Attention lawyers and Judges in Florida: You can no longer be Facebook friends.  As reported in the NYT, the state’s Judicial Ethics Advisory Committee decided that when judges “friend” lawyers who may appear before them, it creates the appearance of a conflict of interest since “it reasonably conveys to others the impression that these lawyer ‘friends’ are in a special position to influence the judge.”

I think this is ridiculous.  By this reasoning, I can’t have a conversation with judges whom I know at a cocktail party because it might covey the impression that I have influence over the judge.  Would that it were so, but at bottom its insulting to judges.  They don’t live in a cocoon, after all.   I don’t think judges much care about whom they can friend on Facebook, but they do need to have normal social lives.