Will the law accept emojis with a thumbs up?

Is it time for lawyers to embrace text speak or should our offices be emoji exempt?

You may be surprised by news that 76 per cent of US workers use little faces (among other icons) in their day-to-day work-related emails. This is at odds with the formal business communications many of us will typically receive to our desktops. That’s not to say we aren’t familiar with the occasional smiley face, but they are by no means commonplace. In a legal environment it seems unlikely that emojis will form part of our working lives, but the same thing was said about Twitter.

The rise of the emoji has been fuelled by the smart phone and social media revolution. Short messages can be insufficient to allow us to fully express ourselves, hence the move to visualising our expressions.

Social media platforms such as Snapchat and WhatsApp and the wide availability of wireless networks have made the sending of photo and picture messages simple and affordable. Adding some form of creative expression may assist in clarifying the meaning of a message, but it doesn’t resolve the potential for misinterpretation – something the law has struggled to grapple with on social media (just see examples #twitterjoketrial and Sally Bercow’s infamous ‘*innocent face*’).

The length and formality of what we put in emails is ever diminishing, so it stands to reason that what is said can be sometimes misconstrued as being abrupt, offensive, or perhaps over familiar. The light touch of an emoji may assist in making the meaning clear, but then again, it may not.

Given America’s technological dominance in the workplace, it is likely this cultural change will make its way across the Atlantic, eventually.

There is a dark side to emojis, however. Emojis are not and most likely will never be considered a formal method of communication. You wouldn’t expect to see them on a bank statement, claim form or final demand.

When considering less formal communications, it is important for advisers, advocates, and the judiciary to be familiar with the nuances of this new language. Although you may not use an icon where a sentence will be adequate, others will and these are our clients.

If you think this is all fluff and nonsense, just look over to Russia, where the country’s media regulator will ban same-sex character icons from social media if an investigation finds they contravene laws intended to prevent ‘gay propaganda’. For our clients, using these seemingly fun and harmless icons in cross-border emails could, regrettably and unbelievably, cause organisations and their workers unwelcome problems.

It is typical for the law to follow changes in society and adapt to them rather than leading change itself. On that basis, the move towards a visualisation of language must be acknowledged and change will be inevitable. Any failure to accept it may lead to fresh opportunities for misunderstanding, miscarriages of justice, and missed opportunities for the law to engage with another generation and strand of society. SJ

Kevin Poulter is SJ’s editor at large and a legal director at Bircham Dyson Bell

@kevinpoulter