Family lawyers are more frequently checking out social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook for the inside scoop about their clients and their clients' soon-to-be ex-wives or ex-husbands. Sometimes that can lead to incriminating information that can be used against you in Court.
I had a recent case where an ex-spouse was trying to reduce his child support obligation, claiming that he was not earning the income he used to because his new wife had taken over the business (let's call it XYZ Corp) that he started. My client had information that this was not the case and the ex-spouse was really trying to divert income to artificially suppress his income for child support purposes.
When I happened to find someone who was the ex-spouset's Facebook "friend" and asked them to do some investigating for me, what turned up could not have been more revelatory. Low and behold smack dab on the front page of his Facebook profile updated only a few days ago, he had listed "Occupation: Owner of XYZ Corporation."
This kind of diligent and free Private Investigator work paid off when we introduced his Facebook and MySpace profile in Court right after he testified under oath that he did not own the company anymore and had not advertised to anyone as such. These kind of revelations sexually explicit photos included, can be harmful to your case and not to mention embarassing.
It's not safe enough just to select who you are friends with and presume that an unassuming "facebook friend" will know your spouse's divorce attorney and give them access to your facebook page.
My recommendation is to either only post information that you wouldn't mind your spouse's divorce attorney seeing or keep off these social networking sites while you're going through a divorce.
For more advice see "Facebook and Divorce. Social- networking sites are great for when you want to connect. But what about when you split?" TIME magazine June 22, 2009.
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