Lawyers Conduct And Social Media Competence In The Practice Of Law

safeguarding the perils of social media and technology in the hands of jurors

(Nicolas 402). This can’t happen for so many reasons currently. Thus, as the literature makes clear, Juries’ Conduct and Social Media contributes to the relationship between social media and the contemporary courtroom presenting a powerful problem to the law and courts as it exists today

C. Lawyers’ Conduct and Social Media

Jan L. Jacobowitz and Danielle Singer explore the third analytical category that emerges when researching social media and the contemporary courtroom,

Lawyers’ Conduct and Social Media, in the article “The Social Media Frontier:

Exploring a New Mandate for Competence in the Practice of Law.” The authors establish the distinction of this analytical

Regarding the duty of confidentiality, the authors reference a case in which “a federal judge in California... upheld an order compelling discovery of a client’s e-mails, instant message conversations, and blog posts after concluding that discussions of conversations with counsel waived attorney-client privilege” (Lackey

Jr. and Minta 157). For this reason, the authors call for lawyers to carefully divide personal and professional networks in order to avoid issues of contact-sharing. In terms of legal advertising rules, the authors point out that “many attorneys may not realize their actions online may fall under the rules governing advertising… for example, Connecticut’s ethical rules suggest that even a simple LinkedIn invitation to another user that links to a lawyer’s personal page describing his practice may be an advertisement subject to regulation” (Lackey Jr. and Minta 158). Thus, ambiguities in this area persist. Finally, the authors speak to the unauthorized or inadvertent practice of law. They describe how with the growth of social media sending information across global networks is easy, however, it also makes it

Steven Seidenberg continues the discussion of ethical hazards in his article titled “Seduced: for Lawyers, the Appeal of Social Media Is Obvious. It's Also

Dangerous” written for the American Bar Association Journal. In it Seidenberg describes the efforts of the ABA Commission on Ethics 20/20 Working Group. The group believes that “the law is still very much in its infancy,” and is working to formulate proposals to clarify rules in the area of new technologies (Seidenberg 51).

This may include amendments to the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct. An example of one rule discussed in the article occurs when “an attorney seeks access to the social media posts of someone underrepresented by counsel, such as an opposing party’s witness” (Seidenberg 51). The ABA “Model Rule 4.1(a) forbids a lawyer from making a false statement of material fact or law to a third person and

Rule 8.4(c) forbids a lawyer from engaging “in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation” (Seidenberg 51). These rules are violated when an attorney friends someone online under false pretenses according to