The Orlando Sentinel published my oped (with the paper’s headline) concerning the Florida Supreme Court case that will decide whether a judge may be Facebook friends with lawyers who appear before the judge. The heart of the piece is that Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to call Facebook connections “friends” rather than “acquaintances” or “soulmates,” for that matter, should not control the law of judicial disqualification. A Facebook friendship may be factored into a disqualification decision together with other surrounding circumstances, but virtual reality should not trump reality.
The online version of the oped is here.