Friday, December 11, 2009

Lawyers, Judges, and Facebook

The Florida Judicial Ethics Advisory Committee is discouraging judges from being Facebook friends with lawyers.

When judges “friend” lawyers who may appear before them, the committee said, it creates the appearance of a conflict of interest, since it “reasonably conveys to others the impression that these lawyer ‘friends’ are in a special position to influence the judge.”

This seems a little overblown to me, I have hundreds of Facebook friends, yet only a handful I would consider real friends.

Luckily, the opinion of this committee is only advisory, and not legally binding.

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