Admitting Social Media Evidence in Employment Litigation: Overcoming Authentication, Relevance, and Hearsay Challenges
Course Details
- smart_display Format
Live Online with Live Q&A
- signal_cellular_alt Difficulty Level
Intermediate
- work Practice Area
Employment and Workers Comp
- event Date
Wednesday, August 27, 2025
- schedule Time
1:00 p.m. ET./10:00 a.m. PT
- timer Program Length
90 minutes
-
This 90-minute webinar is eligible in most states for 1.5 CLE credits.
This CLE course will provide employment litigators with best practices for dealing with social media evidence during discovery and trial. The panel will discuss challenges with the admission at trial of social media evidence, authenticating the evidence, proving its relevancy, and making or overcoming hearsay objections.
Mr. Carr has extensive experience conducting internal investigations and representing companies in labor and employment disputes before administrative agencies and in federal court. He secured a jury and bench verdict in favor of a major U.S. city in a federal court case alleging race and political affiliation discrimination. In one of the first district court cases addressing the “ministerial exception” after the Supreme Court’s 2020 ruling in Our Lady of Guadalupe v. Morrissey-Berru, Mr. Carr successfully won summary judgment in the employer’s favor on a terminated employee’s claim of pregnancy discrimination. He also has experience defending employers against wage-and-hour claims, including securing summary judgment and a circuit court affirmance in an employer’s favor in a case alleging misclassification and unpaid overtime under the FLSA.
The abundance of personal information easily accessible on social media websites has altered how employment litigators investigate and try cases. Recent case law confirms that social media content plays a critical role during discovery and trial.
While the sources of social media evidence are plentiful and social media evidence is easy to obtain, getting the evidence admitted at trial poses unique challenges. Courts are inconsistent in addressing authentication issues regarding electronic evidence, creating questions and gray areas for employment litigators.
Employment counsel also face obstacles to the admission of social media evidence on reliability concerns and the hearsay nature of the evidence from social media websites. Further, employment litigators must consider the legal ethics of using arguably private information to help prove or defend their cases.
Listen as our authoritative panel of employment litigators discusses the legal, practical, and ethical implications of gathering social media evidence during discovery and then using it at the trial of employment lawsuits.
I. Discovery considerations
II. Authentication
III. Relevance and undue prejudice
IV. Hearsay
V. Ethical considerations
The panel will review these and other key issues:
- What issues are the most challenging for courts considering the authentication of social media evidence during employment trials?
- What are the best practices for overcoming hearsay and reliability concerns regarding social media evidence?
- How have courts viewed the expectation of privacy on social networking websites when deciding whether social media evidence is admissible at trial?