Lawyers Need A Panel To Explain Texting Because We're Still One Notification Away From An Ethics Apocalypse - Above the Law

"Here at Kaleidoscope, the newly minted 8am's inaugural conference, lawyers gathered to hear about the dangers lurking in their pockets. Rather than being happy to see us, the phones they lug around carry a ticking ethical timebomb poised to erupt as their terminally Millennial clients demand to talk about their cases over SMS. It's not an outlier scenario anymore. Mark Palmer, Chief Counsel of the Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Professionalism, explained that 59 percent of clients want to communicate with their lawyers by text."

"Like any good service professional, the secret for lawyers hoping to navigating troublesome client demands lies in redirection. "That's such a great question... it requires more detail than I can get into here, how about we schedule a call for tomorrow morning?" Keep the client happy by routing scheduling and general information through the convenience of text, but shunt their serious questions over to an in-person meeting, or at least an email, as soon as possible."

"But until every firm runs through a clunky portal like your HMO, take some steps to protect yourself and the client. Turn off notifications. Definitely kill the message previews. Disable those laptop echoes that mirror your client's latest text onto multiple devices. And tell your client to do the same. Conduct your law practice as if you're hiding an affair better than the Coldplay couple."

A majority of clients prefer texting, with 59 percent indicating they want to communicate with their lawyers by text. Texting often extends beyond scheduling and can involve substantive decisions that create security, recordkeeping, and ethical risks. Lawyers should redirect substantive exchanges to phone calls, in-person meetings, or email while permitting scheduling and general information via text. Practical protections include disabling notifications, killing message previews, and disabling device message mirroring; clients should be asked to do the same. Family law raises heightened safety concerns where texting can jeopardize client safety. Firms should adopt clear policies, warnings on files, and secure portals when possible.

Read at Above the Law