The Florida Bar News - March 15, 2010

Panel offers guidelines for lawyers using social networking Web sites

By Mark D. Killian
Managing Editor

Lawyers using social networking and video sharing Web sites for commercial purposes must adhere to the lawyer advertising rules, according to the Bar’s Standing Committee on Advertising.

But they won’t have to file those pages with the Bar for review.

With the proliferation of such sites as Facebook, YouTube, MySpace, LinkedIn, and Twitter, the Committee on Advertising has drafted guidelines to help lawyers navigate the use of networking media, said Adam Schwartz, chair of the Advertising Committee.

“These guidelines are intended to be living and breathing documents,” Schwartz said. “As things change, as new medias develop . . . we want to be able to use these documents to offer [lawyers] some kind of guidance and address future issues that arise.”

The committee has held that pages of individual lawyers on social networking and video sharing sites that are used solely for social purposes, to maintain social contact with family and close friends, are not subject to the lawyer advertising rules.

However, pages appearing on networking sites that are used to promote the lawyer or law firm’s practice are subject to the lawyer advertising rules.

“These pages must therefore comply with all of the general regulations set forth in Rule 4-7.2,” according to the networking site guidelines. “Regulations include prohibitions against any misleading information, which includes references to past results, promises of results, and testimonials. Regulations also include prohibitions against statements characterizing the quality of legal services and visual or verbal portrayals that are false, misleading, manipulative, or confusing. Lawyers and law firms should review Rule 4-7.2 in its entirety to comply with its requirements. Additional information is available in the Handbook on Lawyer Advertising and Solicitation on the Florida Bar Web site.”

The guidelines say invitations sent directly from the site via instant messaging to a third party to view or link to the lawyer’s page on an unsolicited basis are solicitations in violation of Rule 4-7.4(a), unless the recipient is the lawyer’s current client, former client, relative, or is another lawyer. Any invitations to view the page sent via e-mail also must comply with the direct e-mail rules if they are sent to persons who are not current clients, former clients, relatives, other lawyers, or persons who have requested information from the lawyer.

“Although lawyers are responsible for all content that the lawyers post on their own pages, a lawyer is not responsible for information posted on the lawyer’s page by a third party, unless the lawyer prompts the third party to post the information or the lawyer uses the third party to circumvent the lawyer advertising rules,” according to the guidelines.

The Standing Committee on Advertising also said that a page on a networking site is sufficiently similar to a Web site of a lawyer or law firm that pages on networking sites are not required to be filed with The Florida Bar for review.

As far as video sharing sites, the committee’s guidelines hold that videos and all information the lawyer or law firm posts with them must also comply with all of the general regulations set forth in Rule 4-7.2, including prohibitions against any misleading information, which includes references to past results, promises of results, and testimonials. Regulations also include prohibitions against statements characterizing the quality of legal services and visual or verbal portrayals that are false, misleading, manipulative, or confusing.

“Invitations to view or link to the lawyer’s video sent on an unsolicited basis are direct solicitations in violation of Rule 4-7.4(a), unless the recipient is the lawyer’s current client, former client, relative, or is another lawyer,” according to the video sharing sites guidelines. “Any invitations to view the video sent via e-mail must comply with the direct e-mail rules if they are sent to persons who are not current clients, former clients, relatives, other lawyers, or persons who have requested information from the lawyer. Direct e-mail must comply with the general advertising regulations set forth in Rule 4-7.2 as well as additional requirements set forth in Rule 4-7.6(c).”

The committee also held that videos posted on video sharing sites are not required to be filed with The Florida Bar for review.

Click here for the complete guidelines for social networking and video sharing sites.