It’s easy to forget that today’s highly-accomplished legal Twitterati members were once callow social media debutantes — with a limit on how far back archived tweets could be searched facilitating the amnesia.
However, this limit has just been scrapped, and it’s now possible to find out people’s first ever tweets via a monitoring service called Topsy. Here are a collection of the legal profession’s awkward first Twitter forays…
Godfather of the legal blogosphere Charon QC gets thing underway back in 2008.
I appear to be on Twitter… why, I have no idea
— Charonqc (@Charonqc) June 1, 2008
The lucidity of St John’s Chambers barrister and family law blogger Lucy Reed has improved greatly since then.
waiting for someone to deliver my brief so i can go home is what
— Lucy Reed (@Familoo) October 27, 2008
Sadly, that sperm-themed sketch never did propel legal academic John Flood into the comedy big time. Still, the reporting of its attempted creation made for one of the more interesting debut tweets.
trying to write a comedy sketch about sperm…god help me
— John Flood (@JohnAFlood) November 2, 2008
Wait, here’s an original legal tweet that pre-dates Charon QC’s opening effort, from City University librarian and Lawbore founder Emily Allbon.
Emily is re reaquainting herself with the delights of battenburg cake.
— lawbore (@lawbore) April 22, 2008
And an even older one from a sweetly baffled Legal Week.
Trying to set up my blog feeds
— Legal Week (@LegalWeek) April 9, 2008
This, from Twitter pioneer Inner Temple, is the first example of a British legal tweet that archaeologists could locate.
London Local Authorities Act 2007 http://tinyurl.com/2d75ud
— Inner Temple Library (@inner_temple) August 9, 2007
Fast forward to early 2009 and employment law media sensation and barrister Daniel Barnett has arrived upon the scene.
just joined Twitter.
— Daniel Barnett (@daniel_barnett) January 19, 2009
Hours later and he’s still struggling.
still doesn't get this.
— Daniel Barnett (@daniel_barnett) January 19, 2009
Tech lawyer Alex MacGillivray has a relatively late “aha” moment. Months after this debut tweet, MacGillivray joined Twitter as its general counsel.
finally had that "aha" twitter moment, took a long time….
— Alex Macgillivray (@amac) February 16, 2009
Times law columnist Professor Gary Slapper steps beyond the paywall to join the 140 character fun. Four years on and Slapper has tweeted 11,723 more times.
entering world of twitter for first time. like first day of school. hope through these portals is world where no-one says "going forward".
— Gary Slapper (@garyslapper) October 19, 2009
The (real!) Institute of Legal Executives (now the real Chartered Institute of Legal Executives) becomes the first professional legal body to join Twitter.
We are the real Institute of Legal Executives
— CILEx HQ (@CILExLawyers) February 5, 2009
A nervous Law Society follows.
Hi all. This is the Society's first attempt at engaging through Twitter, so please be kind to start with.
— The Law Society (@TheLawSociety) February 24, 2010
By which point everyone was opening Twitter accounts and first tweets became rather routine.
There's still time to register for the 25th Annual Bar Conference this Saturday http://bit.ly/8Zl92L
— The Bar Council (@thebarcouncil) November 3, 2010
To get your — or others’ — first tweets, go to Topsy, search “from:ADD NAME HERE”, sort the results by “oldest”, and then in the left hand column click “all time”.