It’s that time of the year again. Summer associates arrive at the bigger firms and get put on projects. Sometimes those projects are exciting. The files that these soon-to-be-attorneys are handed might even have really juicy facts. Ooooh – can you believe it? He did what?! She responded how?! “Ping!” Oh, that’s just my Twitter/Facebook/email/text account. And that’s how problems start.
This post really doesn’t relate to legal resumes or your job search, but it is something that is incredibly important to think about – both for law students and for the attorneys that hire them. We’re on social media and can see that this is happening and thought it was worth a moment of your time.
Never before has the legal community faced such a high risk of confidential client information leaking out. It used to be that if details were to leak out, someone would have to pick up the phone or drag out a Banker’s box of documents. Not anymore. Not with Twitter and Facebook. Not with email and text messaging.
If you are a summer associate, think twice (or three times) before sending any information out about what you are working on at your law firm. If “I’m review documents” just isn’t exciting enough, think about not sending that Tweet. Going beyond that to say that you are working on a file for Company X and are reviewing documents (or giving even more detail) may violate client confidences. Your best course of action is to resist the temptation to micro-blog about your summer associate experience altogether.