In a 28 page decision issued earlier this year, which the Supreme Court of Tennessee described as “a cautionary tale on the ethical problems that can befall lawyers on social media,” the court increased a lawyer’s 60 day suspension from practicing law to a four year suspension because of comments the lawyer made on Facebook. The comments instructed one of the attorney’s Facebook friends on how to shoot a person she had broken up with and to make the shooting appear to be one done in self-defense.

Although the Facebook posts were ultimately removed at the lawyer’s urging (in another Facebook post he made), screenshots captured by the potential shooting victim were brought to the attention of the county district attorney general, who, in turn passed them along to the Tennessee Board of Professional Responsibility (“Board”). The Board investigated and found that the attorney’s advice about how to engage in criminal conduct and avoid arrest or conviction violated RPC 8.4 (a) and 8.4(d) of Tennessee’s Rules of Professional Conduct and, following a hearing, the Board’s hearing imposed a 60 day suspension of the lawyer’s license to practice law.
Continue readingRob Nussbaum has lectured numerous times on legal issues and social media and how social media and other electronic evidence may be admitted into evidence at trial. He concentrates his practice in general commercial litigation and appears regularly in New Jersey federal and state courts.
For any questions relating to whether your website or social media presence can be used against you as a basis for personal jurisdiction, please contact Robert B. Nussbaum, Esq. at Saiber LLC.