Vesna Jaksic reports in the National Law Journal article entitled, “Finding Treasures for Cases on Facebook” that more and more attorneys are mining social networking websites, such as Facebook and MySpace, for information that will help their client’s case. According to the article,

“Lawyers in civil and criminal cases are increasingly finding that social networking sites can contain treasure chests of information for their cases. Armed with printouts from sites such as Facebook and MySpace, attorneys have used pictures, comments and connections from these sites as powerful evidence in the courtroom.”

The article even cites one case where an attorney “said she helped secure shared custody for the father after finding his wife had posted sexually explicit comments on her boyfriend’s MySpace page. In another case, a husband’s credibility was questioned because, on his MySpace page, he said he was single and looking.”

Yikers. We have read a lot of articles about immature twenty-somethings putting racy photos or inappropriate language on their personal pages that schools or employers find less than flattering. However, seldom do we think of social networking content as being relevant in the realm of courtrooms and evidence.

This is only one more data point that supports how much social networking is beginning to change our personal and professional lives. Citing the perennially relevant Mr. Dylan, “The times they are a’ changin . . .”

Be aware.

Mark

1. Laura Wasser Los Angeles, CA – Britney’s (former) divorce lawyer jumps back to the top of the Avvo Top Viewed Lawyer Charts this week.
2. Mark Kaplan Los Angeles, CA
3. John Browne Seattle, WA
4. Ruth Bader Ginsburg Washington, DC
5. Mark Britton Seattle, WA (Avvo CEO)

6. Briteney Mercer Seattle, WA

7. Roni Deutch North Highlands, CA

8. David Adams Washington, DC
9. Ronald Coleman New York, NY
10. Sorrell Trope Los Angeles, CA

1. Casebook Full of Holes. Indiana Law School student, Jesse Sneed put two rounds from an AR-15 assault rifle into his Real Estate-Finance Casebook. Apparently he hadn’t done too well in Criminal Law 101 either.

2. According to The Washington Post, the judge who decided to make his mark on the legal world by suing his dry cleaners for $54 Million for allegedly losing a pair of pants, Roy Pearson is set to lose his job.

3. Here Comes the Bride (with a JD) On a similar note, newly married attorney Elana Elbogen filed a $400,000 suit against her florist for substituting pastel pink hydrangeas for the verbally agreed upon “dark rust” hydrangeas (her total flower bill? over $27K) Geez, and I thought my wife was ticked at the less-than-prime prime rib at our wedding.

4. On a more serious and uplifting note. . . . Barry Scheck, co-founder of the Innocence Project appeared in the press this week after his organization used DNA testing to exonerate Pete Williams who had been wrongly convicted of rape and kidnapping. Pete had served 22 years of a 45 year sentence.

At Avvo, we encourage attorneys to upload a picture into their profile, and approximately 20% of attorneys who claim their profile do so. Let’s turn to the numbers to see what the impact of a pretty picture is:

On the page for Atlanta DUI Lawyers, there are five lawyers with pictures, five without. So far this month, 3 of those 5 pictured lawyers have had clicks from this page to their profile. None of the pictureless lawyers had any clicks to view their profile. On the page for New York Criminal Defense Attorneys there are only two lawyers with pictures. These two were five times more likely to get views to their profile than the lawyers without pictures.

For the lawyers out there, just a quick post to let you know that on October 24th (tomorrow) I will be speaking at an ALM webinar entitled, “Getting Found on the Web: How Lawyers Can Leverage User-Generated Content and Other New Internet Tools to Attract Clients.”

I will be speaking with the illustrious Kevin O’Keefe and Carolyn Elefant. Among other things, we will be discussing the rise of social networking and its utility to lawyers. I hope to (virtually) see you there.

Mark

1. 18 year old Kathleen Holtz, an attorney (yes, you read that correctly) at TroyGould is hoping to have passed the bar and may be the youngest practicing lawyer in the nation. She started law school at a precocious 15.

2. P. Diddy’s attorney, Benjamin Brafman was quoted in the CNN article regarding his client’s alleged assault outside a NYC nightspot.

3. Confirmation hearings for Attorney General hopeful Michael Mukasey began this week.

4. Attorney Edward Miley convinced his client, Charles Cashmore to take a plea deal at testify against OJ Simpson in the sports memorabilia theft trial.

1. Ruth Bader Ginsburg Washington, DC
2. John Browne Seattle, WA
3. Mark Vincent Kaplan Los Angeles, CA
4. Laura Wasser Los Angeles, CA
5. Anne Kiley Los Angeles, CA
6. Briteney Mercer Seattle, WA

7. Mark Britton (Avvo’s Founder and CEO) Seattle, WA

8. Roni Deutch North Highlands, CA

9. Sara Lingafelter Poulsbo, WA

10. Robert Bennett Houston, TX

Someone wrote in to share this story of uses of the Yellow Pages. A quick overview: A small time, local newspaper, The Stranger, has a feature that enables users to write in online and request the paper’s intern do various tasks. Said intern blogs about his experiences.

The request included rounding up unused yellow pages and returning them to their point of origin – Qwest Dex.
Read the details about Public Intern’s adventures in recycling. . .

A note to my fellow lawyers: While others may charge you $50 for a rating, the Avvo Rating is still free. Please accept this blog post as an invitation to do the following with your Avvo Rating at any time (and for free): Look at it, hug it, show it to your clients, taunt your coworkers with it, display it in your marketing materials, link to it on your website, email it to your Mother, or issue a press release about it. If I left anything out, I am inviting you to do that too for free.

OK, so why the newsflash? Well, I’m poking a bit of fun at Martindale Hubbell who, according to the blog Arbitrary and Capricious, is now charging $50 to rate lawyers. Martindale has been around for a long time, so they probably know something that I don’t in making this decision. However, even with much brain wracking, I cannot figure it out. They have one of the oldest rating systems that is respected by lawyers (we even consider it in the Avvo Rating); and as a Martindale executive my worry would be that such a “pay to play” model would only undermine that respect. A risky proposition when Martindale is reportedly losing some of their bigger customers.

Am I missing something? Only time will tell.

Oh – did I mention that the Avvo Rating is free?

Freely yours,

Mark Britton

UPDATE: See Kevin O’Keefe’s take: Martindale-Hubbell continues slide: Starts charging lawyers for ‘Coveted Rating’ service.

1. Mark Vincent Kaplan Los Angeles, CA
2. Blair Berk Los Angeles, CA
3. Sorrell Trope Los Angeles, CA
4. Ruth Bader Ginsburg Washington, DC
5. Roni Deutch North Highlands, CA

6. Theodore H. Frank Washington, DC
7. Briteney Mercer Seattle, WA

8. Mark Bennett Houston, TX

9. William Dinkes New York, NY
10. John Brown Seattle, WA