Towards a Series of Academic Norms for #Lawprof Twitter

Abstract

This short symposium contribution discusses the virtues and the vices of law professors participating in a now-popular form of public discourse: Twitter. It also offers some tentative thoughts on what professional norms ought to apply to law professors who identify themselves as law professors on Twitter. Specifically, it suggests that law professors should assume that, each time they tweet about a legal issue, they are making an implicit claim to expertise about that issue. It also suggests that law professors who participate on Twitter should do so in a way that promotes (or at least does not undermine) reasoned debate.

Keywords: law professors, academic norms, Twitter