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Ken Strutin wrote an interesting article for New York Law Journal, which summarizes recent ethics opinions concerning the ethical issues involved in social networking for judges and attorneys.  One of the opinions, written by the South Carolina Advisory Committee on Standards of Judicial Conduct, concluded that a magistrate judge could friend law enforcement officers and employees of the Magistrate on Facebook, "as long as they do not discuss anything related to the judge?s position as magistrate."  There's no clarifying discussion on exactly what this means - could the magistrate judge post a status update on how horrible the coffee was at work that day or would this statement be considered a discussion of something "related to the judge's position as magistrate"?  One would hope not, but that pesky word "anything" seems to imply that magistrate judges should avoid any discussion that could appear "related to the judge's position as magistrate."  Thanks to Law Librarian Blog for the tip!

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