Look before you Tweet

By Peter Vieth
Published: March 30, 2009

Lawyers are being cautioned to watch how they use the new social media on the Internet, especially for marketing purposes.

Wendy Inge of legal malpractice insurer Minnesota Lawyers Mutual said that the slump in the economy has led to the increased use of social media for advertising. When lawyers do social media marketing, she cautioned, there are pitfalls to avoid.

In particular, lawyers could find themselves running afoul of the rules on advertising and endorsements if they are not careful using services such as LinkedIn and Twitter to promote their practice, according to panelists at an MLM-sponsored seminar in Salem last week.

“If you are putting information out there that is essentially advertising, be aware that you are going to be subject to the rules for lawyer advertising,” said Barbara Balogh, assistant legal ethics counsel with the Virginia State Bar.

So far, there have been no malpractice claims or bar complaints about attorneys using or misusing social media services, the panelists reported. Balogh said the bar has not received any opinion requests related to the new Web services. “It’s still uncharted territory,” she said.

While lawyers have long been using Web sites to promote their services on the Internet, the new “social media” services offer more interaction with potential clients and the public at large.

LinkedIn. With the popular LinkedIn service, for instance, a friendly client might endorse your practice with a comment posted on your home page. Virginia has regulations on endorsements or testimonials about lawyer services, but you might not even know that someone is singing your praises online unless you monitor your Web presence.

Twitter. Twitter is another service gaining in popularity. Its primary danger for lawyers is its informality. Like a “micro-blog,” Twitter encourages users to frequently post very short messages about what they’re doing. It’s useful to alert friends and colleagues to new ideas and issues, but the informality could lead to offhand remarks that come back to haunt the poster, the Salem panelists warned.

Facebook. Facebook is not often used to establish a professional Web presence, but that’s just the problem, warned Todd Scott of MLM. Because many people use Facebook to post personal or family information, professionals should consider allowing only Facebook “friends” to see it.

The default setting for a Facebook page allows public viewing. “If you don’t want everyone to know what you were doing in Florida last week, you should check the option to have the information private,” Scott said.

The same concern applies to Twitter, Scott added. “You can say, ‘I had a burrito for breakfast,’ but do you really want people to know that much about you?” he said.

Many lawyers now maintain blogs to demonstrate their command of a particular practice area or topic of interest, but panelists had warnings for bloggers, as well. Inge suggested that law firms maintain policies on who blogs and what they say on behalf of the firms.

Law gossip blogs (e.g., www.abovethe law.com) thrive on insider tidbits from big law firms. The obvious dangers of publicly airing your firm’s dirty laundry lie in the potential for breach of confidentiality and public relations meltdowns.

Internet scammers

While regulators and insurers watch the horizon for legal problems associated with the new social media, the use of e-mail – a more familiar Internet service – has factored in some real claims recently.

Inge described how one law firm was bilked out of around $250,000 by online confidence men who persuaded attorneys they had settled a legal dispute and needed to pass that amount through the law firm’s trust account. The “deposit” was discovered to be worthless only after the firm had sent funds to the phony client.

Similar accounts were published recently involving lawyers in Houston and Atlanta.

The scam nearly hit home in Virginia, according to Balogh. She said the state bar received six or seven phone calls a few months ago about similar efforts to defraud Virginia firms.

According to the accounts, the scammers make their “deal” appear legitimate with several techniques. They research their victims, requesting the services of a firm in a matter the firm routinely handles. They set up Web sites to give the appearance of reality for the “client company” and the supposed adversary. They use e-mails to convincingly describe an evolving legal struggle. “It was amazing how easily these people were pulled into it.” Balogh said.

The reports of attempted scams came from all over the state. “It really has been very widespread,” she said.

E-mail and Internet advertising also can be an invitation for a conflict-of-interest claim, according to Inge. She warns about potential clients who dump a large load of documents on an attorney through an e-mail message. Although the lawyer might quickly decline representation, the lawyer and the firm might later be held to have knowledge of what’s in the documents and be conflicted from representation of the “dumper’s” adversaries.

Virginia Lawyers Weekly

Look before you Tweet

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