By Shannon Goff 

The blogosphere is abuzz parsing Jack Welch's views; you may have already seen this article or others like it.

I thought this article offered a nice retort... leave it to the Canucks to offer the Yanks some perspective.

By Brian Malcom

We here at YLB are dedicated to the task of preventing you from getting fired because of social media.

While common sense goes a long way in properly using social media, a little advice never hurts.  (Hint: Just like warning labels on products, there is a reason I am giving this advice!) Here is some general advice: Assume your boss reads everything you write.  If you would not want your boss reading your post, it's probably not safe or smart to place on the web for all the world to see.

Basic Twitter Advice:

• Do not tweet about your lack of motivation
• Do not tout recent job offers
• Do not badmouth your job, your colleagues, your boss, your company or your clients
• Do not tweet about your illegal activities
• Do not tweet inappropriate comments about co-workers

Basic Facebook Advice:

• Do not use Facebook to bash your job, your colleagues, your boss, your company or your clients
• See Twitter tips for status updates
• Do not login to Facebook while at work (With the "chat" feature, your "friends" can see when you're online.  If you should be working, work) 
• Assume everyone can see everything. (Don't lie to your boss about a family emergency, and then post a picture of you dressed as a fairy at a Halloween costume party time-stamped on the date of the supposed emergency)
• If you're a professional, keep your Facebook page professional and/or private

A recent MSN article highlights the plight of those who failed to heed common sense and my, apparently, late advice. For your entertainment, below is an excerpt from the article which points out some terrible, but true, tweets.  These 10 examples of Web 2.0 blunders get the first 10 honorary YLB Web 2.Oh No! Awards.

"Paul Wilson, a freelance/corporate Web marketer and blogger, found several of such moments on Twitter, a social networking and micro-blogging site, and posted these "Top 10 Tweets to Get You Fired" [sic]:

1. "hate my job!! i want to tell my bosses how dumb they are and how meaningless this job is, then quit, and be happy!"
2. "So my job was to test all the food at the new resturant, can I just say, ughew. I'm going to taco bell then twistee treat."
3. "Workin... This job sucks worse then the economy!"
4. "I'm going to work! Walmart! Must find better job! I hate it when chicks there have a deeper voice than me and refer to me as foo!"
5. "Also I'm really bummed that I'm working today, i asked off so i could study but my boss is a ******* **** ***** ***** who can't read."
6. "Coworker smuggled out a chair for me. Currently being paid to SIT around and listen to John Barrowman on my iPod. I don't hate my job today!"
7. "having sex dreams of people you work with makes for an awkward day."
8. "smoking weed at work is so [EDITED] great :)"
9. "It's bad when you overhear the n00b programmer say "I used to work at McDonalds with him" and you wonder if he is talking about the CEO..."
10. "Huh, with my boss on twitter, maaaybe I should take down that sexy picture of her... but her reaction will be priceless!"

By Lesli Love 

Are you married?  Do you have kids?  Do all of your high school and college friends have kids?  If you’re a young female lawyer, your answers may well be “No,” “No,” “Yes.”   If that means you don’t fit in with your non-lawyer friends, you should know that you’re not alone.  A lot of other young women lawyers are in the same boat. 

According to a publication from an ongoing study called After the JD, comparisons between the 2000 Census and a study of young lawyers conducted in 2004 show that young women lawyers aren’t as likely to be married and definitely aren’t as likely to be mommies as their non-lawyer peers.   According to the 2000 Census, 59% of women ages 27-32 are married.  Among female lawyers ages 27-32, 47% are married.  That somewhat smaller percentage comes with a plus – only 7% of the female lawyers in that age group are divorced compared with 12% of the general female population at that age. 

A more striking difference is that among women ages 27-32, 64% have at least one child.  Only 24% of female lawyers in the age range have any children.  The next U.S. census will be released in less than a year and we’ll see if the disparity is the same.   

Will you still be the only one at your 10-year reunion without kids? 

By Robert Chapski 

Microsoft has just announced that it will release a free version of its Office productivity suite as part of Office 2010 that can be accessed on the web.  This move is an obvious attempt to compete with Google, which released its own free office productivity software a few years ago.

