The legal profession is waking up this morning to the distressing news that not a single of its members achieved a place in The Independent’s list of the UK’s 100 most influential tweeters.
Scandalously, not even legal Twitter A-lister David Allen Green (pictured) – who boasts 24,571 followers and was recently named the 64th most influential man in Britain by GQ magazine – made the Independent’s roll of honour.
What chance, then, did the likes of Chris “Follow me and I’ll follow you back” Sherliker (@London_Law_Firm 14,842 followers) and Tim Kevan, aka fictional Guardian blogger @BabyBarista (11,383 followers), stand?
As tweeting lawyers collectively grapple to come to terms with this slight, a concern is emerging that they have been penalised for being TOO successful.
How else do you explain the presence in the Twitter 100 of Associated Press journo David Stringer and Lib Dem MP Julian Huppert (both of whom have less than 6,000 followers), not to mention World Economic Forum communications manager Adrian Monck (who has a mere 3,926 followers)?
If you’re including nobodies like that, why not at least throw a couple of bones to legal profession stalwarts like Joshua Rozenberg (6,952 followers despite alienating many with his strict ‘no retweet’ policy) and Mark Stephens (5,829 followers built up amid a ten-year hate campaign against him by blogger Angry Harry)
If there is a silver lining to this black cloud, it’s that the lack of a legal presence in this year’s list is likely to see the judges of the 2013 Twitter 100 come under pressure to include a lawyer.
The time of the much-feted golden generation of up-and-coming legal tweeters led by @AdamWagner1, @_millymoo and @copyrightgirl may soon be upon us.