This document provides guidance on privacy settings and controls for LinkedIn. It discusses adjusting email notifications and group settings, understanding who can view your profile, ethical considerations for endorsements, and consolidating email addresses associated with your profile. The document stresses maintaining only one accurate profile and including disclaimers for any attorney advertising.
Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD or the EU Supply Chai...
LinkedIn 201
1. K e v i n M . O ’ S h e a , E s q . ,
C h r i s t o p h e r O ’ D o n n e l l , E s q . , a n d
M a r r i e l l e B . V a n R o s s u m , E s q .
S e p t e m b e r 2 9 , 2 0 1 5
LinkedIn 201
2. P r i v a c y S e t t i n g s
G r o u p N o t i f i c a t i o n s
A d j u s t i n g t h e v o l u m e o f e m a i l y o u r e c e i v e
“ W h o ' s b e e n l o o k i n g a t m y p r o f i l e ”
A d d i t i o n a l i n f o r m a t i o n o n e t h i c a l
c o n s i d e r a t i o n s f o r E n d o r s e m e n t s
A d d i n g c o n t e n t t o y o u r L i n k e d I n a c c o u n t
2 5 s o c i a l m e d i a t i p s t h e p r o s n e v e r f o r g e t
LinkedIn 201
3. Privacy Basics
Although a professional social network, users will
benefit from properly using LinkedIn’s privacy
settings to achieve their desired level of visibility.
Privacy settings help control what information public
visitors and other users can see, whether users are
able to endorse you, and how you are contacted via
email about updates and alerts.
4. Privacy Basics: Reducing Email Notices
• Begin by hovering over (not clicking) the
thumbnail image in the upper right hand corner
and use the drop down menu to select “Privacy and
Settings”
5. Privacy Basics: Reducing Email Notices
From there, look to the bottom of the screen to see
the categories available to modify and go to
“Communications” as seen below
6. Privacy Basics: Reducing Email Notices
The Email Frequency page provides options for Messages
from other members, Updates and news, Group digests,
Notifications, and Messages from LinkedIn
What level of communications depends on everyone’s
individual preferences:
You likely would want to have other members be able to send you
invitations and messages if those members may be in search of your
contact information (and have business to give us!)
However, regular updated from LinkedIn may be annoying and
create junk email
If you are actively involved in a group—e.g., bar association, school,
or practice area—then it may be worthwhile to receive either daily
emails or weekly digests of that group’s activities so that you stay up
to date with a group you care about.
7. Privacy Basics: Reducing Messages
Click “Select the type of messages you’re willing to receive” in the
Communications tab to select preferences based on what messages you’d like
“InMail” is LinkedIn
talk for the
messages that are
kept on LinkedIn.
You will have a red
flag on the mail icon
in the upper right
hand corner with a
new message.
These messages
allow people to
contact you outside
of email.
8. Privacy Basics: Reducing Messages
You can also choose you can send you invitations
This is analogous to Facebook where you can choose whether anyone
can send you a request or limit it to people who are friends-of-friends.
For business purposes, you will want to allow anyone on LinkedIn to
send you an invitation
Using the “Imported Contacts” choice may create other dangers
associated with importing your email contacts (more on that later).
9. Privacy Basics: Group Notifications
Select the Groups, Companies, and Applications tab
to select your preferences regarding what groups you
would like visible on your profile and how frequently
you would like to be notified from groups:
10. Privacy Basics: Group Notifications
You can also choose the order in which your groups
are displayed—perhaps to showcase what school you
attended or to downplay less professional groups
that reflect interests as opposed to practice areas.
11. Privacy: Who’s Been Looking at My Profile?
Basic users (most of us) cannot see everyone who
views their profile but Premium (job seekers, active
users) can regardless of the viewers’ personal
settings.
In order for a Basic user to know the identify of his
or her viewers, the Basic user must allow him or
herself to be identified.
Therefore, if you want to know who’s looking at you, you have
to let others know you looked at them.
If you want to be anonymous, then sign-out before looking at
someone – although you may only see a more limited public
profile
12. Privacy: Who’s Been Looking at My Profile?
You can see who’s looked at you two ways:
Hover over “Profile” on the upper left hand side in the black
bar and select “Who’s Viewed Your Profile”
Or, on the sidebar of your profile, there is a shortcut link that
you can use:
13. Privacy: Who’s Been Looking at My Profile?
Change your settings by going to the Privacy and Settings Page and
then selecting the “Profile” category
This gives you several options to play with regarding your activity
visibility but you want “what others wee when you’ve viewed their
profile:
14. Privacy: Who’s Been Looking at My Profile?
Three Levels:
Your name and
headline
Anonymous profile
characteristics
This option disables
profile stats
Totally anonymous
This option will
disable profile stats as
well but not even your
workplace will be
identified
Great for
“researching”
plaintiffs or adverse
experts but you can
also achieve
anonymity by signing
out
16. Endorsements
Endorsements can be a tricky area when it comes to
the rules of professional responsibility
Therefore, it may be best to not allow or not accept
others’ endorsements—especially if you are not
someone who is going to actively manage your
profile
Endorsements used to be titled “Specialties. Now
they are “skills & endorsements”
17. Endorsements
Because LinkedIn owners have “claimed” their profiles,
they must take care to comply with the Rules of
Professional Conduct.
This is different from sites like Martindale-Hubbell,
SuperLawyers, or Avvo where the sites themselves
publish information without an attorney’s knowledge and
consent.
