Social Media and the Courts August 23, 2011

Slaw has been running a series of posts on presentations given at the ABA conference recently held in Toronto. Connie Crosby has provided a summary of the Judicial Division of the ABA sponsored session that looked as social media. You need to keep in mind that many judges are elected officials so that facebook use also has a role to play in the election process.

The issues follow once they are elected as judge:

Dixon’s Judicial Commandments re: Social Media

• judge must maintain decorum in social networks (Rule 1.2 Promoting Confidence of the Judiciary)
• judge should not make comments on a social networking site about any matters pending before the judge
• judge should not view a party’s or witnesses’ pages on a social networking site to obtain information before the judge
• judge should disqualify himself or herself when the judges’ social network relationships makes it inappropriate (Rule 2.11 Disqualification)
• a judge should be aware of the contents of his or her social networking page

Dixon is a trial judge of the Washington DC Superior Court.