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Thompson Hine LLP, a full-service business law firm with approximately 400 lawyers in 11 offices, was ranked number 1 in the category “Most innovative North American law firms: New working models” by The Financial Times and was 1 of 7 firms shortlisted for The American Lawyer’s inaugural Legal Services Innovation Award. The firm has been recognized by the National Law Journal as a Legal Technology Trailblazer and featured by Bloomberg for its innovative service delivery models, which drive accuracy and predictability. The firm’s commitment to innovation is embodied in Thompson Hine SmartPaTHTM – a smarter way to work – predictable, efficient and aligned with client goals. For more information, please visit ThompsonHine.com and ThompsonHine.com/SmartPaTH.

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<img style="max-width: 100%;height: auto;max-width: 100%;height: auto" loading="lazy" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-2213" src="https://www.thelawforlawyerstoday.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/754/2015/12/Social-media.5-300x199.jpg" alt="Social media.5" width="300" height="199">Here are three very recent reminders about what not to do online.&nbsp; These separate stories&nbsp;involve an Indiana lawyer and two judges:&nbsp; one state and&nbsp;one federal.&nbsp; Apparently human nature makes on-line misconduct irresistible to some people, even at the cost&nbsp;of their licenses to practice, and the risk of other professional embarrassment.
Don&rsquo;t Steele &mdash; or lie
<ul>
<li>The Indiana lawyer (whose last name is, appropriately, &ldquo;Steele&rdquo;) misappropriated about $150,000 in funds from his client trust account, diverting the money to his personal use, though he also sometimes let the loot trickle down, &ldquo;peel[ing] off a few hundred dollars&rdquo; by way of handing out &ldquo;spot bonuses&rdquo; to his employees.</li>
<li>But in addition to multiple other violations, the lawyer misused his profile on Avvo.com,&nbsp;the&nbsp;ubiquitous legal marketing website.&nbsp; By his own description, Steele &ldquo;actively manipulate[d his] Avvo reviews [from clients] by monetarily incentivizing positive reviews, and punishing clients who [wrote] negative reviews by publicly exposing confidential information about them.&rdquo;&nbsp; Can&rsquo;t get much worse than that &mdash; except that at least once, Steele &ldquo;was mistaken about the identity of a negative reviewer, prompting him to expose the confidential information of a former client other than the one who had posted the review.&rdquo;&nbsp; Result:&nbsp; <a href="http://filehost.thompsonhine.com/uploads/In_re_Steele_b982.pdf">disbarment</a>.</li>
</ul>
Facebook follies
<ul>
<li>A senior state judge in Minnesota liked to post on his personal Facebook page.&nbsp; He described a court as a &ldquo;zoo;&rdquo; he referred to a defendant as a &ldquo;klunk.&rdquo;&nbsp; He described a case where a woman moved for expungement of her criminal conviction,&nbsp; which had resulted from&nbsp;assaulting her boyfriend, whom she caught having sexual relations with another woman.&nbsp;&nbsp;The judge&rsquo;s FB comment on the case:&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;Listen to this and conclude that lawyers have more fun than [other] people.&rdquo;</li>
<li>The capper for the judicial oversight board was FB posts the judge made&nbsp;during a September sex trafficking trial.&nbsp; The posts were&nbsp;simply factual, but the defense&nbsp;became aware of them after conviction and before sentencing and successfully moved for retrial.&nbsp;&nbsp;Result:&nbsp; an embarrassing <a href="http://filehost.thompsonhine.com/uploads/1517-public-reprimand_70ad.pdf">public reprimand </a>for violating five rules in the code of judicial conduct.&nbsp; The judge stated that &ldquo;he now realizes that his posts&nbsp;should not have been shared&nbsp;even with friends.&rdquo;</li>
</ul>
Bad tweets?
<ul>
<li>Last, a logging company defendant in a Ninth Circuit appeal is demanding to&nbsp;undo a $122.5 million settlement of a civil case over a wildfire that destroyed 65,000 acres of forest in California.&nbsp; One basis:&nbsp; in an appeals court <a href="http://filehost.thompsonhine.com/uploads/Motion_to_Take_Judicial_Notice_ddf8.pdf">filing</a>, the company says that the federal district judge who refused&nbsp;the defendant&rsquo;s request to set aside the settlement&nbsp;has a private Twitter account that is followed by the government &nbsp;prosecuting attorneys in the case.</li>
<li>After refusing to reconsider the settlement, the&nbsp;company contends that the judge&nbsp;sent out&nbsp;an &ldquo;inaccurate and prejudicial&rdquo; tweet, re-tweeting a news story with a headline stating&nbsp;that the company was &ldquo;still liable for Moonlight Fire damages.&rdquo;&nbsp; The company says it never paid any damages, and was not found liable.&nbsp; The company also says that the judge&rsquo;s Twitter account includes a photo taken with one of the prosecuting attorneys in the case.&nbsp; Result:&nbsp; If the Ninth Circuit&nbsp;adopts the company&rsquo;s request, the judge will be barred from involvement in the case on remand, based on the appearance of bias.</li>
</ul>
It would seem that the folly described above would be easy to refrain from &mdash; yet the internet, social media, and the &ldquo;sharing&rdquo; atmosphere we live in seem&nbsp;to sound a siren song&nbsp;irresistible even to apparently sensible people, leading many to shipwreck.&nbsp; Don&rsquo;t let it happen to you.

core/freeform

Ethics

Legal Ethics, Professional Responsibility and the Business of Law

On-line blab can kill lawyer licenses and lead to other bad stuff — latest cautionary tales