You Posted What?!? A Legal Ethics and Social Media Q & A

John Browning is a tough, aggressive trial lawyer with over 28 years of experience. Mr. Browning represents individuals and businesses both large and small in state and federal courts throughout Texas and Oklahoma, and on a pro hac vice basis in other jurisdictions. Mr. Browning has extensive trial, arbitration, and summary judgment experience and in solving client problems.

Jan L. Jacobowitz is a Lecturer in Law and the Director of the Professional Responsibility & Ethics Program (PREP) at the University of Miami’s School of Law. Under Jan’s direction, PREP was a 2012 recipient of the ABA’s E. Smythe Gambrell Award---the leading national award for a professionalism program. She has presented at hundreds Ethics CLE Seminars throughout the country including annual presentations that PREP develops for legal organizations throughout South Florida. She has written and been a featured speaker on legal ethics topics such as Social Media, Advertising, Lawyer’s First Amendment Rights, Cultural Awareness in the Practice of Law, Mindful Ethics, Cybersecurity for Lawyers, Technology and the Law, Attorney Fees, and E-Discovery. Jan also consults on legal ethics matters as an expert in both risk management and litigation contexts.

Jacobowitz is the co-author of the book, Legal Ethics And Social Media, A Practitioner’s Handbook, published by the ABA in June 2017. She developed the curriculum for the course Social Media and the Law and is among the first law school faculty throughout the country to teach the course. She has also co-developed and teaches Mindful Ethics: Professional Responsibility for Lawyers in the Digital Age, which served as the catalyst for the book that she co-authored, Mindfulness & Professional Responsibility—Incorporating Mindfulness into the Law School Curriculum.

Jacobowitz is the president-elect of the Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers (APRL) and the co-chair of APRL’s Future of Lawyering Committee. She is one of the co-authors of Association Of Professional Responsibility Lawyers 2015 Report Of The Regulation Of Lawyer Advertising Committee and the Committee’s 2016 Supplemental Report, both of which served as the basis for the recent change in the ABA Model Rules on attorney advertising. She was previously APRL’s liaison to the ABA’s Standing Committee on Professionalism and is the current APRL liaison to the ABA’s Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility.

Jacobowitz serves as one of five members of the Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and the Public Trust. She was the Vice Chairman of Broward County’s Committee on Oversight of the Inspector General from 2011 until May 2018.

Jan has represents University Of Miami School Of Law on the Florida Bar’s CLE Committee and has served as the Law School’s United Way Ambassador for the past nine years. She also currently serves as the faculty advisor to the president of the University of Miami Alumni Association.

Prior to devoting herself to legal education, Jacobowitz practiced law for over twenty years. She began her career as a Legal Aid attorney in the District of Columbia; prosecuted Nazi war criminals at the Office of Special Investigations of the U.S. Department of Justice; was in private practice with general practice and commercial litigation firms in Washington, D.C. and Miami; and served as in-house counsel for a large Miami based corporation.

She has a J.D. from George Washington University and a B.S. in Speech from Northwestern University. She is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia, Florida, and California and is a certified civil court mediator. She maintains an active legal ethics consulting practice. Jacobowitz and her family have made South Florida their home for the past 32 years.