There are two sides to the debate about whether state bar associations should enforce stricter regulations on attorney advertising. First, there’s the question of whether the courts should regulate what attorneys can say in print ads. At the center of this debate is the use of nick names, and client testimonials. On the other side, attorneys have been debating whether attorney social media use amounts to advertising and should therefore warrant special regulations. For both of these debates, authorities have recently issued encouraging decisions that indicate a less restrictive view toward advertising and social media.

Thanks to the ever-changing role of the Internet in public and private life, the role of eDiscovery is constantly evolving. Adding weight to this, a New York judge recently ordered personal injury plaintiff Kathleen Romano to turn over information from her Facebook and MySpace pages, arguing that they could shed some light on whether she was, in fact, subject to emotional distress following her fall from a desk chair back in 2003. Keeping the Facebook information private, Justice Jeffrey Arlen Spinner ruled, “not only would go against the liberal discovery policies of New York favoring pretrial disclosure, but would condone Plaintiff’s attempt to hide relevant information behind self-regulated privacy settings.”