While many of the rest of us simply question the worth of LinkedIn "endorsements," lawyer/blogger Robert Ambrogi is asking whether indiscriminate use of the feature violates legal ethics ... and he's not the first to do so.
Amrbrogi writes on his LawSites blog:
An update from LinkedIn this morning indicated that a connection of mine had endorsed me as being skilled in litigation. The person who endorsed me is someone I know only through the Internet. We have never met or spoken, that I can recall. That means that the person has no first-hand knowledge of my skill in litigation. I do sometimes write about litigation-related topics, here and elsewhere, and arguably that could provide some basis for this person to decide that I am skilled in this area. But, frankly, it happens with some frequency that I receive an endorsement from someone I have never met.
That got me wondering about the ethics of these LinkedIn endorsements. Under ABA Model Rule 7.1, a lawyer is not to make any false or misleading claims about his or her services. If a lawyer permits an endorsement to remain on the lawyer's LinkedIn profile that the lawyer knows to be misleading, even if someone else posted the endorsement, that would seem to be a problem under Rule 7.1.
That would seem to depend of which lawyer you ask. Ambrogi has rounded up a variety of opinions on the matter and they do differ.
(Will entering your ATM PIN in reverse summon the police?)
Ambrogi himself does not equivocate: He believes that an unjustifiable endorsement knowingly left on a lawyer's LinkedIn profile would run afoul of Rule 7.1.
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