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Lawyers Beware: Judges May Be Watching You on Social Media

By Carolyn Elefant

There's an interesting article this week in Texas Lawyer about how judges are using social media. On one level, having judges who are familiar with social media can be helpful in dealing with certain issues that may arise at trial, like tweeting jurors or electronic discovery involving sites like Twitter and Flickr. But on another level, some of the judicial Facebook usage described in this article seemed a bit intrusive, in my view. Judge Susan Criss, of Galveston's 212th District Court where she's served since 1999, often "friends" lawyers through Facebook. In order to avoid any communications that might be perceived as ex parte, Criss asks lawyers to de-friend her if they're appearing before her at trial. But as she peruses the Facebook profiles of her friends and associates, Criss sometimes comes across comments by litigants bragging about how they'll make money off a case. She says that in these instances she alerts lawyers on both sides. That's courteous, but lawyers should be sufficiently familiar with social media to check these sites themselves. Similarly, Criss keeps track of what lawyers are doing. According to the story, Criss recalls that recently a lawyer told her she needed a continuance because of...

Full post as published by Legal Blog Watch on August 25, 2009 (boomark / email).