See also, Facebook for Lawyers: The Friend Request
The fact that I no longer have a Facebook account means that I’m swimming against the tide when it comes to the popularity and pervasiveness of social networking. Clearly Facebook isn’t going anywhere, and all the signs seem to be pointing to an ongoing, steady increase in usage. So I thought it might be useful to provide a little guidance to the multitudes who still insist on parading each and every detail of their mundane lives on Facebook.
The following list contains things you must avoid posting on Facebook, both for your own sake and for the sake of humankind as a whole. Or, to put it another way, if you post any of the following things on Facebook, you’re a delusional, idiotic, desperate, attention-whore and completely lacking in self-awareness.
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Click on the image to enlarge.
It’s not a good idea to friend your law school professor on Facebook.
Maybe this is yet another example of me being an out of touch childless single person—but lack of direct personal experience has never stopped me from issuing judgment before, so why stop now? After spending all of Christmas day with my cousins’ babies and toddlers, my dissatisfaction with an ostensibly new cultural phenomenon reached its climax:
What is the deal with babies playing on iPads? What is with these iBabies?
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[powerpress]
This week, we play another round of Where In the World Is Bitter Lawyer Kimber wherein she finds herself really making a statement, we discuss the potential for Senate hearings on the issue of law school transparency, and we update the status of court-ordered Facebook password swapping in divorce cases.
Click here to subscribe to The Bitter Brief on iTunes! And if you’re hungry for more, Kimber and Mark take Top Chef way too seriously at Refire! (Also available on iTunes!)
Two weeks ago today, I did something that I thought was fairly non-controversial (I was wrong, apparently). I deactivated my Facebook account. And not just the half-hearted deactivation option Facebook offers, whereby your account remains saved and can be reactivated at any time—I actually completely deleted my account.
Here’s the really crazy part: I’ve spent the last 14 days fielding hundreds of emails from family, friends, and periphery ranging from mere curiosity to utter disbelief that I’m no longer on Facebook. No one can understand why I would ever want to disconnect myself from the (unfortunately) ubiquitous social network. Well, here’s why.
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Here are your headlines from the Bitter Newsroom, where we have time on our hands!
The Offices of Law & School, LLP: A pair of law professors have proposed that law schools expand existing clinics create their own law firms to help train new graduates. Comparing the system to a judicial clerkship or medical residency, the plan envisions the firms as being more involved than existing clinics, overseen by senior attorneys, and potential revenue generators. We look forward to seeing what happens in law school saturated markets such as Boston, NYC and the LA area where the public will gravitate towards the top schools and the lower tier schools will need to come up with ways to attract clients (much like real practice!).
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Headlines from the Bitter Newsroom that won’t see U.S. summer games, but our kids may in 2116:
• Law students in England are being offered real jobs to simply be cyber-friendly and use Facebook, Twitter and other social media in an attempt to promote a new College of Law opening next year. “@bitterlawyer RT: you know what place is awesome? Bristol University.” Maybe it’s something that 20% of those poor kids at Harvard could help with. [Bristol 24-7]
• The Lone Star State will not givith, but it will maybe taketh away. A judge in Dallas ruled Thursday that a state court has the jurisdiction to hear a divorce suit by a gay couple who were married outside Texas, a state with a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. But TX’s attorney general is appealing it. Because you can’t acknowledge something when you don’t think even exists. What’s next? Divorcing Santa and Mrs. Clause? [The Dallas Morning News]
• You’ve been able to keep your BigLaw job. You’ve moved passed wishing you too would be fired. You think everyone hates you. You, as per usual, hate yourself. Now what? [Fulton County Daily Report]
• Lawyer wins $2.5 million in a class-action lawsuit on behalf of 800 people. Lawyer squanders it down to $55,000 before most even received a dime. “My bad,” says Sandeep Baweja. [San Francisco Chronicle]
• We covered the seven types of women you have sex with in law school yesterday. For the women, I’m sure you identified with a type that best suited you back in the day. As for the men, you probably yelled out the numbers of those whom you’ve “experienced” like you’re ordering from a Chinese menu. But guess what: Law school benefits women in a more special way. Even if they only use their legal training to change diapers the rest of their lives, education for education’s sake is very worth it. [Desert News]
• Pop quiz: Where do you file a complaint if a client slips and falls in a tribal casino? What if there’s a vehicle accident on the rez? The State Bar of Arizona is petitioning to have American Indian law added to the state bar exam since Indian issues are to AZ as oil is to TX. [Turtle Talk]
• You make one off-color Facebook group, and you suddenly have an emotionally distressed victim. “Facebook Inc., the world’s most popular social-networking Web site, was accused in a lawsuit of letting site users post violent threats against a lawyer who was later disbarred.” Which explains the “Roman Polanski is adorable” page. [Bloomberg]
• Further proof that the easiest way to build respect as a trial lawyer is to have that nasty-confident swagger. And to be wearing a three-piece suit. Cuz you a baller lawyer…. Or a career prisoner. Which is it? [The New York Times | Lowering the Bar]
• Judge orders the Justice Department to release interviews with former VP Cheney conducted during the Valerie Plame leak? Snoozefest. Judge considers life sentence for the father of a tattooed seven-year-old? Now you have a story. Is holding your kid down and inking him up with your gang’s symbol permanent and painful disfigurement just a misdemeanor? Or aggravated mayhem? Admit it, aggravated mayhem sounds more badass. [Huffington Post]
Update: “Two Bulldog gang members accused of tattooing a 7-year-old boy in Fresno received a huge legal break on Friday, when a judge dismissed the charge that could have put them in prison for life.” [KMJNOW.com]
• Law firms are getting their merge on. 13 in the third quarter alone. [Boston Business Journal]
• Gather ‘round, boys and girls. Uncle Dave (Letterman) has a little story to share with you. And it’s about how he’s willing to man up and deal with a situation directly. With sitcom-like laughter coming from the audience at the end of almost every sentence, David Letterman reveled to the world in an on-air mea culpa that a man was attempting to extort $2 million from him in return for the man not revealing in a screenplay he was writing that Letterman had slept with several female staff members. Though I think I would have probably liked to see that movie, Dave went and busted the blackmailer. Ode to the New York Special Prosecution Bureau and the Manhattan DA’s office. [Entertainment Weekly]
Update: The man arrested for the attempted extortion is Robert “Joe” Halderman, a 20-year veteran of CBS news and a producer of 48 Hours. [New York Daily News]
Annie, a married seventh-year associate that I work with, seems to be using Facebook as an alternate universe where she brags about imaginary exploits and engages in online affairs using a faux persona. Apparently, when it comes to having a mid-life crisis, Facebook is the new Ferrari.
Up to this point, Annie has always exhibited limitless attention-seeking behaviors, including (but not limited to) constantly sharing private details about herself. I’ve never asked her a single personal question, yet I know that she was raised in a strict Protestant evangelical family and went wild in college with cocaine and clubbing; that she briefly split from her husband and had an affair with an auto mechanic from the western suburbs (and claims he is still in love with her and that his new wife stalks her); and how much she spends every time she goes to Target. Once she (ironically) openly pouted at an associate cocktail hour because no one noticed her new Juvederm injections.
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