Archive for the ‘Twitter’ Category
April 23, 2013
Image via returntomanhood.org
Via the Toronto Star:
A Toronto criminal lawyer’s Twitter account has sparked outrage online after several offensive tweets were posted in the wake of the Boston bombing.
The tweets were sent last week from Twitter account @Dasilvalaw, which has since been deleted, though several retweets can still be found online.
“I pray for the suspects. May they slay the police army of satan. Death to all police!” reads one posting sent from @Dasilvalaw. Other tweets from that account contained vitriolic responses to offended Twitter users, including “am praying that u get violently raped. May cancer be upon u.!!!”
The lawyer, David Da Silva, 34, said in an emailed response sent Monday to the Star that he is “not the author of any such tweets.”
Asked in a follow-up email if his account had been hacked, the defence lawyer said he is “having this matter investigated at this time.”
Lawyer Nadia Liva, who sent an email to the Star saying she is acting as his counsel, said he is “very concerned” and “we are currently investigating the tweets, which were not authored by Mr. Da Silva.”
I don’t know Da Silva, either personally or professionally, but his website bio is generic: (more…)
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Tags:Law Society of Upper Canada, Osgoode Hall Law School, Toronto, Toronto Police Association, Toronto Star, Twitter
Posted in Law Society of Upper Canada, lawyer, lawyers, Legal Ethics, legal marketing, professional, professionalism, Rules of Professional Conduct, social media, Twitter | 17 Comments »
March 13, 2013
Matthew Lafferman (JD Candidate, George Mason University – School of Law) has published “Do Facebook and Twitter Make You a Public Figure?: How to Apply the Gertz Public Figure Doctrine to Social Media”, Santa Clara Computer and High Technology Law Journal, Vol. 29, No. 1, 2012. Here’s the abstract:
In Gertz v. Welch, the Supreme Court expanded First Amendment protections to defamation law by requiring a plaintiff who qualified as a public figure to prove a higher burden of proof to recover for damages under a defamation suit. The Court relied on two major rationales to delineate the Gertz doctrine: public figures “voluntarily exposed themselves to increased risk of injury” and had “significantly greater access to the channels of effective communication.” Applying this doctrine to online media poses challenges, specifically when applied to social media platforms. Many scholars have recognized that social media users have equal access to the same basic media features, rendering the Gertz Court’s access-to the-media rationale inapplicable when applied to social media. A 216% rise in defamation suits against Internet users in the last three years alone, due to the recent discovery that most homeowner’s insurance policies cover libel liability, signals an almost inevitable rise in defamation suits that will eventually force courts to face the challenge of applying the Gertz public figure doctrine to social media.
This Comment offers an approach that reconciles the problems of applying the public figure doctrine to social media. This Comment argues that courts should require defendants to overcome certain initial presumptions by clear and convincing evidence before designating a social media user an involuntary public figure or a general public figure. Moreover, when recommending an approach for courts to identify voluntary activity on a social network for limited-purpose public figures, courts should avoid defining mere access to social media as voluntary activity and instead conclude such access is an extension of an individual’s private life. This approach would allow courts to apply much of the currently existing public figure doctrine to social media and help courts avoid the negative legal and policy consequences of abolishing the doctrine altogether.
A pdf copy of the paper is available for download at SSRN here.
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Tags:First Amendment to the United States Constitution, George Mason University School of Law, Law review, Public Figure, Social media, Supreme Court of the United States, Twitter
Posted in defamation, Defamation Law, Facebook, First Amendment, free speech, Freedom of expression, freedom of speech, Gertz v. Welch, Public Figure, SCOTUS, social media, Twitter, United States, United States Supreme Court | Leave a Comment »
March 13, 2013
Kelly Lynn Anders has published “Ethical Exits: When Lawyers and Judges Must Sever Ties on Social Media”, Charleston Law Review, Vol. 7, No. 2, Winter 2012-2013. The abstract reads:
This article addresses the very recent trend of requiring lawyers and judges to sever ties on social media, the professional implications of doing so, relevant rules governing judicial and attorney conduct, and a discussion of “best practices” for lawyers and judges to follow when social media connections must be broken. Recent opinions from states that have issued social media directives in this area will also be discussed, along with a brief overview of three of the most commonly used social media sites at the time of the publication of this article – Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
Through this discussion and analysis, one theme will continue to resurface – the increasingly pressing need for guidance and clarity in the MRPC and MRJC so that expectations involving social media connections will be clear, uniform, and much easier to manage for lawyers, judges, and anyone with whom they may communicate, either professionally or personally. Such clear-cut guidance would also decrease the need for severing ties that should not have been formed in the first place, thereby also serving to contribute to the preservation of solid and favorable reputations of all jurists and counselors in an increasingly virtual world.
Download a pdf copy of the article via SSRN here.
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Tags:American Bar Association Model Rules of Professional Conduct, Facebook, Lawyer, LinkedIn, MRJC, MRPC, Social media, Twitter
Posted in ABA, American Bar Association, ethics, Facebook, internet, internet law, Judge, judging, Kelly Lynn Anders, LinkedIn, MRJC, MRPC, social media, Twitter | Leave a Comment »
October 26, 2012
Image via skepticblog.org
The Law Society of Upper Canada has spoken about the future of articling.
Well, the Benchers sure spoke a lot during the Convocation meeting— motioning to vote, motioning to defer the debate, motioning for a “friendly amendment” to the deferral of the vote, and, amusingly, Treasurer Tom Conway motioning to one Bencher on the phone to press “*6″ and mute his line and stop talking about “Irene”.
Meanwhile, back at the War Room, my co-panellists and I listened, commented and tweeted. Check out the archive of the live discussion on the Law Society website here. (more…)
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Tags:Bencher, Convocation, Law Society, Law Society of Upper Canada, Tom Conway, Twitter
Posted in access to justice, accountability, articling, Articling Debate, Law Society of Upper Canada, lawyer, lawyers, legal practice, legal profession, Twitter | Leave a Comment »
September 26, 2012
In his post over at Legal Cheek, “Twitter Set To Drive ‘Free-Of-Charge Ferrari Through The Horse And Cart World Of Law’, i@n davison (trendily pronounced iatn”) forecasts a ”Twitter legal advice experiment taking place today could prove a turning point for the way legal services are delivered”. Davison writes, (more…)
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Tags:Solicitors Regulation Authority, Twitter
Posted in England and Wales, English law, ethics, social media, solicitor client privilege, Twitter | 1 Comment »
Antonin I. Pribetic
