Lawyers are beginning to use social media sites like Facebook and MySpace to judge potential jury members, according to a story in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal.

Both defense attorneys and prosecutors are turning to the web to dig for more information than they normally get from the short question and answer session they have with each potential juror during the traditional selection process. Anything from an affection for certain types of television shows to a predilection for opinionated rants gives attorneys an indication of how someone might vote at the end of a trial. Read more »

A judge has refused to dismiss a potential class action seeking to have the e-filing system used in most Fulton County State Court cases and some filed in the Superior Court declared illegal and unconstitutional. Read more »

In response to the Daily Report’s Sept. 22 article “Some metro courts move ahead with own e-filing systems”, Frank R. Cox, chief magistrate in Cobb County, wrote to inform us that his court has had electronic case filing since January 2004.

The Cobb County Magistrate Court worked with the county’s in-house programmers and a private vendor, Affiliated Computer Services, to develop a system to allow court users to file online small claims, dispossessory cases and answers, Cox said. Read more »

The National Law Journal, our sister publication, has an interesting story about lawyers and judges getting in trouble for venting about their cases, colleagues and clients on Facebook, Twitter and blogs. Reporter Tresa Baldas tells some anecdotes guaranteed to make you shake your head in wonder at how clueless some people are about the lack of privacy on the Internet.

My favorite comes from a judge in Texas who granted a weeklong continuance to a prosecutor who said she needed to attend a funeral. While she was supposed to be in mourning, the prosecutor posted status updates on Facebook about spending her time off drinking and riding motorcycles.

Read more »