Michael McSunas, Chambliss, Bahner and Stophel attorney, says he originally set up a Twitter account because he had a client who wanted to start using the site. McSunas figured that if his clients wanted to get on there, he needed to know all there is to know about Twitter. He found Twitter interesting and saw it as a good, free way to market himself. He thought if it didn’t work, it wouldn’t be a big loss since it was free, he could just stop doing it.
Yet Twitter has worked for McSunas, and in a big way. Due partly to McSunas’s Twitter connections including advertising executives from all across the country, he recently presented at Ad Age’s inaugural Small Agency Conference, spoke at the Association of Corporate Council, has been featured and quoted in Advertising Age and blogs such as “Make The Logo Bigger,” “AgencySpy,” “AdScam” and “The Social Path,” and has been named “One to Follow” by “Advertising Week.”
McSunas says having his name out there through new media allowed national organizations to be aware of him and see his connections, and he gained legitimacy. McSunas’ main practice is in advertising and new media, the definition of which is always changing, he says. Most of his clients are either out of town ad agencies or visual agencies, meaning that they create visual content like apps or new ways to communicate.
This means that most of his clients, and his future clients, are all utilizing new media like Twitter and Facebook to put themselves out there. And the way that McSunas has gotten in touch with the majority of them is by marketing himself on Twitter. He says he has two or three new clients this month that have called him based on recommendations from someone on Twitter. He says he always tells people that technology is “up here” (gestures above his head) and law is “down here” (gestures at chest level), and so they are probably never going to catch up to one another. This means that when people come to McSunas with ideas or for advice, there is usually no definite law on many of the items he comes across. For example, a lot of the text messaging law was passed in the 1980s with TCPA, which is supposed to relate to telephones, but they still use those same laws for text messaging. “A lot of times it’s almost like a guessing game, which is in some ways fun because there’s always new technology,” McSunas says.
The most important thing for an attorney or anyone on Twitter who is trying to get business is to remember to be themselves, McSunas says. “They have to be a real person and interact with real people as much as you would if you were trying to network any place else,” he says. “Your whole conversation at Twitter can’t be all legal. You have to give people a reason to interact with you.”
This is why McSunas posts stories from “AdAge” or legal stories relating to advertising or new technology but also comments on other’s posts and mixes in posts about images, music, or sports. He says: “I think when I market myself on there, people know me on there as a real person and then ask me a legal question from there. It’s like regular networking; you have to be patient and you have to take the time.”
He says another great thing about using Twitter is that through the legal blogs and lawyers he follows, he is able to hear about cases almost before anyone else in the firm hears about them; and is able to share them this way. Many attorneys say they don’t “do” new technology, and McSunas says that’s great for them, but their clients do, as well as every major brand in Chattanooga. “You need to know as an attorney, no matter what kind you are, that if your client calls you with a question about a post on a Facebook page that most likely only that person’s friends can see the post,” he says. “You need to at least have a general ‘cocktail party’ knowledge of it, know what they are and how people are using it.” There are things to watch out when sharing information using new media, McSunas says. Twitter and geo-location sites like Foursquare require that attorneys be careful in what they share.
Checking in at a client’s office may not seem like a bad thing, but if your account is linked to Twitter, then everyone knows you are at a client’s office, and that client may not even want the public to know you are representing them, McSunas says. Complaining about other attorneys or clients is also something to watch, as is not saying too much about a client or your law firm, even if you are sharing exciting news. “A lot of that stuff is confidential,” McSunas says. “Also, offering legal advice is a huge issue on whether or not you have created a lawyer client agreement by doing so.”
McSunas grew up in South-ern California, attended UCLA, and then Vanderbilt for law school. He clerked for a judge in Kingsport, Tenn., and then went looking for a corporate job in Tennessee. The only opportunity for non-litigation work was in Chattanooga, but when McSunas moved here, he found he loved the place, met his wife and has been here (except for four years) ever since. During those four years, McSunas left Chattanooga in 2003; for a great opportunity to go in house with an ad agency called McCann Erickson in Detroit working on all General Motors work.
“That’s where I got a lot of great expertise, and one thing that really helped me there was that I was in-house and so I got to see it from their point of view,” he says. “My clients always say: ‘You are a different kind of lawyer because you understand the business side of things and how they work.’ And new clients say they want to use me because I know the ad world and don’t have to have things explained as well as being very practical and having examples of how I dealt with things when I was in-house.” McSunas say he thinks a great, creative community in Chattanooga is emerging. “I think there’s a lot of great talent here and definitely potential. Even though we are all in Chattanooga, I have met a lot of them on Twitter.”