The So-Incredible-It’s-True Story of Rich Clients, Best Friends, Not-So-Well-Kept Big Secrets, and Legal Breaches

Sometimes the universe just hands you real-world scenarios that would have seemed ludicrous exam hypotheticals: High-priced lawyer representing the world’s most incredible and wealthiest children’s-book author tells his wife’s best friend about the client’s pseudonymously written novel; about to be former BFF tweets about it; media follows up. Discuss in the context of legal ethics.

Discuss in the context of maintaining one’s high-priced-lawyer job. Discuss in the context of keeping one’s high-profile client and others like her. Discuss how a rule prohibiting workplace secrets from being shared with trusted spouses can possibly be enforced. Discuss how a rule prohibiting workplace secrets from being shared with trusted spouses’ best friends might even arise. 

Compare and contrast requirements to protect client confidentiality in different countries. Evaluate the impact on any divorce action of high-priced lawyer spending sufficient time with spouse’s best friend such that super-big, potentially career-ending secret might possibly be shared and shared again and again until it’s viral.

Thank you, J. K. Rowling. Thank you, The Cuckoo’s Calling. Thank you, Twitter. Thank you, Russells. And, most of all, thank you, BFF of Mrs. Chris Gossage.

—Lori Tripoli

 

Lawyers Discover the Internet

The news that 77 percent of AmLaw 200 law firms now have blogs is heartening, since just yesterday I looked at a smaller law firm’s Legal Updates page only to see a “Coming Soon” message that was posted back in June. As I well know, maintaining a blog takes a fair amount of effort, even for short posts. Nevertheless, blogging can help cement a lawyer’s reputation as an expert on any given subject.

For me, though, an even better way of connecting with the universe—of prospective clients!—is via the shorter, 140-character bursts of Twitter and the relatively short messages I post on Facebook and on LinkedIn. A blog posting could take an hour or two to come up with an idea, research it more fully, and then bang out a pertinent story. I can interact far more quickly with my tweeps.

I’m surprised by how many lawyers in my personal realm don’t have much of an Internet presence at all. Their web pages are bland, they’re not social networking, and they’re paranoid about how anything they might even think about uploading to the Internets could possibly be used against them. Meanwhile, those more active on the Internet are strengthening their reputation and getting clients. They know better than to post photos of themselves drunk on the beach. They know that they’re going to have to do more than rely on their reputation and some business good will to maintain their practices. They blog, they tweet, they let the world know what they’re up to and what their thoughts are on current developments.

Social networking doesn’t have to be a huge time suck. Blogging can be outsourced to ghost writers, or just delegated to those more junior. Tweeting can be done in a few minutes on a smart phone, after reading a pertinent trade journal, while sitting at a child’s soccer practice.

Those 77 percent of big law firms that have blogs seem to be doing better financially than those without. Now that’s something to be paranoid about if you’re blogless, tweetless, and not at all present in the cloud.

—Lori Tripoli

 

What Are your Associates Tweeting?

This recent dustup in the running world, involving sexist tweets made by a writer, some of whose clients then had to tweet responses (with one editor telling the writer to “grow up”), serves as a cogent reminder that law firms need social media policies, and they need someone to monitor social media sites, and they need someone to enforce those policies. An “all tweets are my own” disclaimer doesn’t necessarily absolve the writer; significant damage can be done even if a tweeter is just venting his or her own opinion about, say, a firm, a rival, a client, or an industry. Do you know what your associates are tweeting?