Legal Ethics and Social Media

The number of lawyers using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social media networks grows daily.  So too does the number of lawyers doing foolish and unethical things on those networks. In this post I highlight some of the more egregious social media missteps made by lawyers in recent years, in the hope that other lawyers won’t repeat them.   Then I describe how the Rules of Professional Conduct apply to social media both generally and in specific contexts such as investigations, litigation, and client testimonials. The Stats The ABA’s annual Legal Technology report suggests that lots and lots of lawyers are on social media.   The 2014 survey results included these stats: 96% of attorneys have a LinkedIn account 33% of lawyers have a presence on Facebook 10% of lawyers maintain a Twitter account 8% of lawyers maintain a legal blog For law firms, the figures are even higher: 52% on Facebook, 19% on Twitter, 24% with blogs. The Easily Avoidable Gaffes Many lawyers find themselves in trouble after social media missteps because they forgot the basic rules of civility that our parents tried to teach us as kids: be nice, play well with others, treat everybody like you’d like to be treated.  When we ignore these well established social norms on the Internet our misconduct is memorialized for ridicule and quite possibly legal discipline. Think it, don’t Tweet it:  A Kansas court of appeals research attorney was fired and subject to bar discipline when she tweeted  insulting comments about former Kansas attorney [...]