Accidental Lawyering On The Internet

An ABA ethics committee is proposing changes to the Rules of Professional Conduct that would clarify when a lawyer’s online communications create a lawyer-client relationship. Some legal communications – law blogs, for example – have more obvious ethical boundaries, but what about a lawyer posting on a friend’s Facebook page, or discussing legal developments on Twitter with co-workers or other peers? The Ethics 20/20 summarized its proposed changes, saying “a prospective client is someone who communicates with a lawyer about the possibility of forming a client-lawyer relationship and has a reasonable expectation that the lawyer is willing to consider forming that relationship.” Essentially, Lisa Needham writes for The Lawyerist, “the more you dialogue with a specific individual in any mode of communication, the closer you might be getting to accidentally leading a layperson to believe you want to be their lawyer.”