Divorce lawyers realize it’s easy in our social networking gluttony for people to use their computer keyboard to rant about their case online.
That’s why attorneys Joseph Cordell and Kristin Zurek are warning clients to stay off Facebook and other social media.
“Our average person could not afford to hire a private detective to run around willy-nilly in the hope that over several days he might stumble upon something,” Cordell told the St. Charles Suburban Journal. “Now you have a relatively low-paid clerk who is a crack user of the Internet. They can go in and find things that even the lawyers can’t find.”
Zurek said people feel the need to over share. She cited one case where the mom was alleging her chronic illness kept her in the house.
“And then she posted pictures of herself dancing at a bar while drunk on her behind,” Zurek told the paper.
Cordell gave examples of the dangers of posting damaging information online:
A wife posts online that since her ex, named Sam, has been ordered to continue to pay the mortgage and utilities she’s opened the windows and run the air conditioning during the summer.
“She wrote that she was paying for it with her ‘Sam’s card,'” he says.
Another woman who swears in court she doesn’t drink posts a photo of herself with a child in one arm and a bottle of Jose Cuervo in the other.
Judges are not pleased when this information is brought to light, and family law judges have far-reaching latitude in the information they review, Zurek said.
Read more: No need for a private eye; divorce combatants post damaging info themselves
