Emoji Tag Archives — Kang Haggerty News

Edward Kang in Law360: Employers Weigh Emoji Bans to Curb Bias, Harassment Suits

January 5, 2023 | Kang Haggerty LLC

A recent Law360 article by reporter Anne Cullen, Employers Weigh Emoji Bans to Curb Bias, Harassment Suits, discusses the increase in emojis popping up in workplace discrimination and harassment cases. She interviews Kang Haggerty managing member Edward Kang for his perspective:

“My advice is to not use them in the workplace at all because there is no such thing as a safe emoji,” Kang says in the article.

Even ones that appear innocuous can be problematic, noting that the popular “thumbs up” emoji, for example, tends to have a positive connotation with older generations but can be seen as dismissive by a younger viewer.

#KHFOnEmojisandtheLaw

January 4, 2019 | Kang Haggerty LLC

Emoji overload? Billions of emojis are sent each day by family, friends, colleagues, co-workers and companies. With nearly 3,000 emojis in the Unicode Standard, it is difficult to stay fluent in emoji, which some experts have described as “the birth of a new language.” Edward T. Kang, Managing Member of Kang Haggerty LLC (“Kang Haggerty”) and Kandis L. Kovalsky, Associate at Kang Haggerty are working to shed light on the significance of emojis in business and in law.

At the end of September, Edward, Kandis and Jacklyn Fetbroyt, Member of Kang Haggerty, joined hundreds of other lawyers at the 2018 Annual Meeting of the National Association of Minority and Women Owned Law Firms (“NAMWOLF”) to promote diversity in the legal profession through meetings, sessions and CLEs. Kang Haggerty presented a hit CLE to a full room titled “Emojis Speaking Louder Than Words? The Import of Emojis, Emoticons and Hashtags as Evidence at Trial and Beyond #😊.” Joined by five other panelists and a moderator, Edward discussed evidentiary and ethical issues involving emojis, social media and technology and why lawyers should care about emojis and hashtags.

By explaining how emojis can be used as critical evidence at trial, Edward and the other panelists helped practicing lawyers from all over the country understand that emojis are in more than a millennial’s social media feed. Emojis have found their way into courts through a variety of suits. Continue reading ›

Legal Intelligencer: Why Lawyers Should Care About Emojis

October 18, 2018 | Edward T. Kang and Kandis Kovalsky

In the October 18, 2018 edition of The Legal Intelligencer, Edward Kang, Managing Member of Kang Haggerty and Kandis Kovalsky, Associate of Kang Haggerty, co-authored, “Why Lawyers Should Care About Emojis.“

Today, there are close to 3,000 emojis in the Unicode Standard. As such, people can communicate a lot more through emojis, if they choose. And, the data shows this is what people are choosing.

Although emojis have been included in smartphone operating systems for more than a decade, they are just starting to make their way into the world of litigation. While Apple’s emoji debut consisted of 54 emojis, made up primarily of different yellow smiley faces, iPhone now offers its users a broad range of hundreds of emojis, representative of different races, genders, cultures and religions. Today, there are close to 3,000 emojis in the Unicode Standard. As such, people can communicate a lot more through emojis, if they choose. And, the data shows this is what people are choosing. Over 10 billion emojis are sent each day throughout the world. Approximately 92 percent of all people who communicate online or through text messages on a smartphone use emojis, with more than one-third of them using emojis daily. Analysts have referred to the uptick in emoji use as “watching the birth of a new language.”

In 2015, emojis were mentioned in 14 federal and state court opinions. This number increased to 25 in 2016 and 33 in 2017. With the rules of the profession (Rules of Civil Procedure, Rules of Professional Conduct, Rules of Evidence) changing—slowly, albeit surely—to address the advent of social media and electronic communications, it is important to understand how emojis fit into the current legal landscape.