New Information on Methodology of <i>2010 Corporate Counsel New Media Engagement Survey</i>

New information about the methodology of The 2010 Corporate Counsel New Media Engagement Survey has been provided by Kevin Iredell, Vice President of ALM Intelligence, a consultant on the survey. Mr. Iredell provided the following information about the survey methodology, information which is not found in the survey report:

We received 165 responses to this survey.
We invited lawyers working as in house counsel to participate.
We sent the invitation to 10,000 individuals for a 1.65% response rate.
The 10,000 invited participants represent a random sample of in-house counsel.
One particular note of caution in looking at the results. Some of the cross tabs have an “n” less than 30. These were meant to be directional only as they are not statistically significant cell sizes.

In addition, Mr. Iredell said that the margin of sampling error for the survey was plus or minus “10%” “for the questions that were not cross tabbed,” and that the population of the study consisted of in-house counsel in the U.S.

The authors of the study — John E. Corey and Aaron R. Schoenherr of Greentarget — and Mr. Iredell declined to disclose the size of the population for the survey. Since the survey report also does not disclose the size of the population for the survey, readers of the survey report cannot determine the sufficiency of the sample size on the basis of information disclosed in the survey report. However, given that reputable surveys of the entire U.S. population typically use samples of under 3,000 — see, e.g., National Opinion Research Center, General Social Survey (target sample size: 1500); Pew Internet and American Life Project, Twitter and Status Updating, Fall 2009 (sample size 2,253) — the sample used in The 2010 Corporate Counsel New Media Engagement Survey is very likely of sufficient size.

The survey results were discussed in Amy Miller, Survey: Blogs Still Matter at Law Firms, Corporate Counsel, June 1, 2010.

Thanks to Mr. Corey and Mr. Schoenherr for entertaining my request for information respecting the survey methodology, and to Mr. Iredell for providing additional information about the survey methodology.

Tags: Corporate counsel, Corporate Counsel New Media Engagement Survey, Corporate Counsel New Media Engagement Survey 2010, Kevin Iredell, Lawyers use of social media, Lawyers' use of social networks, Legal communication, Legal social media, Legal social networks, Statistical methods in legal communication studies, Statistical methods in legal informatics, Survey methods in legal communication studies, Survey methods in legal informatics, Web 2.0 and law