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ARTICLE · 12 JULY 2011

Ethical Implications of Social Media Mining

Cozen O'Connor
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It has become common practice for lawyers to mine social media pages of parties and witnesses for discovery purposes. The posts and photos may show a party to be lying about the extent of his or her claimed injury or disability, or they couldundermine or support other claims. Facebook and other social media sites also have become fertile ground for cutting edge ethical questions posed to state Bar ethics committees.

United StatesEmployment and HR
Thomas Wilkinson, Jr.
Thomas Wilkinson, Jr.

Originally published on CyberInquirer.

It has become common practice for lawyers to mine social media pages of parties and witnesses for discovery purposes. The posts and photos may show a party to be lying about the extent of his or her claimed injury or disability, or they couldundermine or support other claims. Facebook and other social media sites also have become fertile ground for cutting edge ethical questions posed to state Bar ethics committees.

In a recent ethics opinion issued by the Sand Diego County Bar Association, a lawyer asked if it was proper to "friend" request high-ranking employees of a company the lawyer was suing on behalf of a former employee pursuing a wrongful discharge case. The lawyer believed that these high-ranking employees were dissatisfied with the company and likely had been posting negative information on their social media pages that were accessible only to those persons who had been accepted as "friends".

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