Conducting Litigation in the Social Media Age

• Author: Andrew Bernstein and Rebecca Wise
• Pages: 367-375

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Conducting Litigation

in the Social Media Age

AndrewBernsteinandRebeccaWise*

Inthepastseveralyearssocialmediahaveplayedanincreasinglyprom-

inentrole ini ndividualsdaily livesAtt heend ofFacebookhad

mill ion users worldwide Around the same time Twierboasted

approximately mill ion active users Forits part Li nkedIn claims

tohavemorethanmillionmembersinmorethancountriesand

territories

Giventheprevalenceoftheseandot hersocialnetworkingwebsites

andt heinfor mationr egula rlyposte dtothem socia lmediah avethepo -

tentialto bean invaluabletoolfor litigatorsWhen usedappropriately

thereisno doubtthatsocialmed iacanbea powerfulinvestigativetool

forcounselseeki ngtogatherevidenceIndeedcounselarei ncreasingly

demanding that thecontent of social mediaaccou ntsbe produced on

discoveryCounselhavealsobeguntoconsidersocialmediaasapoten-

tiallyeectivemeansofserviceThispaperwilloutlinethekeydevelop-

 BothofTorysLLPAndrewBernsteinfocus esonbusinesslawdisputesi ncluding

intellectu alpropertyaswellascommercia landpubliclawmaersNamedasa

TopLawyerunderhealsofrequentlyadvise sanddefendstraditionala nd

newmediaclientsondefa mationandfreeexpre ssionissuesRebeccaWisesprac-

ticefocusesonc ivillitigation

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statistics

 OneHundredMill ionVoicesTwierBlogSeptemberonline

hpblogt wiercomone hundred millio nvoicesht ml

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