Discovery: The Era of Social Media

The rapid evolution of social media platforms across the Internet has influenced and changed communication and the way business is conducted in a short period. Attorneys must adapt and adjust their discovery methods to these changes for effective discovery. This course will provide a basic overview of laws and regulations impacting discovery about social media and how attorneys can navigate this process.

This course will review how discovery issues involving social media require applying and interplaying constitutional notions of privacy under the Fourth Amendment, the Stored Communications Act (“SCA”), and the permitted scope of discovery under federal and state law. Attendees will explore cases that reflect the development of discovery approaches by State and Federal courts in obtaining discovery on social media networking sites. Ethical implications of social media, and aside from ethical improprieties, an attorney can be sanctioned or subjected to substantive liability for causing improper discovery. Finally, this course will discuss the necessary steps to obtain social media evidence and the rise in the social media platform TikTok and personal fitness trackers influencing the discovery process.

This course is designed for litigation attorneys and attorneys who manage discovery with any level of expertise. Furthermore, attorneys interested in how social media changes discovery are encouraged to attend.

Learning Objectives:

• Review the Fourth Amendment and other statutes that discuss privacy
• Explore cases involving different discovery approaches and why specific methods are employed in various situations
• Recognize the ethical implications of social media discovery and how to mitigate any moral concerns
• Discover how to obtain admissible evidence