What is the worst legal ethics or liability issue LexBlog has seen in lawyer blogging?

I was on conference call last week with a large traditional law firm discussing the use of blogs for practice and client development. A lawyer acting as general counsel for the firm raised the issue of legal ethics and liability.

Unlike some lawyers who see blogging fraught with ethics and liability issues, the lawyer took a very practical approach. Knowing LexBlog has been helping lawyers blog for six years and has thousands of lawyers blogging on its network, the lawyer wanted to know the worst thing I had seen on the ethics/liability front with regard to our clients.

I explained we have not had any LexBlog lawyer authors who experienced ethical or liability problems. At the risk of being long winded, I explained the worst I’d seen.

It was a lawyer who expressed a personal religious belief as part of a law blog post on the law firm’s blog. When two other lawyers in the firm asked the marketing director to take the post down from public view, the lawyer objected. Shocking, since it was the marketing director who not only got the firm’s blessing to proceed with the blog in the first place, but also used the blog to enhance the image of the blogging lawyer.

I got a call from the marketing director asking for advise. I suggested changing the status of the blog post from live to draft over the weekend so the article expressing the lawyer’s religious opinion could no longer be seen by the public. That way we could see if things ‘cooled down’ over the weekend. It worked and the issue was resolved without further discussion.

Wanting to address what the lawyers on the conference call may have heard from other sources, I mentioned John Schwartz’ New York Times article on the perils of social media for lawyers.

I explained the article sensationalized some extreme cases of ethical/ liability issues arising out of lawyers using blogs and social media. Using my my blog post responding to Schwartz, I pointed out how Schwartz highlighted four isolated incidents where lawyers acted very foolishly without mentioning the tens of thousands of lawyers using blogs and social media without problems.

The lawyer acting as general counsel responded saying something to the effect of “We’re not foolish enough to let that sort of thing happen. If that’s the worst LexBlog has seen, it looks like a law firm may publish blogs without getting into ethical and liability difficulties.”

The lawyer then asked that I follow up our discussion with an email setting forth what I represented in the call. Rightly so, he wanted to have my representations with other research he may have done in his due diligence file.

I’m not dismissing ethics and liability concerns when it comes to law blogs. But be practical when examining the issue.

If you’re smart, act prudently, educate yourself as to the ins and outs of blogging, develop standards of good blogging, and, if appropriate, have someone oversee your firm’s blogging practices, the ethics and liability risks are minimal.