The extraordinary difficulties facing lawyers seeking to fulfill their obligations to protect and preserve client confidentiality in the 21st century were discussed in the Nov. 5, 2010, article in this column, “Protecting Client Information.” The present article focuses on other challenges to the old ethical order that are presented by the existence, and portability, of digital information. First, this article will explore what (if any) limits the ethics rules establish with regard to mining information on the internet generally, and social network sites in particular. Second, the article will address the problem of who “owns” digitally stored information — clients, lawyers individually, or law firms — with special reference to the problems that arise when lawyers make lateral moves between firms.

LIMITS ON ‘MINING’

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