New Litigation Skill: Facebook Stalking

Recent articles detail how attorneys now routinely search for information about potential jurors on the internet. These articles are summarized well by a Forbes blog post. The gist is that, if you have lax privacy settings on Facebook and you are called for jury duty, expect jury consultants or paralegals to analyze your Facebook page (at least if there are enough resources devoted to the litigation to pay for someone to do that sort of work).

This should not be too surprising. Law firms have hired jury consultants to do similar work for years, and everyone in the legal industry should already be aware of their Facebook privacy settings. But one wonders if this news will cause people to remove their Facebook privacy settings and post outrageous statements online, in hopes of getting out of jury duty.


Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Jurors Today: Texts and "Tweets?"

For centuries, lawyers and law students have taken for granted that, in the interests of justice, those serving on juries cannot obtain outside information about the case when they are outside the courtroom. But in the world of Web 2.0, it's not that simple anymore. While the new September Library display highlights the common law jury tradition in the U.S. and throughout the world, there are new challenges facing today's lawyers and judges "where the information superhighway intersects with the halls of justice." Mistrials have been declared and new laws to control juror communications and "research"are being passed. Are they the answer? You can read an excellent summary of the problem and some of the solutions being tried in "Texts and 'Tweets' by Jurors, Lawyers, Pose Courtroom Conundrums", from the August issue of Trial, a publication of the American Association of Justice (formerly, ATLA, the Association of Trial Lawyers of America).



Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Blogging Jurors

A recent article in the Fulton County Daily Report points out the new problems, and opportunities, attorneys are faced with as jurors sign onto blogs and social networking profiles to complain about the cases they are deciding. It might be possible not only to find out if a juror is commenting during trial, but also to use information culled from social networking sites to tailor a presentation to specific jurors.



Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat