Alexis Deveaux chose a topic that few others chose to tackle on their submissions to the Brandon Legal Group Legal Scholarship.  Thank you for your efforts, and best of luck in your future endeavors.  Alexis attends Stetson University College of Law.

For information on participating in Brandon Legal Group’s $1,000 Scholarship, click here.

How can social media impact a family law case?”

As strangers, a husband and wife enter a courtroom from opposite sides. Passing the wooden bar, they sit within inches of each other. However, the couple may as well be separated by more than a thousand wooded forests. The love they built over the past five years, shattered by alleged: infidelity, bankruptcy, and addiction. Now fighting for custody of their two-year old daughter, husband and wife declare the unfit nature of the other. Both parties have their version of events, which led them to divorce. Yet, their unavoidable social media presence over the past five years also tells a story – one unfiltered in its representation of events.

Pointed examination into the parties’ social media accounts show: the husband routinely takes trips out of town, being photographed in compromising positions with various women during such trips; the wife recently posted a photograph of her new $1,300 handbag, in her newly leased Mercedes; and six months ago, the couple posed for a selfie with a bong in the background.

The preceding scenario illustrates the power social media has in tipping the scales of family law justice; commonplace in the ‘2017 age of unbridled social media use.’

The advent of social media, coupled with insatiable desires to share daily life, has greatly expand the scope of information family law clients, attorneys, and judges can consider in making decisions. Social media information is not privileged material, but rather public domain. Therefore, information found on a social media account greatly impacts: custody, visitation, alimony, and enforcements of prenuptial agreements.

The topic of a child’s custody, and parents’ respective visitation rights, is a source of much contention. Parents seeking custody are usually evaluated for character, fitness, and stability. It used to be, that only though extensive third-party investigation could such elements of a family law case be proved. However, with a few simple clicks, social media can shed great light on all three elements; greatly expanding the lens through which a court examines parental fitness.

Sometimes to avoid alimony, and subsequent financial loss, a party in divorce will claim bankruptcy. In such cases, a party may move money into an offshore or business account. However, Social media can reveal the tangible presence, of intangible funds. Social media activity portraying expensive goods and lavish trips can be proffered in court. The court on the basis of such evidence, may pointedly question the traitorous party. Social media greatly lifts the insolvency veil of defense.

Prenuptial agreements are common in marriages, where parties are seeking to protect: independent economic interests; and/or deter potential infidelity. Hearsay statements of rumored trysts and affairs are unable to be offered in in court. On the other hand, social media posts, pictures, and messages are able to be proffered. This may even include online dating profiles made while married. In such cases, social media can be utilized to enforce prenuptial fidelity clauses and ensure subsequent monetary compensation.

Family law is a complex web of emotional entanglements, further complicated by parties’ often unavoidable social media presence. Social media can impact multiple areas of a family law case, such as: custody, visitation, alimony, and enforcements of prenuptial agreements. Family law has greatly benefited a courts ability to rule judiciously. However beneficial, explicit details about the personal lives of some may cause one to feel as Ralph Waldo Emerson penned: “There are many things of which a wise man might wish to be ignorant.”

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