At the recent American Society of Trial Consultants convention in New Orleans, I was part of a wide-ranging panel discussion on social media and marketing that considered the benefits and effects of blogging and other social media. Since I’ve been developing this blog and using social media for professional networking to grow my startup firm, this topic genuinely interests me. I started blogging and became active on Twitter and LinkedIn in early 2011 with little to no training, figuring it out as I went along, and I’m always eager to learn from others and share what I know. With that in mind, here are some of the key points made at the presentation that may be useful to attorneys, trial consultants and legal marketers.