Abnormal Use and the North Carolina Law Blog

As you know, we here at Abnormal Use love blogging, so much so that our editor Jim Dedman is now contributing one monthly post to the North Carolina Law Blog.  Earlier today, his first submission was published at that site.  The topic: To Text, Or Not To Text – The Lawyers Dilemma. Jim’s post is a response to an earlier blog entry by Carolyn Elefant at the Small Firm Innovation blog.

With so many people texting one another, lawyers should pause to reflect upon whether it is an appropriate manner to communicate with clients. To whet your appetite, here’s an excerpt of Jim’s post:

[T]he medium of texting – its immediacy, its brevity, and its simplicity – suggests that it may be an inappropriate medium for any communication that is remotely substantive.  Texts, by their nature, are ephemeral.  They are not filed, they are not saved, they are generally not kept in any meaningful fashion.  However, communications with one’s clients – particularly communications which offer or purport to offer any type of legal advice – should probably be kept in one’s file.  Thus, lawyers who text may face the hassle of having to download, maintain, or otherwise track their texts and preserve them for their files.  This seems like an unnecessary task, particularly when users of smart phones can simply use an email rather than a text from the same device and avoid any issues on that front.

The North Carolina Law Blog is sponsored by the North Carolina Bar Association Center for Practice Management.  A relatively new member of the legal blogosphere, it officially began in May of this year.  A group blog, it currently has 13 writers.  Jim plans to submit one post per month to the North Carolina Law Blog, and we’ll certainly direct you to any content of his at that site upon its publication.