Tweet-Chasing Attorneys?

Tom Foster’s blog on internet lawyer marketing reports on an exchange through Twitter over an auto accident recently. One of the drivers involved asked through Twitter about posting photos of the damage online and an attorney responded with a direct message asking if the driver needed legal representation. Sounds like an ethics violation to me.

Carolyn Elefant covered the report on Law Blog Watch and opined that the technology does not overturn the attorney’s responsibilities to the Bar rules. Good point.

There is a tendency to leap into the breech when new technologies are not addressed by the Bar rules, which happens frequently. Many state bars were just catching up with the use of the Web to promote lawyers and their firms when blogs starting appearing, quickly followed by ratings sites like AVVO that invited client testimonials and, lately, Twitter, just to name a few. Just because there is no rule to constrain an attorney’s solicitations, doesn’t mean the Bar will turn a blind eye to egregious actions. After all, these regulators are lawyers, too.

The appropriate response in many cases may be just short of solicitation, but these fine lines are what make the Bar rules meaningful. “I can answer that question” is a fundamentally different message than “I can represent you when you want to sue”. Which one would be a better response in a business development context? Which would your Bar prefer?