Ethics

The Philadelphia Bar Association's Professional Guidance Committee recently issued an opinion concerning a lawyer's proposed investigation of a witness's Facebook page.  The lawyer wanted to ask a third person -- someone whom the witness would not recognize -- to send a "friend" request to the witness.  The lawyer believed that the witness generally granted these requests and that the third person would be able to uncover information that could be used to impeach the witness at trial.  (The information could only be read by the witness's Facebook friends.) 

The Committee, citing Rules 5.3, 8.4, and 4.1, said that the lawyer could not engage in such an investigation.  That seems like the right answer to me.  Anyone disagree?

Thanks to the ABA/BNA's Lawyers' Manual on Professional Conduct for the lead. (For those of you who do not subscribe to the Lawyers' Manual, I highly recommend it.  It has great material on current events relating to legal ethics as well proprietary guides on legal ethics that I have often found to be quite valuable.)