How Your Online Presence Can Affect Your Legal Position

In this modern age of almost limitless information available on the internet, it is important for people to understand their online presence may affect their future as well as any future case they may be involved in, and ultimately, their legal position. This is a concept many people find hard to wrap their heads around—despite the internet creating a free, immediate, and surprisingly effective tool to research any opponent, adversary, witness, or party.

From a litigation perspective, attorneys previously were only able to get a glimpse into the lives of opposing parties through traditional methods of gathering information like discovery requests and the occasional deposition.  A deposition conducted under oath will always remain valuable in litigation – but candid comments from a fact witness posted online or photos obtained from social networking sites can sometimes be infinitely more valuable to the pursuit of clients’ legal rights.  Evidence posted online is available to anyone resourceful enough and motivated enough to find it—at costs significantly less than more traditional discovery methods.

Certain legal practice areas are seeing more widespread use of internet gathered evidence than others. For example, information obtained on social networking sites are playing an increasing role in family law matters—where the personal lives of the parties oftentimes are center stage in the larger legal dispute. However, almost any aspect of modern litigation draws upon internet research tools – from district attorneys checking social network sites for information on potential jurors to litigation associates researching debtor assets through varied search engine queries.

The message here is everyone needs to understand the scope of their online presence. While the internet is an amazing resource, people are now required to be aware information available online can and probably will be found by parties adverse to their own interests if such information becomes relevant in a legal dispute.

Should you find yourself in need of resourceful legal representation, please contact us at (425) 776-4100.