North Carolina Lawyers Can’t Reward Social Media Engagement

North Carolina lawyers can’t encourage social media users to connect with their law practice by offering a reward for doing so, the state bar advised.

Depending “on the function of the social media platform, offering an incentive to engage with a law practice’s social media account is misleading and constitutes an improper exchange for a recommendation of the law practice’s services,” a bar opinion said.

The intersection of law and social media is changing how the profession evaluates certain areas of the law, including attorney advertising, discovery, and communications. State court rulings and state bar ethics opinions provide guidance for attorneys and help them avoid ethical pitfalls, like a judge in Kentucky who was disqualified from a case in September due to a Facebook “like” of a campaign post.

Here, a North Carolina lawyer who wanted to offer all social media users who connected with his various law practice platforms a chance to win a prize asked the state bar if this was permitted under state professional conduct rules.

It’s not, the bar advised, because it violates the prohibitions against lawyers give anything of value to a person for recommending the lawyer’s services and against making a false or misleading communication about the lawyer or the lawyer’s services.

A “like” on social media, for instance, could be construed as an endorsement, the bar explained, so that the offer of a chance at a prize linked to that endorsement violates Rule 7.2(b), it said.

The purpose of this rule is to make sure that that recommendations of a lawyer’s services are based on experience, not financial incentive, the bar explained. So when a law practice has many social media endorsements motivated by a prize, not personal opinion, it’s misleading, a violation of Rule 7.1(a) it said.

In concluding, the bar made clear that its opinion wasn’t a prohibition on lawyers encouraging social media interactions with their social media accounts.

The opinion is N.C. State Bar 2019 Formal Ethics Opinion 6, 10/25/19.