November 5, 2012
A relatively new strategy by litigants is to take their cases to the public, not through press conferences but through establishing a voice on the Internet. True, this is not new. Martha Stewart and Michael Jackson had websites that supported their legal cases, and former Chicago Governor Rob Blagoivich had a Facebook page. Discussions of these activities can be found in Chapter 8, Jurors and the Internet, of my book.
Several interesting developments have occurred since the early days of litigant PR websites. First, getting the message out is not as cost-prohibitive as in the early years. It is relatively inexpensive to develop a basic website, and it costs no money to establish a Facebook, MySpace, Google+, or Twitter account. For example, lawyers for George Zimmerman (the person charged in the death of Trayvon Martin) have established websites for information and fundraising, along with a Twitter account for updates and responses to activities concerning the case. While a Facebook page was established by the defense, it was later suspended because of the vitriolic comments posted by supporters and opponents of Mr. Zimmerman. In an interesting twist on the concept of litigant websites, the defendant (Reeco Richardson) in a stolen vehicle case has a website in his subsequent civil lawsuit filed against Maryland state and local officials for the alleged ramming by a police cruiser of a stolen vehicle in which he was a passenger. Attorneys for the defendant asserted that their website was in response to postings of case information on the Montgomery County Police Department website.