SCHRA October 20th, 2015 Meeting
E-Trouble: Avoiding the pitfalls of social media in the workplace
This presentation by Karen Lefton of The Lefton Group, LLC, will help Employers learn what to do when employees, customers or competitors post bad things about their company. Learn how to protect your reputation without running afoul of others’ lawful rights. This can be especially problematic when the poster is your employee. We’ll talk about what kind of social media policy will be most effective and how to distinguish between concerted activity and mere griping. And we’ll talk about the best ways to protect your reputation when false statements of fact are published about you online.
Karen Lefton Bio:
Karen Lefton is the managing partner of The Lefton Group, LLC, a boutique law firm that focuses on issues affecting growing businesses. She represents clients that are growing from “mom and pop” shops to significant business entities in need of creative and strategic legal counsel to help navigate the myriad of federal, state and local laws. She also has a growing practice in media law and the First Amendment, including on-line defamation, privacy and social media issues. Before starting her own firm in February 2014, Ms. Lefton had been a partner at Brouse McDowell for nearly six years. She joined Brouse after serving for 11 years as in-house counsel at The Beacon Journal Publishing Co., which publishes in print and online at Ohio.com. She was General Counsel when she left the Beacon Journal in 2008. Ms. Lefton’s first career was as a journalist, and she held a number of positions ranging from reporter to city editor during her 17-year stint in the newsroom at the Beacon Journal. Ms. Lefton earned a B.A. from Miami University and a J.D. from the University of Akron’s School of Law. She is licensed to practice in Ohio state courts, federal court in the Northern District of Ohio, the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals and the United States Supreme Court. Ms. Lefton is on the board of Goodwill, chairing its fund development committee, and on the board of the Akron Roundtable. She is also a graduate of Leadership Akron, on the Board of Governors for the Akron Bar Foundation and a member of the Summit County Public Defenders Commission. Ms. Lefton lives in Copley with her husband, Douglas, a physician at Fairlawn Family Practice. Her daughter, Audrey, is a graduate student in Boston