Google recently announced that it plans to launch an operating system to compete with Windows.  I would suspect, as with other advancements over the last several years, consumers stand to benefit from this competition.  I can still remember when a new desktop computer cost over $4,000! This is great news for young lawyers, especially those hanging their own shingle or working for a small firm.  The modern tools of the trade--word processing programs, spreadsheet software, and presentation software---are becoming more available and accessible to small businesses.  It's hard to imagine how a modern lawyer can survive without spell-check . . . 

** Click here to read an article I wrote for DRI about free webware and productivity suites available to lawyers.

According to the ABA, "[m]anagement-side employment lawyers are advising their clients against writing recommendations for current or recent employees on LinkedIn." Apparently, a positive recommendation by an employer on LinkedIn could be offered as evidence to support a discrimination claim. The employee could offer the LinkedIn recommendation as evidence to refute an argument that poor performance caused the employee's subsequent termination. The ABA article cites another article by the National Law Journal. According to the NLJ, plaintiffs' lawyers may be "scouring these sites, looking for evidence to dispute firings, as most LinkedIn recommendations are positive."

So what's a supervisor or employer to do? Carolyn Plump, a partner at Philadelphia's Mitts Milavec, answered this very question for the NLJ. "Just don't do it," Plump said. "Generally, my advice is that I think employers are often better served by merely stating dates of employment, positions with the company and salary, and staying away from much more because there are so many potential ramifications if they say something." Plump went on to observe the Catch-22 of substantive recommendations by saying, "If they say something negative, there could be a lawsuit. If they say something positive, there could be a lawsuit."

So, what's the lesson for young lawyers? Don't be upset if that partner you've been working for the last three years won't write you a LinkedIn recommendation. Also, if you happen to be going into employment law, advise your clients against the practice of making LinkedIn recommendations. All lawyers should take this from this YLB post: opposing counsel and potentially opposing counsel are savvy, sophisticated and aware of social networking sites as a fertile medium for evidence.

By Robert Chapski 

Along the lines of our post from a few weeks ago on metadata ethics and our story in May on "Facebook Ethical Traps", a Chattanooga law firm is being sued after allegedly using as evidence in a divorce case email a client acquired from her husband through the use of spyware.  Stories like this beg the question as to how far lawyers can go to research and use information surreptitiously gathered from email and social networking websites.

By Eileen Burkhalter Smith

Good Idea:   Closing Tennessee Caves in the Middle of Summer  

Bad Idea:  Allowing White-Nosed Bat Syndrome to Get Out of Control   

By Eileen Burkhalter Smith 

It is clear on a quick reading of the recent Supreme Court decision in Ricci et al. v. DeStefano et al.  that it will be significant and its effect immediate.  The Court held on 6/29/09 that a New Haven, Connecticut, fire department was improper (and indeed discriminatory) when it threw out test results to avoid racial disparity in the results.  Our colleague Jason Fisher has penned a thorough article about how the decision will affect employers who use any kind of standardized testing for advancement, job review, or employment.  Even more immediate, perhaps, is the fate of a lawsuit involving the Memphis Police Department and its discarding test results for the same reason--to avoid racial disparity.  Those officers had a lawsuit which had been dismissed under the current law.  With the new Ricci decision, however, their lawsuit will be revived.  The Commercial Appeal discusses it here.

By Robert Chapski 

As we enter a long holiday weekend, I want to give credit to our law partner, Jim Doran, for pointing out recently that effective December 1, 2009, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure will be amended (see attached .pdf below) to do away with the "computing time" provision that says when the period of time is less than 11 days, you exclude weekends and holidays in the calculation.

So, that means that no matter what time is specified, you count all days.  Some short time frames are lengthened and there provisions for when the last day falls on a weekend (i.e., the period extends to the next day that is not a Saturday, Sunday or holiday) but be sure to take a look at the changes.  As most litigators know, a lot of things can be corrected but missing a deadline can be crucial.  Take a look also at the summary of the changes posted on the Akron Law Cafe blog.

Fed Rule 6.pdf (141.96 kb)