NYCLA Ethics Opinion 745: What Advice is Appropriate to Give a Client with Respect to Existing or Proposed Postings on Social Media

NYCLA ETHICS OPINION 745

JULY 2, 2013

 

ADVISING A CLIENT REGARDING POSTS ON SOCIAL MEDIA SITES

 

TOPIC: What advice is appropriate to give a client with respect to existing or proposed postings on social media sites.

 

DIGEST: It is the Committee’s opinion that New York attorneys may advise clients as to (1) what they should/should not post on social media, (2) what existing postings they may or may not remove, and (3) the particular implications of social media posts, subject to the same rules, concerns, and principles that apply to giving a client legal advice in other areas including RPC 3.1, 3.3 and 3.4. 

 

RPC: 4.1, 4.2, 3.1, 3.3, 3.4, 8.4.

 

OPINION:

 

This opinion provides guidance about how attorneys may advise clients concerning what may be posted or removed from social media websites. It has been estimated that Americans spend 20 percent of their free time on social media (Facebook, Twitter, Friendster, Flickr, LinkedIn, and the like). It is commonplace to post travel logs, photographs, streams of consciousness, rants, and all manner of things on websites so that family, friends, or even the public-at-large can peer into one’s life. Social media enable users to publish information regionally, nationally, and even globally.

 

The personal nature of social media posts implicates considerable privacy concerns. Although all of the major social media outlets have password protections and various levels of privacy settings, many users are oblivious or indifferent to them, providing an opportunity for persons with adverse interests to learn even the most intimate information about them. For example, teenagers and college students commonly post photographs of themselves partying, binge drinking, indulging in illegal drugs or sexual poses, and the like. The posters may not be aware, or may not care, that these posts may find their way into the hands of family, potential employers, school admission officers, romantic contacts, and others. The content of a removed social media posting may continue to exist, on the poster’s computer, or in cyberspace.

 

That information posted on social media may undermine a litigant’s position has not been lost on attorneys. Rather than hire investigators to follow claimants with video cameras, personal injury defendants may seek to locate YouTube videos or Facebook photos that depict a “disabled” plaintiff engaging in activities that are inconsistent with the claimed injuries. It is now common for attorneys and their investigators to seek to scour litigants’ social media pages for information and photographs. Demands for authorizations for access to password-protected portions of an opposing litigant’s social media sites are becoming routine.

 

Recent ethics opinions have concluded that accessing a social media page open to all members of a public network is ethically permissible. New York State Bar Association Eth. Op. 843 (2010); Oregon State Bar Legal Ethics Comm., Op. 2005-164 (finding that accessing an opposing party’s public website does not violate the ethics rules limiting communications with adverse parties). The reasoning behind these opinions is that accessing a public site is conceptually no different from reading a magazine article or purchasing a book written by that adverse party. Oregon Op. 2005-164 at 453.

 

But an attorney’s ability to access social media information is not unlimited. Attorneys may not make misrepresentations to obtain information that would otherwise not be obtainable. In contact with victims, witnesses, or others involved in opposing counsel’s case, attorneys should avoid misrepresentations, and, in the case of a represented party, obtain the prior consent of the party’s counsel. New York Rules of Professional Conduct (RPC 4.2). See, NYCBA Eth. Op., 2010-2 (2012); NYSBA Eth. Op. 843. Using false or misleading representations to obtain evidence from a social network website is prohibited. RPC 4.1, 8.4(c).

 

Social media users may have some expectation of privacy in their posts, depending on the privacy settings available to them, and their use of those settings. All major social media allow members to set varying levels of security and “privacy” on their social media pages. There is no ethical constraint on advising a client to use the highest level of privacy/security settings that is available. Such settings will prevent adverse counsel from having direct access to the contents of the client’s social media pages, requiring adverse counsel to request access through formal discovery channels.

 

A number of recent cases have considered the extent to which courts may direct litigants to authorize adverse counsel to access the “private” portions of their social media postings. While a comprehensive review of this evolving body of law is beyond the scope of this opinion, the premise behind such cases is that social media websites may contain materials inconsistent with a party’s litigation posture, and thus may be used for impeachment. The newest cases turn on whether the party seeking such disclosure has laid a sufficient foundation that such impeachment material likely exists or whether the party is engaging in a “fishing expedition” and an invasion of privacy in the hopes of stumbling onto something that may be useful.

 

Given the growing volume of litigation regarding social media discovery, the question arises whether an attorney may instruct a client who does not have a social media site not to create one: May an attorney pre-screen what a client posts on a social media site? May an attorney properly instruct a client to “take down” certain materials from an existing social media site?

