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Family Law in the Digital Age : How to befriend new technologies in the family law context. Annette T. Burns, esq . Edith A. Croxen , esq . Rebecca M. Stahl, esq . Is Social Media A Fad?. Social Media Revolution. The Internet World. The internet is now a “Cloud”
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Family Law in the Digital Age: How to befriend new technologies in the family law context Annette T. Burns, esq. Edith A. Croxen, esq. Rebecca M. Stahl, esq.
Is Social Media A Fad? • Social Media Revolution
The Internet World • The internet is now a “Cloud” • The internet cloud is “a collection of utilities built on internet technologies for on-demand services” • Also known as SaaS or Software as a Service • Sample Clouds: Amazon Web Services Google Apps Force.com Microsoft Windows Azure Salesforce.com
What does the internet look like? It has physical locations. • In the U.S.: Miami, Florida - NAP of the Americas; • Columbia River Valley – Google; • Microsoft, Yahoo and Amazon • Microsoft facility alone is 469,000 square feet which could house seven Boeing 747s and is cooled by the Columbia River
Cloud Computing • Microsoft announced on 6/3/10, that it was entering into a collaboration with the world’s two largest laptop manufacturers, Quanta Computers and Compal Electronics of Taiwan, to develop and manufacture a new generation of servers for containerized cloud data centers
Security Issues • THE INTERNET IS NOT SECURE!!! • Identity theft – five times more likely by stolen wallet than high tech hacking • But, exposure of personal emails and information can only be done on the internet • Security services recommend consumers learn password protection rules • ISPs and Secondary ISPs
How can we use the internet and remain safe and sane? • Today technology entrepreneurs everywhere can take advantage of what Google and Yahoo learned along the way. They can write their own apps to run on Google’s data center infrastructure. • The Biggest Cyber Crime in History – Issue 1106 June 2010, Rolling Stone Magazine
What you can do - Security • Passwords need to be different for each utility • Use a combination of letters and numbers or symbols from the keyboard • Do not store on computer • Choose false questions and false answers or make up obscure security questions.
Searching Issues • Define how you want to use the internet, personally and professionally • Take a few hours to find the best search engines for your needs • Search engines are not content-driven sites; they are search-only sites • A good search engine does your work for you • There are search engines to find search engines: • Dogpile.com; hotbot.com
A Search Warrant? • United States v. Vosburgh, (3d Cir. 2010) • Facts: Vosburgh was convicted of having child pornography on his computer. • Holding: The IP address listed on an affidavit “provided a ‘substantial basis’ for the magistrate's conclusion that there was a ‘fair probability that contraband or evidence of a crime [would] be found’ in Vosburgh's apartment at the time of the search.”
Legal Search Engines and Portals FindLaw’s Law Crawler (http://lawcrawler.lp.findlaw.com and http://www.legaline.com/lawsites.html) These sites are programmed to search only sites that contain legal information. Legal Portals and Directories The difference between portals and search engines is that the portals are human constructed and monitored. • Legal portals and directories are usually sponsored by one of five different groups: 1. Commercial entities 2. Law firms 3. Governments 4. Academic Institutions 5. Associations • “A high quality, useful legal portal or directory should: (1) be reliable by being credible, up-to-date and objective; (2) include a subject directory and preferably a jurisidictional directory; (3) link directly to many relevant sites; and (4) be user friendly (intuitive).” Levitt and Rosch, The Cybersleuth’s Guide to the Internet
Legal Portals: • HierosGamos (HG) • http://www.hg.org • Nolo Press • http://www.nolo.com • RSS Feed – electronic update services that allows blog to automatically deliver information continuously to desktop
Control Issues • Parental Controls • Keeping your computer clean Delete Cookies Delete Files Delete History Clean Disk Defragment • Chatroulette!!!!!
Social Networking • Facebook • Myspace • Twitter • LinkdIn • Second Life • World of Warcraft • Meetup • Orkut • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websites
Survey • How many of you are on facebook? • How many of you are on LinkedIn? • How many of you are on MySpace? • How many of you use Twitter?
Facebook • There are over 500,000,000 people on facebook. • President Obama used facebook to campaign and continues to campaign through it. • The fastest growing demographic is women 55-65. • Redefines demographics and advertising. • According to a Kaiser Family Foundation Study, children spend an average of 7.5 hours per day of “entertainment media.”
LinkedIn • The professional social network site – more than 90,000,000 members • Resume • Recommendations • TripIt • Groups
Twitter • July 2010 75,000,000 members • January 2011 190,000,000 members • 140 character updates • 65 million tweets per day • Can link to other websites, to photos, etc. • Department of State pays foreign officials by Twitter • Absolutely public by default, but can restrict to followers • The Library of Congress is going to keep all tweets
Problems with social networking for litigants • Posting inappropriate information / photos • Information can be about where the person was • Wrong timing – supposed to be with kids but instead on facebook • Photos can be in a bar or of their significant other’s children (ex of significant other usually does not like that) • Finding old flings – one law firm says that 20% of divorces cite facebookin the petition. http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/57742,news-comment,technology,facebook-causes-one-in-five-divorces-says-law-firm
What else have litigants done? • Posting nude pictures of an ex: http://www.freep.com/article/20100520/NEWS06/100520018/ • Blaming the phone company for the breakup: http://news.nationalpost.com/2010/05/17/woman-sues-rogers-wireless-inc-for-ruining-her-marriage/
Problems with social networking for Professionals • Ethics! • Updating at problematic times regardless of what is said • Accidental invites to sites • Second Life? Is it real? • Privacy issues: adversarial litigants finding out about your personal life. • Above the Law – what it is, why it is a problem • Did we mention ethics?
