With social media being so prominently used in our day to day lives, defense lawyers are consistently and regularly monitoring “Facebook” and “Twitter” accounts, personal blogs, and similar internet postings in an effort to discover anything embarrassing or suspicious about a person’s life. Theses things are fair game for defense lawyers to look at. Anything that is posted on the internet has no expectation of privacy. You should know that the defense lawyers may examine anything you post on the internet. There are so many potential areas they could exploit: confessions or marital difficulties, partying, interpersonal relationship difficulties, difficulties with employer, stress on the job, difficulties with children, depression, etc.
You should ask yourself this question as you look at the kind of information you have posted about yourself on the internet: “Do I want a defense lawyer to hand a jury a copy of this picture?” “Is this information going to make it look like my life is difficult or troubled, and that those difficulties and troubles have nothing to do with the case I am filing?”
You should understand that defense lawyers are hired by insurance companies to attack the merits of your case. If you or another family member or a friend have posted anything that you would not want a defense lawyer to see, or that may be construed and used again you, perhaps you should consider deleting, or if possible, set your site or blog to “private” so that only people you approve of can access your sites.
If there are things that you would like your attorney to know but would like to keep it between yourself and your attorney, you must address it to your attorney. This ensures that the document is protected under client-attorney privilege and it cannot be used against you if your case goes to trial.
There are certain things that you will need to constantly be updating your attorney with. For example, your treatment status, any new doctors that you are referred to for treatment under your case needs to be made known to your attorney so that they can ensure they have a full picture to present to the insurance company at the time of resolution of your case.
