The New York State Bar Association’s Committee on Professional Ethics has determined that an attorney representing a party in pending litigation is allowed to view any publicly available social networking profile of another party for purposes of gaining information about that party in the course of the litigation.
Can’t Friend or Direct Third Party to Friend
The attorney can’t engage in deceptive behavior to friend or connect to a party. This give greater impetus to look down private information about yourself on social networking sites.
Greater Responsibility on Social Networking Privacy Standards?
If plaintiffs’ lose cases because a social networking site has been negligent about the type of information made publicly available about a person (particularly these new locator services) could the plaintiff go after the social networking sites for damages?
Tags: attorney rules of professional conduct, social networking
Reading Tea Leaves by Randy Wilson 
October 2, 2010 at 4:28 pm |
[…] By Randy Wilson Another Facebook related ethics opinion from another New York Bar association. I posted a week ago about the New York State Bar opinion that stated lawyers can access public Facebook […]
October 14, 2010 at 1:49 pm |
[…] we apply the recently developed New York State and City standards, it would appear that attorneys can look at the public-facing information a […]