Recently in the News • Hey don’t worry: http://volokh.com/2010/02/11/hey-dont-worry-the-judge-is-my-friend/ • Florida Supreme Court said that judges and lawyers may not be friends on Facebook • What about an organization like AFCC? • “The practice of lawyers and judges actually being friends, of course, can’t be prohibited; if lawyer Jones and Judge Smith played golf last weekend, well, bully for them. And the fact that they did so in a public place and could therefore show up in the newspaper wouldn’t give anyone grounds for complaint. But there is something different about being listed as a “friend” on a publicly-accessible website.”
Because it never stops • Friending an ex-felon, who the judge sentenced: http://abovethelaw.com/2010/06/judge-of-the-day-joseph-r-carico-gives-up-his-honor-for-halo/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+abovethelaw+(Above+the+Law)
Technology in the courtroom • Emails between litigants • Text messages saved to phones? • http://www.tigertext.com/ -- email / text to phone – is it safe? • Voicemails left on cell phones • These can all be brought to the courtroom and seen by the judge • State v. Damper – Criminal case
Family Privacy Orders • Parental Controls of Home Computers. • Both parents will use parental controls on all computers which are accessible to the minor children. In the event an adult’s computer does not have parental controls, it shall be password protected with a secure password unknown to the child. The parental controls shall include content and user time limitations. Parents shall only use secure sites to download children’s games and shall review the content prior to allowing the child to participate in any internet game.
Minor’s participation in Facebook/My Space/Twitter and other interactive social networking internet activities. • The minor may participate in obtaining these accounts (upon agreement by both parties) but (each) parent will have the minor’s password for any of these accounts and shall be able to completely monitor, and, if necessary, shut down the account. • All accounts regarding the minor shall be private accounts and shall not be open to public use. The parents will monitor periodically to determine whether the child’s “friends” are appropriate and shall block and “friend” which the parent deems in appropriate.
Use of photographs of children on the internet. In the event either parent desires to post photographs of the children on a social networking or other internet site, that parent will maintain the privacy of the site by blocking unknown persons and will block “friends of friends.” Additionally, any photograph of the child shall be appropriate for age and content and shall not include any nudity or partial nudity. The parent will take any other necessary security precautions as may be required from time to time.
Telephone for minor. • A telephone for the minor child shall not be provided by either parent prior to the child’s tenth birthday. Any telephone provided for the child from age 10 until age 12 shall be restricted to the telephone numbers the parent(s) elect and shall include 911. • After age 12, the minor’s phone may be unrestricted (upon agreement of the parties ) and the parent providing the telephone shall allow unrestricted text messaging. In the event the minor requests a Twitter account, the parents shall strictly monitor said account for content appropriateness
Inappropriate Internet Activities. • The minor child shall not be exposed to any pornography in either parent’s home or in any situation in which the parent is aware that the minor may be exposed to pornography. This includes the use of avatars to enter internet virtual worlds such as Second Life or others which may from time to time exist. • The parents will monitor any virtual interactive games the child may be involved in for appropriate content and activity. If the parent cannot or does not do so, the site will be removed from the minor’s participation by an appropriate computer parental control.
Notification to each parent. Each parent will notify the other at any time there is a change to the minor’s accounts, internet activities or other significant event regarding the minor’s privacy or potential invasion thereof. • Parents will take reasonable precautions that a parent’s significant other or spouse is made aware of these family privacy orders and shall monitor the use of the minor’s privacy information (including photographs) by the parent’s significant other or spouse.
New Issues. The parents will maintain communication about any new developments on the internet or internet related devices which may negatively impact the minor and will cooperate with each other to address any such issues.
Technology for Good - Litigants • Long distance – skype • Ourfamilywizard.com • Divorce / Family information online • Text messaging / emailing instead of talking face-to-face or even over the phone • Google • Documents • Calendar • Email account both parents use and give the school
Options for sharing calendar Google Calendar - Sharing
Technology for good – Professionals: Convenience,learn, teach, and promote • Email: Paperless, convenient, fast (is it safe?) • Websites: Make your website user-friendly • Facebook fan pages • Blogs: learn about family law or promote your business • Twitter: some groups send links to articles and new case law • RSS Reader: Have important posts sent to you
Email Tips • Email is safe . . . when it is • Civility remains important • Emails are written communications • Say hello at the beginning and use a salutation at the end • What is your time worth? • Answer your emails promptly . . . but use some thought • Inform clients how they will be charged for your email use
