Divorce Attorney: Forget Private Investigators, Use Social Media

The idea of privacy is well outdated now that people post all sorts of personal information about themselves and others on social media.  While this can be fun and a good way for you and your friends to stay connected, it also make things really easy for a divorce attorney to learn a lot about you.  After all, why go through the laborious task of examining all of your bank records to get an understanding of how you live, when you check in a restaurants and post pictures of your lifestyle on the internet?

Often one of the first things that a divorce attorney will tell their clients is to take down their social media pages, if there is any indication that this could be used against them.  Before doing this, however, it is advisable to print out anything that could be relevant on your spouse’s social media sites.  Many times, though, couples breaking up have already blocked access to the other spouse’s online postings.  It is generally not a safe assumption to think that that spouse cannot get access to what has been posted because it is often the case that a friend can get access and print everything out.

If the online postings become admitted in a court, they can become powerful evidence because they are your own admissions freely given.   For a divorce attorney to have otherwise gotten this information could have been very difficult and costly, and there is the challenge of getting a court to believe its authenticity.  With online media postings, this hurdle is greatly diminished.  While there still may be evidentiary hurdles to have the posting admitted into evidence, it should be hard for a litigant to assert that the postings are not true.

It is important to understand, however, that any damaging information learned may not necessarily be used just for the legal ending of the marriage itself.  A divorce attorney would probably be just as interested in damaging information for child custody, spousal support, or property divisions.  For instance, one spouse may be claiming that they do not have sufficient funds to help the other spouse with support during or after the break up.  It probably does not help, though, if they are spending lots of money taking a new partner out to expensive restaurants or other entertainment while indicating that they paid the bill.

Older generations do not have the same problem with posting information online as younger generations, generally.  Even if older people are online, they tend to have a greater sense of privacy and are typically significantly more attuned to a sense of privacy.  If this trend continues, the job of a divorce attorney will be made significantly easier because it will be simple to discover the truth in cases.

The above material is intended for information purposes only.  It is not intended as professional legal advice and should not be construed as such.  Will Beaumont practices law in New Orleans, LA, and Metairie, LA.