Clearly, most lawyers are out of step with digital reality. Bar rules are so specific they define almost everything an attorney does and everyone he can speak to outside the bathroom. This specificity in regard to allowed conduct is at marked odds with the Wild West ethos of the Internet and social networking, which creates myriad problems when law and InterWebs meet. It also creates funny blog posts, like this one at Above the Law, about the difficulties and perils lawyers face when they send Facebook friend requests to clients of other lawyers, or to people who aren’t clients, or to people who are suing their own clients. Read it all the way through, and you’ll either be happy that you never went to law school, or, if you’re one of my lawyerly Facebook friends, you’ll be wondering why anyone thinks this is funny or worth writing about. That’s the thing about law school; it really does teach you to think like a lawyer.
John Mecklin, writer/editor 