News has long adapted to the technology of the day, starting with the printing press, then penny papers, radio, TV, and more recently, the internet. The media plays a central role in cultivating public discourse and sparking national conversation. Bearing in mind the media’s power, the American Bar Association (ABA) notes that “technology, globalization, and other forces continue to transform how, why, and by whom legal services are accessed and delivered.” However, the birth of TikTok fundamentally changed the way that many business professionals—including journalists, financial advisors, accountants, and real estate professionals—use media to market their services and engage with the public. TikTok is a hub for short, fast-paced videos that are recorded and posted online by a digital creator. These videos are capable of reaching app-users around the world and can be posted with any motive: to educate, opine, advertise products and services, or merely boost the popularity of one’s personal online profile.

Specifically, legal professionals use these short-form videos to post a variety of content that ranges from educating the public on legal rights to personally opining on highly publicized cases. These posts have culminated to form “LawTok”: a niche community on TikTok where lawyers, law students, and legal professionals use current events and pop culture to educate the public, break down news headlines, offer professional insight, and debunk misconceptions about the legal industry. LawTok has grown vastly in recent years, attracting an audience beyond legal professionals and prospective law students. Legal creators today have large traction among the general public because their TikTok content makes legal concepts more engaging and accessible. Today, the LawTok hashtag has more than 106,000 posts and as of January 2023, over 2.1 billion views.

Legal scholarship has heavily addressed the professional and ethical implications of using social media as a forum for legal advice. Recently, this scholarship has addressed the popularity of TikTok and calls upon legal influencers to be mindful of the professional and ethical implications of using such a vast platform for any legal means. However, little research has gone beyond the direct implications of legal influencing on lawyers, clients, and law firms to discuss how the LawTok space is affecting the court of public opinion. Both judges and litigators are influenced by public scrutiny on social media in ongoing matters and are increasingly conscious of the impact that social media has on the public opinion of the legal profession. Notably, given LawTok’s ability to make legal issues more streamlined and accessible, members of the public who once took a more passive stance in the political process are now actively seeking to understand high-profile issues through the lenses of their favorite legal creators.

The critical question then becomes what impact, if any, the LawTok community will have on the legal profession’s practical wisdom, litigation strategies, judicial decision-making, and overall, the public’s view of the legal community. While social media has undoubtedly contributed to public opinion regarding law and politics for decades, LawTok creators’ ability to quickly—and often unsolicitedly—reach millions of global social media users increase the influence that legal creators have on public opinion. With such a potentially vast outreach and the media’s ability to quickly rile up an angsty public audience, it is more crucial than ever for these short-form videos to be carefully crafted, diligently researched, and respectfully articulated. Although there is much controversy surrounding the future of TikTok for American-based social media users, apps such as Instagram have sought to “mimic TikTok’s success” by creating Instagram Reels: “an almost exact clone of TikTok’s marquee short-form video format.” Facebook and YouTube Shorts are also among the social media apps well-known for generating video content and discussion forums. Thus, it is foreseeable that the LawTok community and its legacy will continue on, regardless of TikTok’s legality in the United States.

This Note will explore the positive and negative consequences of LawTok’s popularity on both the public’s perception of the legal profession and the integrity of the court of public opinion. Part I provides a brief overview of already established ethical considerations that come with legal influencing. Part II discusses the key aspects of LawTok that could distort the public’s view of the legal profession, specifically the brief nature of TikTok videos and the tendency of influencers to post for quantity rather than quality. Here, this Note argues that such negative aspects—if not mitigated—threaten the integrity of the court of public opinion, and thus its ability to influence legal professionals and shape the public’s perceptions of justice. Next, Part III addresses the positive impact that LawTok and legal influencing can have on civic engagement and access to justice. Finally, Part IV suggests that if the LawTok community is here to stay, educational institutions, legal content creators, and the judiciary must collaborate to safeguard practical wisdom by balancing a newly amplified court of public opinion with institutional competency.

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