 

Preliminarily, we note that an attorney’s obligation to represent clients competently (RPC 1.1) could, in some circumstances, give rise to an obligation to advise clients, within legal and ethical requirements, concerning what steps to take to mitigate any adverse effects on the clients’ position emanating from the clients’ use of social media. Thus, an attorney may properly review a client’s social media pages, and advise the client that certain materials posted on a social media page may be used against the client for impeachment or similar purposes. In advising a client, attorneys should be mindful of their ethical responsibilities under RPC 3.4. That rule provides that a lawyer shall not “(a)(1) suppress any evidence that the lawyer or the client has a legal obligation to reveal or produce… [nor] (3) conceal or knowingly fail to disclose that which the lawyer is required by law to reveal.”

 

Attorneys’ duties not to suppress or conceal evidence involve questions of substantive law and are therefore outside the purview of an ethics opinion. We do note, however, that applicable state or federal law may make it an offense to destroy material for the purpose of defeating its availability in a pending or reasonably foreseeable proceeding, even if no specific request to reveal or produce evidence has been made. Under principles of substantive law, there may be a duty to preserve “potential evidence” in advance of any request for its discovery. VOOM HD Holdings LLC v. EchoStar Satellite L.L.C., 93 A.D.3d 33, 939 N.Y.S. 2d 331 (1st Dep’t 2012) (“Once a party reasonably anticipates litigation, it must, at a minimum, institute an appropriate litigation hold to prevent the routine destruction of electronic data.”); QK Healthcare, Inc., v. Forest Laboratories, Inc., 2013 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 2008; 2013 N.Y. Slip Op. 31028(U) (Sup. Ct. N.Y. Co., May 8, 2013); RPC 3.4, Comment [2]. Under some circumstances, where litigation is anticipated, a duty to preserve evidence may arise under substantive law. But provided that such removal does not violate the substantive law regarding destruction or spoliation of evidence, there is no ethical bar to “taking down” such material from social media publications, or prohibiting a client’s attorney from advising the client to do so, particularly inasmuch as the substance of the posting is generally preserved in cyberspace or on the user’s computer.

 

An attorney also has an ethical obligation not to “bring or defend a proceeding, or assert or controvert an issue therein, unless there is a basis in law and fact for doing so that is not frivolous.” RPC 3.1(a). Frivolous conduct includes the knowing assertion of “material factual statements that are false.” RPC 3.1(b)(3). Therefore, if a client’s social media posting reveals to an attorney that the client’s lawsuit involves the assertion of material false factual statements, and if proper inquiry of the client does not negate that conclusion, the attorney is ethically prohibited from proffering, supporting or using those false statements. See, also, RPC 3.3; 4.1 (“In the course of representing a client, a lawyer shall not knowingly make a false statement of fact or law to a third person.”)

 

Clients are required to testify truthfully at a hearing, deposition, trial, or the like, and a lawyer may not fail to correct a false statement of material fact or offer or use evidence the lawyer knows to be false. RPC 3.3(a)(1); 3.4(a)(4). Thus, a client must answer truthfully (subject to the rules of privilege or other evidentiary objections) if asked whether changes were ever made to a social media site, and the client’s lawyer must take prompt remedial action in the case of any known material false testimony on this subject. RPC 3.3 (a)(3).

 

We further conclude that it is permissible for an attorney to review what a client plans to publish on a social media page in advance of publication, to guide the client appropriately, including formulating a corporate policy on social media usage. Again, the above ethical rules and principles apply: An attorney may not direct or facilitate the client’s publishing of false or misleading information that may be relevant to a claim; an attorney may not participate in the creation or preservation of evidence when the lawyer knows or it is obvious that the evidence is false. RPC 3.4(a)(4). However, a lawyer may counsel the witness to publish truthful information favorable to the lawyer’s client; discuss the significance and implications of social media posts (including their content and advisability); advise the client how social media posts may be received and/or presented by the client’s legal adversaries and advise the client to consider the posts in that light; discuss the possibility that the legal adversary may obtain access to “private” social media pages through court orders or compulsory process; review how the factual context of the posts may affect their perception; review the posts that may be published and those that have already been published; and discuss possible lines of cross-examination.

 

CONCLUSION:

 

Lawyers should comply with their ethical duties in dealing with clients’ social media posts. The ethical rules and concepts of fairness to opposing counsel and the court, under RPC 3.3 and 3.4, all apply. An attorney may advise clients to keep their social media privacy settings turned on or maximized and may advise clients as to what should or should not be posted on public and/or private pages, consistent with the principles stated above. Provided that there is no violation of the rules or substantive law pertaining to the preservation and/or spoliation of evidence, an attorney may offer advice as to what may be kept on “private” social media pages, and what may be “taken down” or removed.