Informing Yourself about Your Adversary: Google Is Your Friend

Here's an interesting post from David Swanner of the South Carolina Trial Law Blog: "How to Ace a Job Interview with Me"--

One of the first questions I ask is “What do you know about me?” It amazes me the number of people of people that don’t even take the time and effort to type my name in Google and see what pops up. I have a reasonable internet presence and to not even look at my website or weblog, before coming to the interview is slack. I don’t expect someone to know everything about me, but to not even look at the website and the areas of practice shows a profound lack of interest, that I find unattractive in a job candidate.

It's excellent advice, but it doesn't apply only to job interviews. Why not get in the habit of using Google to get some intelligence on the lawyers you come across in your day-to-day practice? You don't have to limit yourself to your adversaries, as the title of this post suggests. Use the strategy on others as well--your co-counsel, lawyers with whom you are negotiating a deal, judges and mediators, etc.

I've found Google to be a great help during those first ten minutes of every meeting where the parties engage in small talk to tease out things they have in common. You'll get a head start if you know where the others went to school, how long they've practiced, what they've published. And if they turn out to be webloggers like David Swanner, then you've hit the jackpot: as Dave points out, it's likely you'll  find out just about everything that's important to know, including, when applicable, that you're meeting with anything but a "high falutin’ person."