18. Endorsements
N.H. Rule of Professional Conduct Rule 7.4. Communications of Fields of
Practice
A lawyer may communicate the fact that the lawyer does or does not practice
in particular fields of law. A lawyer shall not state or imply that the lawyer is a
specialist except as follows:
(a) a lawyer admitted to engage in patent practice before the United
States Patent and Trademark Office may use the designation "patent attorney"
or a substantially similar designation;
(b) a lawyer engaged in admiralty practice may use the designation
"admiralty," "proctor in admiralty" or a substantially similar designation; and
(c) a lawyer who is certified as a specialist in a particular field of law by an
organization that has been accredited by the American Bar Association may
hold himself or herself out as a specialist certified by such organization.
19. Endorsements
Endorsements are ok so long as:
They are accurate;
Do not create unreasonable expectations;
The account owner does not allow inaccurate endorsements
when alerted to new endorsements (e.g., your buddy endorses
you for admiralty and you’re not certified);
Your profile states that it is attorney advertising and carries a
disclaimer;
See, e.g., S.C Ethics Advisory Op. 09-10:
20. How Do Endorsements Happen
Users may see prompts when looking at someone
else’s profile and can click endorse
If these skills are not new, the person will be added to the
people who endorsed you
Or, users can simply add to a list of endorsements
21. Attorney Advertising
Public profiles are considered attorney advertising
If your profile includes a detailed description of
practice areas and work completed in prior
employment, you should include the words
“Attorney Advertising” on your profile
22. Attorney Advertising
From the New Hampshire Bar Association’s Ethics
Corner:
In the context of LinkedIn, listing “banking law” and “insurance
law” under Skills and Expertise – or better yet, including a
statement in your summary description that you practice banking
and insurance law – would fall within the communications allowed
by Rules 7.1 and 7.4.
You must be careful not to make a statement that creates unjustified
expectations, and you must not state or imply that you are a
specialist in either field unless you meet the criterion stated in Rule
7.4(c).
Finally, you should review your profile periodically, whether on
LinkedIn or other sites, to ensure that a change to the website has
not caused an innocuous statement to become misleading.
23. Disclaimers
Example of a Disclaimer:
DISCLAIMER: New Hampshire Rules of Professional Conduct prohibit attorneys
from stating or implying that the lawyer is a specialist except under certain
circumstances; however a lawyer may communicate the fact that s/he practices in
particular fields of law.
Nothing in this LinkedIn profile is meant to state or imply that [insert name of
attorney] is a specialist, but rather identify his areas of practice.
Moreover, nothing in this LinkedIn profile is meant to create an unjustified
expectation about results that [insert name of attorney] can achieve, or states or
implies that he can achieve results by means that violate the rules of professional
conduct or other law; or compares his services with other lawyers’ services, unless
the comparison can be factually substantiated.
To the extent that this LinkedIn profile is deemed to be Advertising, [insert name
of attorney] of Sulloway & Hollis, PLLC, with an office address of 9 Capitol Street,
Concord, NH 03301 is responsible for its content.
(N.B. use of address)
24. Privacy: Email Addresses
You should have all of your email addresses
associated with one account
Likewise, you should not have separate profiles for
separate accounts for the same job
If you create an account with your sulloway.com address and
receive an invitation to join LinkedIn on your private (e.g.,
gmail, hotmail, etc.) address, don’t accept it
You only want one, accurate profile that can be used as a
networking resource
25. Privacy: Email Addresses
The correct email address is visible for your followers
Clicking the small Contact Info box ( ) creates
a drop down menu to edit public information:
26. Privacy: Email Addresses
• Link all of your email accounts to your one
LinkedIn profile by going to Privacy & Settings
27. Privacy: Email Addresses
Your primary address is the address you used to
create the account; this will likely be your Sulloway
account
Having a personal address linked with your profile
will hopefully avoid people sending invitations to
join because you will have multiple addresses
associated with one account
28. Privacy: Email Addresses
• If you do add a new email
address, you will have to verify it
by checking your email and
clicking the link LinkedIn will
send you
• Make Sulloway your primary
email if you would like by clicking
the “Make primary” link
29. Privacy: Avoid Multiple Accounts
If you’re going to use LinkedIn to promote yourself
at Sulloway, you should make sure you only have one
profile
If you’ve previously accepted invitations or stated a
profile years ago, then started a new one recently,
you could have multiple
30. Privacy: Avoid Multiple Accounts
The LinkedIn Help Center has solutions for dealing
with multiple accounts based on particular situations
This can be found by selecting “Get Help” from the
drop down menu that appears by hovering over your
thumbnail profile picture
31. Privacy: Avoid Multiple Accounts
If you know the email address associated with a
ghost account, attempt to login and close the account
32. Privacy: Avoid Multiple Accounts
If you know the email address but can’t sign in, then
click the “Forgot Password” link and follow the
instructions
If you know neither the email address nor the
password, you will have to contact LinkedIn
33. Accessing LinkedIn
LinkedIn.com is the way that most will access the
website
There is also a mobile version of the website for cell
phones
Additionally, there are apps for smart phone and
tablets
34. Accessing LinkedIn
The website offers the most in terms of customizing
and allowing you to set your preferences
The apps are better for browsing on your device to
pass time or out of curiosity
41. Resources
NH Bar Association Ethics Corner:
https://www.nhbar.org/publications/display-news-
issue.asp?id=6899
Pennsylvania Bar Association Statement Regarding
Social Media: http://www.aceds.org/wp-
content/uploads/2014/11/PABarAssoc_EthicalOblig
ationsAttorneysSocialMedia.pdf