Law firm partner suspended for 18 months and ordered to pay £11,000 in costs for posting offensive tweets blames “curse of Twitter”

We now spend an average of six hours and 59 minutes online, nearly double the figure for 2019. In the age of Covid we can surely be forgiven our increased reliance on screens.

But that’s no defence to bad online behaviour.

Solicitors need to be particularly careful that online interactions (Twitter, TikTok, Insta, LinkedIn, Zoom) do not damage their reputation, that of their firm or the wider profession; or breach regulatory rules.

The Code of Conduct for solicitors includes provisions which expressly apply in their private lives.  The risk that this implies in a social media context was made painfully clear for one law firm partner who was suspended for 18 months and ordered to pay £11,000 in costs for posting offensive tweets about religious groups.

This is not an isolated case.  In 2017, the problem was already serious enough for the Solicitors Regulation Authority to issue a warning notice regarding offensive communications and reminding solicitors of possible sanctions: one solicitor fined £25,000 for inappropriate Facebook comments and another rebuked for offensive, late-night tweets.

Fortunately, there are a number of simple things we can do, short of pulling the plug, to avoid serious social media missteps:

  1. Think before you tweet.  The solicitor suspended for 18 months explained by way of mitigation that she had been responding “in the moment” to current events, what she dubbed the “curse of Twitter”. The Tribunal was not persuaded.

  2. Don’t rely on disclaimers. Stating “all views my own” or “RTs (retweets) are not endorsements” to indicate that posts are made as private individuals, and not on behalf of an employer, is not a good defence to a breach of Principles 1, 2, 6 and 9 as these explicitly apply to solicitors in a private capacity.

  3. Refute. When retweeting content that could be perceived as offensive, make sure you clearly refute that content in your reply or retweet. By sharing something that could cause offence, you could be seen to be endorsing it.

  4. Remember, you are not invisible.  Hiding behind anonymity is a risky gambit as content posted under a pseudonym can be traced, and a photo, if included, can be used to identify the author. Moreover, individual privacy settings cannot be relied upon to prevent a post from being transmitted, at times very quickly, across users’ networks.

  5. Be alert to unauthorised use of your social media account(s). Refute and report without delay any inappropriate comment posted in your name by a third party.      

Astraea Group has considerable expertise in the policing and removal of offensive and defamatory material on web publications and social media platforms.  We have successfully represented clients in compliance and disciplinary proceedings before a range of professional, sports and regulatory bodies, including the Financial Conduct Authority, Solicitors Regulation Authority and Bar Standards Board.

If you would like advice in relation to any of the issues discussed in this article, please give us a call or send an email.

The information provided in this article is of a general nature and does not constitute, nor should be relied on, as legal or professional advice.

News & Insights