Even though I am no longer practicing construction law, I try to keep up with whether and how my former clients are using social media. I have discovered that not one CEO or GC of my largest clients are on Twitter. But, interestingly, the companies have a Twitter accounts and use it as an internal and external communications tool.

I recently coached a lawyer who had a meeting scheduled with the general counsel of an energy company. One of his close friends worked for a subsidiary and had arranged the meeting.

The lawyer I coach was surprised when I showed him that both the parent company and the subsidiary had twitter accounts and were tweeting that day. It turned out what they were tweeting was valuable information to read before the meeting the following week.

I coached another lawyer who discovered that a coveted potential client was on Twitter and had announced a major project with a link to a more detailed discussion. It turned out that there was something in the PR release that should not have been there. The lawyer brought that to the attention of her contact, who was not only grateful, but also retained the firm to handle the regulatory part of the transaction.