills" section, though that may actually be relevant for people in other fields.

[AReasonableMan]

What exactly is the purpose of these? My undergrad gospel choir teacher endorsed me for "Legal Writing". He has never in his life seen anything that I have written. I also get "endorsements" from people I've never met IRL. It seems kind of meaningless. Should I keep these on my profile even though the people recommending me have absolutely no basis for an opinion about my skills?

An ethics dude at a CLE says it's a violation of the Rules if you don't actually have the skills. It's being strongly considered as attorney advertising, apparently.

That's interesting, but I think it would only be a model rules violation if it's related to practice. If someone endorses you for trial skills and you've never done a trial, that's different than someone endorsing your knowledge of Powerpoint when you've never used Powerpoint.

Well yeah, let's not dip into common sense land here. Was just noting that rules committees are analyzing legal skill endorsements on LinkedIn as probable attorney advertising.

I found it interesting because conceptually there's a difference between writing something yourself, and not rejecting somebody else's writing about you, which could be motivated by trying to be nice/not reading it. I think changing the scope of the rule should require some kind of process, but I also prefer American law to facism so don't see it like a c&f lawmaker would.

[North]

I found it interesting because conceptually there's a difference between writing something yourself, and not rejecting somebody else's writing about you, which could be motivated by trying to be nice/not reading it.

You have to actively accept endorsements for them to appear on your profile, so I don't know what concept you're finding interesting.

I think changing the scope of the rule should require some kind of process, but I also prefer American law to facism so don't see it like a c&f lawmaker would.

lol

[AReasonableMan]

I found it interesting because conceptually there's a difference between writing something yourself, and not rejecting somebody else's writing about you, which could be motivated by trying to be nice/not reading it.

You have to actively accept endorsements for them to appear on your profile, so I don't know what concept you're finding interesting.

Right, but there's a difference in activity between clicking accept, and writing it yourself. A contract may be enforceable whether you click accept to non-negotiable text or negotiate the contract yourself, but it's going to be easier for the other party to enforce the second than the first.

[North]

I found it interesting because conceptually there's a difference between writing something yourself, and not rejecting somebody else's writing about you, which could be motivated by trying to be nice/not reading it.

You have to actively accept endorsements for them to appear on your profile, so I don't know what concept you're finding interesting.

Right, but there's a difference in activity between clicking accept, and writing it yourself. A contract may be enforceable whether you click accept to non-negotiable text or negotiate the contract yourself, but it's going to be easier for the other party to enforce the second than the first.

None of this is contract law and it's not analogous anyway? Whether or not you write the text of the endorsement, you have to actively chose to display it on your webpage. That's attorney advertising (full stop) and is generally subject to state ethics rules. It wouldn't make a difference in applicability if I personally designed my shitlaw billboard with MS Paint instead of asking a friend to make it, all that matters is that I put it on a billboard.

[AReasonableMan]

I found it interesting because conceptually there's a difference between writing something yourself, and not rejecting somebody else's writing about you, which could be motivated by trying to be nice/not reading it.

You have to actively accept endorsements for them to appear on your profile, so I don't know what concept you're finding interesting.

Right, but there's a difference in activity between clicking accept, and writing it yourself. A contract may be enforceable whether you click accept to non-negotiable text or negotiate the contract yourself, but it's going to be easier for the other party to enforce the second than the first.

None of this is contract law and it's not analogous anyway? Whether or not you write the text of the endorsement, you have to actively chose to display it on your webpage. That's attorney advertising (full stop) and is generally subject to state ethics rules. It wouldn't make a difference in applicability if I personally designed my shitlaw billboard with MS Paint instead of asking a friend to make it, all that matters is that I put it on a billboard.

Right but linkedin isn't a billboard, and most people who have a linkedin aren't paying attention to it.

[A. Nony Mouse]

If you accept endorsements, you're paying attention to your linkedin.

[dixiecupdrinking]

Seems more or less identical to posting a blurb from a client on your web site, which would clearly be advertising.

I think this is the kind of thing that would only ever arise if you were actually trying to take on legal work that you were unqualified to do, though.

[North]

Right but linkedin isn't a billboard, and most people who have a linkedin aren't paying attention to it.

No, it's not literally a billboard. But, like a billboard, it is an advertisement -- it displays your name and, if you choose to have them posted, a list of endorsed skills. Again, LinkedIn users have to actively choose (so the endorsements wouldn't be there unless at least some attention was being paid to the page [scooped by Nony]) to have endorsed skills displayed on their page. Once they do, it's advertisement and subject to ethics rules.

Anyway I'm sure you're trolling so

[Gray]

.

[kartelite]

If you accept endorsements, you're paying attention to your linkedin.

Do you have to "accept" endorsements? I always get emails that say "[LinkedIn connection] has endorsed you!" Never had to "accept" any. (I've had LinkedIn since 2008, so maybe the default settings were different back then?)

ETA: My LinkedIn is really wonky though - believe it or not I have two accounts associated with the same email address, although when I log in it only goes to my usual one, but I occasionally still get updates (to the same email address) for my first account. I've also had a really, really weird issue with French language showing up on anything Google whenever I log out of my grad school email (hosted by Gmail) for years, I think it's cause I first accepted some default settings when I was living in France even though I eventually set them back to English.

[North]

If you accept endorsements, you're paying attention to your linkedin.

Do you have to "accept" endorsements? I always get emails that say "[LinkedIn connection] has endorsed you!" Never had to "accept" any. (I've had LinkedIn since 2008, so maybe the default settings were different back then?)

From my homepage right now:


I've always clicked skip and they've never shown up on my profile.

[A. Nony Mouse]

Edit: yeah, what North said. Sorry, "accept" wasn't a great word but I couldn't think of the right one.

[Anonymous User]

I've always clicked skip and they've never shown up on my profile.

Interesting. Mine look different - I don't have a choice haha..

[lacrossebrother]

What exactly is the purpose of these? My undergrad gospel choir teacher endorsed me for "Legal Writing". He has never in his life seen anything that I have written. I also get "endorsements" from people I've never met IRL. It seems kind of meaningless. Should I keep these on my profile even though the people recommending me have absolutely no basis for an opinion about my skills?

An ethics dude at a CLE says it's a violation of the Rules if you don't actually have the skills. It's being strongly considered as attorney advertising, apparently.

It's not advertising. Florida says it's akin to say you "specialize" in something.

[kartelite]

That was me, don't know why it showed up as anonymous. But I don't even get the choice on my profile, they show up automatically.