Labels: appeals, appellate attorney, attorney, ethics, foul language, Kansas, research attorney, social media, tweet, twitter
Perhaps law schools should start requiring their students (and maybe state bars, too!) to take a course on attorney ethics and social media. According to a recent news report http://news.yahoo.com/kansas-appeals-court-attorney-fired-over-tweet-230156262.html, a Kansas attorney who worked at the Court of Appeals was watching a Kansas Supreme Court argument regarding the discipline of another attorney. The staff attorney tweeted about the attorney subject to discipline, referring to him as a "douchebag" and speculating that he would be suspended from the practice of law for 7 years. As a result of her twitter posts, the staff attorney was suspended from her job.
As a practical matter, the best lesson is that if you work inside the court system, it is best not discuss publicly cases that are pending in the system (even though the staff attorney apparently worked for a different court than where the disciplinary proceedings was pending).
