This is not class action related, but it is blawg related.
I will be participating in a CLE webcast on July 27, 2012, which has the working title Social Media for Lawyers: Do’s, Don’ts, Why Nots, and You Probably Shouldn’ts. The will be presented by the West LegalEdCenter. My co-panelists will be Kristine Scott, Corporate Compliance Director – Privacy, for Aon Service Corporation, and fellow class action blogger H. Scott Leviant of The Complex Litigator. Below is a brief summary of the program. I’ll post more details as soon as they are available. We hope you can join us!
In this webcast, our panel will address the common ethical and legal pitfalls associated with the growing use of blogs, Twitter, facebook, LinkedIn, and other social media in law firms and corporate environments. The three unique perspectives offered by the panelists on this timely subject will provide useful information for both in-house lawyers and private practitioners in a variety of firm sizes and practice areas.
Part I will address the unique ethical issues facing the plaintiffs’-oriented or small firm lawyer. Issues include the ethics of “friending” judges, how to ethically use social media in advertising, whether to segregate personal and professional social media use, how to provide legal commentary without giving legal advice, selecting social media based on practice type (one size does not fit all), and the circumstances under which it is appropriate to use social media to publicize events in a pending case.
Part II will address ethical and risk management issues facing corporate lawyers and executives. Topics to be addressed in Part II include best practices in social media policies, the use of social media by employers in vetting potential employees, protection of employee or customer privacy, and how and when it is appropriate for an employer to monitor employee social media use.
Part III will focus on ethical issues for large firms and lawyers in large firms. Topics include maintaining a level of appropriate decorum without boring your audience, when and how to talk about clients in social media, the danger of “issues” conflicts and other conflicts of interest, and best practices in law blog comments policies and disclaimers.


Very, very confused about the date of this webcast. The save the date banner says June 27th. The first paragraph of the article states July 27th and the sidebar says June 26th. Please advise of the date and time of this webcast. Thank you.
Very, very sorry. The webcast will be on June 27. Interestingly, the error itself exemplifies one of the dangers of social media, which is immediacy of content. The date was originally wrong in the title, and I fixed it a mere seconds after I initially pushed “publish” on the blog post. However, by the time I fixed it, the title had already been broadcast from WordPress to Twitter automatically in its incorrect form, which means that I gave thousands of people the wrong date. Now I’ll have to send a separate tweet, which will subject me to extreme embarrassment and mockery. The lesson to be learned from this: always proofread your title before you push “publish.”
[...] anyone who was interested in my recent “save the date” post about the upcoming webcast, Social Media for Lawyers: Do’s, Don’ts, Why Nots, and You Probably [...]