Here in Georgia they just affirmed disciplinary action against a lawyer who, among other things, revealed client confidences in responding to a client’s negative review on an Internet site. The case is here. There are quite a few of those.
I may have mentioned this before, but one thing that some lawyers are doing is: having clients, on intake, assign copyright to any reviews to the lawyer; then, if a negative review is posted, they send a take-down notice to the site. Voila.
Welcome to the 21st Century.
Update: Professor Eric Goldman responded to an email I’d sent out to a bunch of IP Professors with the following, which he allowed me to share:
The SF Bar Association also issued an ethics opinion on lawyers responding to client reviews. http://www.sfbar.org/ethics/opinion_2014-1.aspx
Building on my work with Jason and the Berkeley students, I wrote a short article on how doctors should respond to patient reviews: http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericgoldman/2013/11/21/how-doctors-should-respond-to-negative-online-reviews/ Much of that discussion is extensible to client reviews of lawyers.
It would be highly inadvisable for lawyers to try the Medical Justice copyright-assignment-in-unwritten-reviews hack. The request basically sets up a conflict between the lawyer and the client at the relationship’s outset. After all, almost any independent lawyer would not advise the client to sign such an assignment.
There are also likely to be statutes limiting businesses’ ability to contractually restrict their customers’ reviews. California is currently considering AB2365 requiring any such restriction to be “knowing, voluntary and intelligent.” See my discussion about the bill (and its limitations) http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericgoldman/2014/04/30/california-moving-to-protect-consumer-reviews/ It would not surprise me if there’s a federal bill on this topic as well.
Eric.
Eric Goldman
Professor, Santa Clara University School of Law
Director, High Tech Law Institute
Email: egoldman@gmail.com
Personal website: http://www.ericgoldman.org
Blogs: http://blog.ericgoldman.org ** http://blogs.forbes.com/ericgoldman/ ** http://blog.ericgoldman.org/personal/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/ericgoldman
Professor, Santa Clara University School of Law
Director, High Tech Law Institute
Email: egoldman@gmail.com
Personal website: http://www.ericgoldman.org
Blogs: http://blog.ericgoldman.org ** http://blogs.forbes.com/ericgoldman/ ** http://blog.ericgoldman.org/personal/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/ericgoldman