Specialty Areas: Legal Ethics
Practice Areas: Business Law, Criminal Law, Employment Law, Ethics, Family Law, Personal Injury, Taxation, Trusts and Estates
Original Production Date: 07/26/2016
Run Time: 1:00:00
ID Course Exp: 07/26/2021
Social media offers attorneys and law firms the opportunity to build credibility & trust with existing & potential clients, uncover relevant facts & information about cases, clients and opposing attorneys, and to bring in new business. However, social media also creates many new ethical pitfalls for attorneys. Can you list specialties or endorsements on your LinkedIn page? Is it ethical to send a Facebook friend request to an individual involved in pending litigation? Can you advise clients to remove tweets from their Twitter account on the eve of trial? Law firms, attorneys, and support staff must ensure that their online activities adhere to ethical and professional rules of conduct - even without the guidance of specific electronic ethical rules.
In this timely presentation, attorneys Kathryn Konzen and Ross Mecham offer best practices for the ethical use of social media, provide practical ethical guidance regarding common scenarios and highlight situations & online activities to avoid. The main ethical duties covered include the duty of competence, candor & fairness to the court and opposing counsel, the duty to supervise, requesting & producing documents & data, accuracy of discovery certifications and protection of the attorney-client privilege. Further issues discussed: ethical pitfalls & risks, FRCP Rule 1, zealous advocacy, ABA Model Rule 1.1 & the Duty of Electronic Competence, examples of unethical online conduct, examples of ethical/unethical advertising, website disclaimers, retention, inadvertent formation of the attorney-client relationship, the Duty of Confidentiality, avoiding online Conflicts of Interest, recruiting, investigation, Facebook, Twitter, blogging about prior cases, LinkedIn, examples of social media policies and ethical references & citations.
Kathryn Konzen joined DTI in 2014 as a Regional Business Development Executive, and returned in 2016 after going in house with a law firm as the Director of Business Development and Litigation Technology. She is a California licensed attorney that focuses on efficient and cost effective solutions for her clients when dealing with electronic data, whether it is for a government investigation, litigation matter, or internal issue. Kathryn has presented various CLE programs on such topics as Managing ESI, Ethics in Social Media, and Ethical Issues of eDiscovery. Ross Mecham is an eDiscovery Consultant with DTI. He helps law firms and corporate legal departments understand and manage their eDiscovery needs, using technology and efficient workflows to reduce risks and costs while increasing deliverable quality. An attorney with over a decade of experience across all phases of electronic and paper discovery, his career spans state, federal, and international matters, as well as the development of internal corporate discovery practices. His prior cases include intellectual property, employment, and business tort actions, data breach and internal investigations, and regulatory requests.
offered in:
Alaska | Arizona | California | Colorado | Connecticut | District of Columbia | Florida | Georgia | Idaho | Illinois | Maryland | Massachusetts | Michigan | Nevada | New Jersey | New York | North Dakota | Pennsylvania | South Dakota | Washington