As a personal injury lawyer and divorce attorney, social media is playing a greater role in my daily practice and I am not talking about Matt Cutts/social media/serps. I am talking about clients either creating the need for legal representation or destroying their own legal case by being online and the footprint you leave behind. Let us go over some popular social media sites and how users could create havoc in their life. Starting with the most popular and dangerous is Facebook.
Facebook: Internet Divorce Maker & Car Accident Killer
Every person that you wanted to sleep with in past is in one place. Every mistake you made has a profile. Every future mistake has a profile. Facebook is by far the biggest home wrecker IMHO and my legal opinion. Oh, I am just catching up with some old friends today, reliving old times the next. Post that photo of you shooting hoops on the day we are claiming compensation for lost wages after a car accident. Comment about how fast you were driving before the accident. Wonder in written form if maybe it was you that was hurt, or maybe that you were never hurt. Talk about the amount you are willing to accept to settle the case. These would be invaluable to opposing counsel before a jury.
The Tweet Timeline & Terrible Tweeting
On Twitter users are limited to 140 characters to get there point across. Some people a great amount of thought into their tweets, but others just run at the mouth. This is where the problem arises. The person that tweets instead of just saying stupid things will put those tweets into the “public record”. The who, what, when, where each tweet raises questions with potentially troubling answers. This is the origin of something I coined called the “Tweet Timeline”. This is when you use the time of the tweets to place someone’s location. In a divorce case, this could be used to show that a client was at home or out with a mysterious lover. In a car accident case, it could be used by an attorney to show the driver was tweeting and that tweet caused the car accident. But, in general, using Twitter causes much fewer issues that the “Home Wrecker”.
Digg For Divorce & Reddit Before My Kid’s Standard Visitation
These are social bookmarking sites where users vote up and down other’s work. You are safer here in my opinion, but not completely. For example, you think your marriage is going great only to find your spouse is bookmarking divorce articles and divorce attorneys in the local market. Yikes. Let’s hope it is for a friend. But, you can see the types of questions that could be raised with the content you are bookmarking. So, that article you bookmarked about Scarlett Joannson and whats his name just got your wife nervous.
Legal Wrap Up
As a society for the several decades we have been isolated from a sense of community. It just doesn’t exist, even in my own neighborhood. Things have changed, and I am only 35 years old. All of that changed with the internet because you could reach out learn something from a similar mind. When blogging started, we started to basis of a community. Not because of comments, but because more regular people had sites. So, what before needed either a commerical purpose in mind or have to protect an image, bloggers started issuing opinions in mass. People had a voice, although singular in nature, but atleast you an outlet. All of that has changed with social media. Social media IMHO is a curation of the web’s best (or worst) done by all of us. It is the gong show for the internet. There is too much content for me to view, so we rely on each other to pick through the news. The Huffington Post of the Huffington Post. Have fun out there, but be cautious of the trail you leave behind. Love you all.
This post was written by Georgia Attorney, Joseph P. McClelland, Esq.
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