Litigation Support

The Conference of Court Public Information Officers recently released a report which stated that more than one third of the judges and magistrates are now using some form of social media, personally, professionally, or both. This surprised me a bit, since I so often hear judge profess profound ignorance about social media, but since the stats come from an actual survey, it would appear that judges are following the herd (albeit somewhat more slowly) into the social media pastures.

The report indicates that less than 10% of the courts, as institutions, use social media for public outreach and communication. I suspect those numbers will rise rapidly in the next several years and the report itself anticipates that, urging a cohesive approach to social media by the courts. There is an interesting list of recommendations, all presupposing that social media is here to stay and that the courts need to be ready to integrate social media into court communications with the general public.

I agree with that supposition and welcome the many humorous missteps that are sure to come.

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