It is raining dollars in Second Life, and it’s not all Linden dollars.  It seems that a number of lawyers have already joined Second Life, the virtual world created by Linden Lab, in the hopes of rainmaking, and some are starting to see real life results.  An article, published in the March issue of the American Bar Association Journal, reported Stevan Lieberman, a DC Lawyer, as having picked up about $7,000 in additional business from Second Life by December 2006.  Lieberman runs a virtual law office in Second Life, but his listing in the Second Life classified section also directs viewers to his real-life law firm Web page.  Now that is what I call professional marketing.

Well, the world has already woken up to Second Life’s immense commercial potential and companies like the BBC, Calvin Klein, Domino’s Pizza, ABN Amro, and Sony have made their presence in the virtual world.  Dell has opened their “Dell Island” and even Coca-Cola has recently opened shop in Second Life with a “Virtual Thirst” competition.

One couldn’t expect law firms to be far behind in grabbing this new opportunity.  Now, the press reports that Field Fisher Waterhouse, a major UK law firm, has opened office in Second Life. We can expect others to follow in the very near future.  And no doubt, the idea is interesting.

I find that Second Life offers a novel approach to procuring clients and interacting with other lawyers and people in a more interesting manner than other communication tools on the net.  When I went to the Second Life website on May 7^th, it showed that in the last 24 hours a sum of $1,538,287 (U.S. dollars, not Linden dollars!) worth of transactions had taken place.  With commerce of that kind, a lawyer or a law firm can hardly afford to ignore the virtual community any more.