Peter Smythe, P.C.

As a small bou­ti­que firm, I try to follow the latest and grea­test of the solo all-​stars, those self-​appointed or self-​proclaimed know-​it-​alls in solo law prac­tice. For the past year or so, they’ve too­ted their horns about the need for solos to leve­rage all the new­fan­gled social net­wor­king ave­nues. “If you’re not on Face­book, twit­te­ring your prac­tice, and Lin­ked In to every­body and his dog, you’re toast,” so they say.

Don Cruse of Supreme Court of Texas Blog fame has just pos­ted an article about Goo­gle Buzz. In it, he shows how Goo­gle has re-​engineered Goo­gle Mail to allow it to leve­rage all of a Goo­gle email user’s infor­ma­tion — pro­file and email con­tent— for its Goo­gle Buzz social-​networking plat­form. As Cruse points out, it’s an opt-​out pro­gram, mea­ning that you have to take a num­ber of affir­ma­tive steps — hard ones— to avoid the public dis­se­mi­na­tion of your pri­vate infor­ma­tion if you want to con­ti­nue to use Gmail for your law practice.

It’s pro­bably just a mat­ter of time before we hear of a mal­prac­tice action for a lawyer’s unautho­ri­zed dis­se­mi­na­tion of client infor­ma­tion on one of the popu­lar social sites — all because the law­yer didn’t take the pains to opt his client’s infor­ma­tion out of the net­work.

You might also like:

• Alderman’s Brash World of Solo Practice
• Texas Supreme Court’s E-​filing Requirements
• Thumb­nails are Fair Use
• A New Legal Error: The Goo­gle Mistrial
• Solo Prac­tice and Snoopy Snow Cones