"The Lawyers On Net", The Businessperson, 18 May 2016

The rules of behaviour for lawyers on the social nets were discussed on the law forum. Can lawyers place their personal opinions and personal photos on their websites and should they follow certain ethical standards? Despite failing to reach an agreement the point the majority of the participants of the conference agreed that self-denial, logics and common sense should become the main principles of behaviour.

The conference "Lawyers on social media- between regulation and common sense" has taken place today as part of the 6th International Law Forum in Saint-Petersburg. Anton Krasovsky , a journalist and PR adviser of Pen & Paper, and Konstantin Dobrynin, a former senator and, at present, the State Secretary of the Federal Chamber of Lawyers of the Russian Federation (FCL), acted as its moderators.

The discussion during the conference was very lively and the speakers interrupted each other, used not fully ethical and proper comparisons and examples causing laughter in the crowded auditorium. Moderators pointed out that "we all live in a new reality now" where social media create the new rules of the game which should be taken into consideration and mainly by means of self-denial. The president of the FCL Yury Pilipenko who was present at the discussion said that the chamber was working out a special regulation of the behaviour of lawyers on social nets. Anton Krasovsky asked him whether it was necessary for a lawyer to ask permission to publish a post in Facebook. Although the answer was negative Mr Pilipenko said that lawyers were a corporation, so all its members had to follow the rules, and those who didn't could face responsibility up to disqualification. Anton Krasovsky asked him, - " Why more rules are needed when the whole country consists of laws and restrictions?" The head of the FCL answered that he didn't want people to say "some things about lawyers " . "Lawyers shouldn't express their own opinions?" - Asked the journalist? "Lawyers can do it, but there are some opinions which can be considered as wrong by the Bar." - answered Pilipenko and clarified that they were not going to create definitions for right and wrong points of view. Henry Reznik joined the conversation. He asked not to call him a lawyer because he appeared on the Internet only on his own. "The statement that lawyers are human beings, too is disputable. Nevertheless, it is our basic principle." - started his speech Mr Reznik and wondered whether a lawyer was a lawyer all 24 hours a day. He offered to distinguish professional activity, where standards had been worked out for centuries, from private life. "We have the special power , but made to order cases are a disgrace of our justice system. Is it right not to allow lawyers to express their point of view, speak about violations and appeal to the public if a case is politically or corruptibly motivated? - wondered Henry Reznik. "Is it censorship?" - asked Anton Krasovsky. "Our ethical rules work only in the field of lawyers' practice. We are just common citizens on the Internet. Nets do not change anything, and smearing means facing corresponding responsibility. We may consider how to improve some professional rules but only inside the legal profession." - answered the lawyer. Yury Pilipenko replied that the limits of permitted could be different, but Henry Reznik insisted that a lawyer couldn't bear responsibility for activities on the Internet. The general director of the mediaholding Dozhd Natalia Sindeeva didn't agree with this position. She spoke about the same journalist's status on the Net. "If your net is not a private one, it means that it is de facto regarded as mass media. A journalist is always a journalist, even being in bed and broadcasting to Facebook. Everything is regulated by common sense. There are unwritten ethical principles in our editorial office." - said Ms Sindeeva. According to her, a journalist should bear in mind responsibility and follow the law concerning mass media in every appearance in public and, although there aren't any documents regulating behaviour of the staff on the Net in the editorial office of Dozhd" ,but only ethics, the managers of the TV channel still have the right to reprimand and even sack a member of the staff. In the middle of the discussion the Head of the Information and Press Department of the Foreign Office of the Russian Federation Maria Zakharova joined in through Scype. She was introduced as "the person in power in mass media" by Anton Krasovsky. The line was interrupted three times and then Ms Zakharova phoned the moderator and said that "social nets are very much like a talk show " and that she regarded them as a place where one could express their own "expert's estimation" and post photos of flowers in the garden or of oneself in the gym. However, Maria Zakharova said that she made official statements only from the tribune of the Foreign Office. She expressed her regret that many people didn't appreciate that both personal and official photos could be found on her page because they thought that only either of them could be present there. "But if you open Izvestia, Komsomolskaya Pravda, you will see different topics everywhere. Variety allows to show what you are. A social net is my small mass media. I have the right for my own opinion." - insisted Maria Zakharova. Yury Pilipenko called to find a compromise between rules and freedom of expression, - "We shouldn't confront freedom and rules. Freedom can't exist without rules." The ambassador of Austria to the RF Emil Bricks urged to pay attention, first of all, to the protection of the Russian journalists from the state and said that he thought that in terms of the rules of behaviour for lawyers the latter had to be guided by the general principle "not to go too far ". Andrey Karelsky, the partner of the attorney bureau KIAP, supposed that the participants of the conference may have been discussing the future draft law that would probably appear in ten years, - "It may become impossible to write posts being drunk". Konstantin Dobrynin replied that taking into consideration the speed of work of the State Duma "it will become a law-applicable practice in ten years".

In the end Anton Krasovsky asked Henry Reznik, - "Will you quit if such rules are accepted?" "If they are accepted after heavy drinking, we'll go to court and challenge them. Nowadays the Bar is more separated from the State than the Church." "The clergy face the same problem: if they publish a photo of a clergywoman on the beach, the congregation don't want to see it," - remarked Konstantin Dobrynin. General guidelines for lawyers' behaviour on social networks were not worked out during the discussion, but the majority agreed that it was necessary to act according to logic and common sense.

Andrey Raisky, Saint-Petersburg