From the Wall to the Courtroom

You do not need to be an expert in social networking, marketing, or public relations to know that social networking is exploding across the internet. Millions of people connect through Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and LinkedIn or a regular basis. With so many people sharing their comments, photos, and intimate details of their lives with countless others, there are bound to be repercussions.

As noted in this article, divorce attorneys are noticing more and more situations where what a person posts on his or her Facebook page is becoming evidence in Court. Whether its questionable comments or inappropriate pictures, some courts have no trouble allowing the information to be admitted into evidence.

I myself have been on the receiving end of such tactics. The other side in a support case brought in my client’s adult daughter’s LinkedIn profile which indicated that she was working for my client. My client had to explain on the witness stand that his daughter worked for him briefly for one summer, but no longer worked for him. (They were trying to allege that my client was hiding income.)

In another situation, another client had heard that her husband had asked on his Facebook page, on the day before we were scheduled to be in court, if it would be okay if he (the husband) hopped over counsel table and punched opposing counsel (that would be me) in the face. It was very easy for me to access the husband’s Facebook “wall” to see and print the comment for myself. All I needed was an active Facebook account. I did not even need to be a “friend” of husband to access his Wall.

If you have an account on any of the myriad of social networking websites, you should always assume the possibility of what you post will be printed and used against you in Court. A colleague of mine once said, about e-mail, never send a message that you would not want to see printed as a full page ad in the newspaper. Such advice is even more applicable to social networking sites. What you post on your Wall today may end up as Exhibit “A” when your case goes to Court several months down the road.