The legal industry is similar to the medical space where both have always been slow to adapt, though nowadays firms are waking up to the power of social media for a wide variety of purposes outside of marketing and this post touches on a few of them, especially when it comes to using social media for the legal industry.

Using Social Media for Evidence
Whether you’re gathering information for a criminal case or trying to discover information that will help you settle a class action, the power of social media is endless though it all comes down to packaging it up in the most helpful, digestible way for opposing counsel, judges and potentially jurors. And most importantly, knowing what to look for in the moment on social media then capturing that data before things disappear which, if you have, can become evidence/gold in the future.

Presenting Social Media Evidence During Discovery
If you took a social media mindset when issues first arose and captured all information possible you’ll be in a good position when it comes to discovery, though you can also hit a roadblock because you weren’t proactive enough. Key thing: Capture everything you can as it happens which might be in the first few days or over months if not years as trials progress.

Using Social Media Analytics/Data/Insights at Trial
Fast forward, even though most cases don’t go to trial, you always have to be prepared for such and look at every case as a battle you must win for your clients. And if in the end you didn’t capture the right information in the beginning – even one key nugget of information from social media that can win the case – that loss is tragic. On the flip side, discovering the needle in the haystack early on might lead to a $20B class action settlement.

The moral of this story: Law firms throughout the world need to take social media more seriously and those that are winning cases today (and how we’re helping them) is creating waves and setting precedent on the highest level.