This Week In Legal Tech: What Microsoft's Purchase Of LinkedIn Means For Lawyers

The combination contains great potential but also raises ethical and privacy concerns, according to Robert Ambrogi.

LinkedIn logoIf they’re looking for something to put on my tombstone after I’m gone, they could use this: “He was LinkedIn’s 137,277th member.” Some 433 million members later, the professional networking site is the talk of the technology world this week, thanks to its purchase by Microsoft for a whopping $26.2 billion. With LinkedIn having become de rigueur for lawyers, what does this purchase mean for us?

Even though I was an early LinkedIn user, my current relationship with it is best described as love/hate. I recognize its value to lawyers as a directory, a source of business intelligence and a means of making connections, as well as its usefulness to some as a jobs board. However, as I described in a post last year, I am turned off by the ever-increasing levels of useless noise, unwanted spam and pointless connection requests.

Those same mixed feelings follow through to this new corporate marriage. On one hand, I see enormous potential to combine productivity, networking and intelligence tools in ways that could be powerful for lawyers. On the other, I see new avenues for intrusive sales pitches and algorithmic snooping through lawyers’ documents and calendars.

“This deal brings together the world’s leading professional cloud with the world’s leading professional network,” said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella in announcing the purchase last week. That combination, he said, can create more connected, intelligent and productive experiences for both companies’ customers.

In speeches and statements, as well as in a slide deck presented to investors, both Nadella and LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner offered previews of what could come out of this acquisition. Some of it could be quite useful to lawyers, particularly in marketing and business development but also in research and current awareness.

In this new Microsoft/LinkedIn world, for example, professionals will have a ubiquitous profile, solving the problem of scattered, outdated or incomplete information. “In the future, a professional’s profile will be unified and the right data at the right time will surface in an app, whether Outlook, Skype, Office, or elsewhere.”

Our newsfeeds will also be more intelligent, with news no longer living in silos and us not having to waste time searching for relevant updates. Not only will newsfeeds be more tailored to a professional’s network and profession, but the feeds will also be tailored “to the happenings at work like the meetings coming up and projects underway.”

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They also foresee Cortana, the digital assistant in Windows 10, being able to predictively connect dots on your behalf so you will be better prepared as you move through your day. For example, it will look at your calendar, see who you’re meeting with, and send you the person’s full profile as well as tidbits such as who you know in common.

“This combination will make it possible for new experiences such as a LinkedIn newsfeed that serves up articles based on the project you are working on and Office suggesting an expert to connect with via LinkedIn to help with a task you’re trying to complete,” said Nadella in an email to Microsoft employees.

So far, so good. I like the idea of merging the Microsoft Office productivity applications with LinkedIn’s networking tools. It all sounds to me like an on-steroids version of a product currently used in some larger firms, The Firm Directory, an “experience discovery system” that my review described as like a law firm’s private LinkedIn.

In particular, this integration could be powerful for solos and small-firm lawyers in enhancing their marketing capabilities. It could provide them access to the kinds of CRM (client relationship management) and competitive intelligence tools that are already common in larger firms.

All of that said, however, there are two big areas of concern here. One is in Microsoft’s plans to monetize (and justify) the biggest acquisition in its history. Consider the rest of Nadella’s quote from three paragraphs ago:

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As these experiences get more intelligent and delightful, the LinkedIn and Office 365 engagement will grow. And in turn, new opportunities will be created for monetization through individual and organization subscriptions and targeted advertising.

When the CEO of Microsoft uses the words “targeted advertising” in connection with the applications we use to create documents and keep our calendars, there is reason to fear. LinkedIn CEO Weiner similarly described the possibility of “giving sponsored content customers the ability to reach Microsoft users anywhere across the Microsoft ecosystem.”

We can only hope that Microsoft would never be stupid enough to start pushing targeted ads or sponsored content into our briefs, spreadsheets and calendars.

For lawyers, the greater concern involves privacy and professional responsibility. The future that Microsoft describes – one of intelligent newsfeeds, predictive digital assistants and targeted ads – can come about only if Microsoft is able to know what is in our documents and on our calendars, and therefore what we are working on and who we are meeting with.

No doubt, Microsoft will offer assurances that this will all be done by algorithms and analytics with no intelligence to understand the information being processed. But lawyers, above any other profession, should be very fearful of a future in which Microsoft is looking over our shoulders.

Even apart from the obvious concerns about Microsoft accessing our documents and emails, “Think about how much information Microsoft could piece together from our calendar,” cautions lawyer and ethics educator Stuart Teicher in a thoughtful analysis of the ethics questions raised by the deal.

So I am of two minds about what this means for lawyers. There is potential for gaining access to powerful marketing, intelligence and research tools, directly within the applications we work in every day. This could be of greatest benefit to solos and smalls who can’t afford similar tools already in use at larger firms.

But I am very concerned about the ethical and privacy implications. It will be up to Microsoft to build out its vision in a way that doesn’t lose sight of its customers.


Robert Ambrogi is a Massachusetts lawyer and journalist who has been covering legal technology and the web for more than 20 years, primarily through his blog LawSites.com. Former editor-in-chief of several legal newspapers, he is a fellow of the College of Law Practice Management and an inaugural Fastcase 50 honoree. He can be reached by email at ambrogi@gmail.com, and you can follow him on Twitter (@BobAmbrogi).

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