Just after Susan and I started this blog, I asked whether we were unintentionally opening ourselves up to liability. Today the Virginia State Bar issued a decision that might again suggest, at least at first glance, that we are.
A Richmond criminal attorney, Horace Hunter, ran (and continues to run) a blog. He wrote about things he knew: the law, the news, and, perhaps misguidedly, his own cases. The Virginia State Bar evidently didn’t care for Hunter’s writing, smacking him with a formal misconduct charge premised on his website. Among other things, they faulted Hunter for failing to include a disclaimer when he talked about prior cases. (Virginia felt he should include the ordinary stuff along the lines of, “Prior results do not guarantee future success.”) Today, the misconduct charge was upheld, evidently finding that the blog was indeed meant to market the firm and therefore amounted to advertising.
Some people are going to take this case and extrapolate big things from it. The bar is going to come after lawyers who blog! It’s the end of social media for lawyers! Delete all the blogs! But I think we needn’t panic yet. The ruling only covers blogs wherein an attorney talks about his own cases, which realistically can raise a number of issues even absent the VSB’s ruling. (Client confidences, anyone?) And Virginia’s disclaimer rule only seems to reach those “prior case” posts, so everyone else should be ok.
Still, I think this case provides another reminder that lawyers should think carefully before jumping into the social media frenzy. It seems a lot of lawyers–especially lawyers my age–think social media is the gravy train to success. Mr. Hunter’s unfortunate case reminds us that some caution might be in order before hopping on.
-Michael
