University of Virginia law librarian Michelle Morris made an interesting proposal recently in the Yale Law Journal Pocket Part:

Our law students are more tech-savvy than ever. Unfortunately, they occasionally lack sense. Some of them simply fail to realize that we—professors, bar examiners, and law firms—see material they post online. Others make a game out of being intentionally, but anonymously, offensive. To avoid further injury to the reputation of our law schools and the legal profession, we must create incentives for the former students to consider consequences, and a reasonable chance that the latter students can be “caught”—i.e., tied to their online personas. To accomplish both ends, I propose that we request, in law school and bar applications, a three-year history of online aliases and related information.

In developing her argument, Morris refers to an incident involving AutoAdmit.com in which a UC Berkeley law student posted comments about plans for a Virginia Tech copycat shooting spree at Hastings College of Law. Hastings canceled classes and evacuated the law school as a result of this threat. UC Berkeley recommended expulsion for the student involved.

In the spring of 2006 I wrote about the potential problems law students might encounter due to "anonymous" online behavior, albeit in a far less dangerous context:

A time is coming when no employer will hire someone without first searching for that person on MySpace. A student can be professional and likable throughout the entire interview process, but if her MySpace profile is filled with "loud comments, loud music, and all around bluster," a managing partner might very well think twice about hiring her. If a student brags about his excessive drinking, an HR director may not want to take a risk on him in a profession already riddled with substance abuse problems. Everyone knows that people are usually on their best behavior in job interviews. By searching out a candidate's MySpace profile, a law firm administrator can see what that person might be like when her guard is down. And that can often be far more important than her GPA.

In another post I linked to a news story about the University of South Florida's attempts to educate incoming students about the possible unintended consequences of their online personas:

During orientation and in the University's code of conduct, school officials remind students just how a not-so-positive website could affect life after college.

"In the future, when they're looking for a job, and the employer has seen whatever kind of picture and statements are available, you can hurt yourself, people need to be aware, whatever they put up will be available."

Morris's proposal is the next logical consequence. In the case of bar admissions, where a thorough background check is sometimes necessary, the proliferation of online pseudonyms makes true thoroughness a challenge. I'm not sure how quickly state bars will implement required disclosure of online aliases, but it's definitely a matter of "When," not "If."

[Yale L.J. Pocket Part] The Legal Profession, Personal Responsibility, and the Internet