US state bars to up the social media ante in court

The Association’s ethics committee issued new guidelines this month which also say that a lawyer ‘may not send an access request to a juror’s social media’. Merri Baldwin, a member of the State Bar of California’s ethics committee expects that more rules will come out from the American Bar Association which will then be used as the basis for new state rules. She says: ‘Everybody involved in the judicial process is concerned about social media and what it's doing to blur the lines of communication and everyone is searching for clearer and clearer rules that will help guide everybody.’ The ultimate punishment in these cases for lawyers could be disbarment. Source: KTVU