What not to tweet – a lawyer’s guide

I just finished reading Jay Shepherd's piece on his Gruntled Employees blog about Cosmic Law in social media.

You should read it too, but the long and short of it is that you can put most social media-related risks to bed by bearing in mind the simple 'cosmic law' - "That the wrong people will see what [you] write".

This brought to the surface something I have been thinking about since I joined Twitter. When (if ever) is it right to tweet about a client or work you are doing for them?

There are some black and white issues here of course (from the perspective of a solicitor qualified in England & Wales, but I guess similar rules apply to most lawyers), but also a whole load of grey areas.

Stuff you mustn't tweet

You must keep the affairs of your clients (and former clients) confidential unless they agree otherwise. So tweeting anything which could possibly identify a client or their matter is out unless they agree to it.

Hopefully this will be absolutely self-evident to any lawyer worth the name.

There are also some restrictions under Rule 1 of the Solicitor's Code of Conduct 2007 which could apply.

For example, tweeting anything which might prejudice the administration of Justice (re-tweeting links to material which is subject to an injunction?) or anything which might bring the profession into disrepute.

Stuff you shouldn't tweet

Once you get past the absolute restrictions things get more difficult.

If I had a tricky contract negotiation meeting this morning (I didn't, by the way!) then I could easily tweet about it without risking identifying the client or revealing confidential information - "Nightmare meeting this morning, other side are being really difficult" - or something equally exciting and witty. After all, there is no way that anyone reading that is going to identify who I am talking about.

However, this is where Jay's Cosmic Law comes into play. And this is why my own personal rules extend beyond the legal and professional restrictions.

The 'worst person' in this context (and purely this context!) is the client in question. So my rule is never to tweet or blog anything which the client in question hasn't agreed to if they would realise it was about them if they read it.

In my view it doesn't matter if nobody else would know who it was about... how impressed is my client going to be to see that tweet?

You can get away with more if you blog/tweet anonymously and alter the names, locations and details to protect the innocent, but if you use your real name then this won't really help.

This rule is pretty restrictive.

The thing is though that your credibility as a professional has to win out over your 'social media marketing strategy'. Otherwise, what do you have left to sell?

Any lawyers have a view on this? Am I being too conservative and missing all kinds of social media marketing 'ninja' opportunities? Or is this just an inevitable consequence of being a member of a profession?

Jon Bloor is a corporate solicitor who blogs as both iPadLawyer and Peninsulawyer. Click here to follow Jon on Twitter.