Blog
Ethics

False YouTube Ad and Padded Resume Leads to Reprimand of Florida Judge

The Supreme Court of Florida commanded Leon County Circuit Court Judge Angela Dempsey to appear for a public reprimand due to (1) a YouTube election advertisement entitled “re-elect” when she had been previously appointed to the bench and (2) a flyer claiming she had 20 years of legal experience when …

Read More
Defamation

Does Your Company Need a Lawyer to Handle Social Media, Twitter and Facebook?

At least one company, Clorox, is looking for a full time, in house lawyer to clean up their social media policies and presence.  Is that necessary? A marketing person (or even an astute college student) could likely develop and monitor Twitter feeds and a Facebook fan page.  But is that …

Read More
Uncategorized

“Blogging for Lawyers” at Palm Beach Bar Association

We recently offered a lunch-time seminar for lawyers interested in learning about blogging at the Palm Beach Bar Association.  This was one in a series of lawyer-technology seminars, much like our prior Tweet Meet and Eat. Thanks to Matt Kakuk of Webmanagement.us who jumped in with some technical help on …

Read More
Uncategorized

Florida Paralegal Association & Internet Social Networking

Thank you to the Paralegal Association of Florida – Boca Raton Chapter for the very kind invitation to speak about “Social Networking Websites for Fun and Research” at their January 14, 2010 meeting. This presentation grew out of the Spring 2009 article, “Internet Social Networking Sites for Lawyers,” which was …

Read More
Uncategorized

Google Scholar’s Legal Search and Fast Flip

The ABA Journal Daily alerted us to “Google Offers Legal Research for Average Citizen… and Lawyers Too” so we had to take Google Scholar out for a test drive.  Along the way, we also stumbled across another Google product, Fast Flip.  Both are free. Apparently Google wants to dip a …

Read More
Ethics

JEAC Enters Ethics Fray Over Judges and Facebook… But Florida Wasn’t the First

As has been recently well-hyped, there are certain restrictions on Florida judge’s use of social networks.  It apparently took awhile for everyone to notice a November 17 Judicial Ethics Advisory Committee report but once the New York Times got a hold of it nearly a month later on December 10, …

Read More
Ethics

Can You Twitter from a Courtroom?

The answer is a mixed bag, with the least favorable outcomes in federal court under the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. In a recent federal criminal case in Georgia, the Judge in U.S. v. John Mark Shelnutt wrote that, “the request to ‘tweet’ from the courtroom is denied.  According to …

Read More
Uncategorized

Palm Beach County Bar Association Hosts “Tweet, Meet & Eat”

What does $30 buy you these days?  How about a 90-minute session learning to use Twitter and Facebook, a free lunch, and 1 hour of Florida Bar CLE credit! Come join us on Friday, September 25, 2009 at the Palm Beach County Bar Association offices for the Tweet Meet & …

Read More
Ethics

Can a Lawyer Get a Copy of a Transcript Without Paying Court Reporter? (The Debate Continues)

There is often an unspoken understanding that lawyers who attend hearings which are transcribed need to pay the court reporter to get a copy. Thus, if there are 10 parties to a lawsuit and everyone wants a copy of a 15-minute hearing transcript, court reporters often take the position that …

Read More
Uncategorized

Lawyer & Law Firm Blogs: Advice from Palm Beach County Attorneys

Considering writing a law blog?  Interested in seeing what other firms are doing?  Take a peek at the September 2009 Palm Beach Bar Bulletin article, Lawyer Blogs: Overview and Advice from Palm Beach County Bloggers.  It’s also included in the column to the right under “Articles.” Note the interesting statistics: …

Read More
Uncategorized

Better Searching on Facebook

We’ve written about how to use social networking websites for jury selection and marketing (see right column under Articles) and Facebook has now made it even easier to hunt down its members and their posts. Conceptually, Facebook has been a “closed circuit” social networking site where users limit who can …

Read More
Uncategorized

California Supreme Court OK’s Employer Videotaping Employee’s Office – and no one cares?

The California Supreme Court issued an August 3 opinion holding that an employer could secretly videotape an employee’s closed office without invading workplace privacy rights — and only a few news agencies mentioned the case by name (about 50 outlets referenced the case generally).  To give you an idea of …

Read More
Uncategorized

Why Lawyers Should Be @ Twitter

Chances are if you are reading this, you likely do not need a primer on how to use web applications like Twitter.  But, in case you need a refresher or are looking for some Palm Beach legal related tweet material, check out the July/August 2009 Palm Beach Bar Bulletin for …

Read More
Ethics

Privileged Documents Sent to Expert Not Waived?

Because so many people are involved in the everyday step of sending records from a law office to an expert, the mistake of inadvertantly including privileged information occurs now and again.  Is it waiver?  Will the jury see it? In Nan H. Mullins, D.M.D. v. Alice Tompkins (Benton, Webster and …

Read More
Ethics

Can You Post a Video Deposition on YouTube?

The Internet has invigorated questions about depositions which has laid fairly dormant for years: who “owns” a deposition video or transcript?  Is it public record? Ever considered posting a video deposition on YouTube?  Is that allowed?  A quick search suggests there’s more than two thousand video depos on YouTube. We’re …

Read More