Deb Tropp and Jim Beasley Jr. may practice on opposite sides of the country and opposing sides of the bar, but they agree on this much: Jurors don’t necessarily abide by those admonitions not to look up information about the lawyers handling the cases that they’re sitting on.

Tropp, an insurance defense lawyer and founding partner of McNeil Tropp & Braun in Newport Beach, California, and Beasley, who heads The Beasley Firm, a plaintiffs’ shop based in Philadelphia, came to that agreement during a web discussion on the ethical issues surrounding attorney use of social media sponsored by the ABOTA Foundation.