Friday, January 13, 2012

Lawyers & Social Media - What You Need to Know

By Philip J. Kavesh, J.D., LL.M. (Taxation), CFP®, ChFC, California State Bar Certified Specialist in Estate Planning, Trust & Probate Law

I just finished the last educational program needed to meet my continuing legal education requirements for my California State Bar license.  I took an on-demand course that I thought was not only timely and relevant, given that I have recently done quite a bit of work with my law firm (and with The Ultimate Estate Planner, Inc.), with respect to this topic, but also a topic that many attorneys should be looking into as well.

The course I took was entitled "Online Networking Media and Lawyer Ethics: How Many Tweets Are Too Many?", offered by the California Continuing Education of the Bar ("CEB").  It was presented by attorneys Jonathan T. Rubens and Colette E. Vogele.  I initially had a few hesitations about this program, because I thought that it was going to be all about posting tweets on Twitter, which we don't do that much of.  But, the speakers put together an excellent program that included a lot of great information about the ethical responsibilities of attorneys pertaining to all kinds of online social media, including maintaining blogs for your law firm or other companies, Avvo, LinkedIn, Yelp! and Facebook. 

I learned quite a bit about some different things that I need to consider and look into further with all of these various online networks so that I am meeting my ethical responsibilities as an attorney.  What I got from this program is to be extra judicious and deliberate in your thought processes pertaining to anything you post online or electronically.  As attorneys, we are held to a higher standard of responsibility for what we say and do and with the internet, the second you publish, post or tweet, you are creating permanent records to be judged upon.

If you are an attorney in California and are any online networking sites, I highly recommend this program.  If you're not in California or an attorney, definitely try to find a comparable program on this topic!

That being said, I leave you with the following disclaimer.  I am an attorney.  I am not your attorney.  You are not my client.  But, please feel free to find me online and check out all of the interesting things I have to post.  :)

Happy Friday everyone!

This post has been brought to you by The Ultimate Estate Planner, Inc., providing practical, tested and proven technical and marketing products to help estate planning professionals throughout the country build their practices.  Connect with us on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.

Photo Credit: alexlovellsblog.blogspot.com.jpg