UPDATE:  Brad Wendel at Legal Ethics Forum gives good advice on this topic.

Ambivalent Imbroglio wonders whether ethics or good sense should restrain a summer clerk from blogging about the experience.  (Tip to Orin Kerr.)  I would say be very, very careful.  You have two constituencies to think about:  your firm and your clients.

First, your clients.  AI's clerkship is in the public defender's office, so most of his cases will be a matter of public record.  In a law firm, very little that you work on will be at that stage.  Much of litigation takes place before any filings are made, and much goes on in between filings that never makes it into the record.  In the corporate world, very little makes it into the public realm through SEC filings or filings with the Secretary of State or county clerk's office.  But I would also not want to hang your hat on what is public.  Maybe you aren't breaching a confidence by talking on your blog about something that is a matter of public record, but that doesn't mean that your client wants you out there talking.  Usually, a client will prefer that if anyone has to talk to the public, that it would be a seasoned, experienced attorney with a full grasp of the big picture.  As a summer clerk, you sometimes only get to see part of that big picture.

OK, so what if you speak without specifics so that the guilty and innocent are protected?  I would not count on it.  If one person can read your blog, everyone can read your blog.  And if someone wanted to find out who you are talking about, they could find out.  I would not assume that you could keep the cloak of confidentiality there.  Be very careful talking about your summer work.  As new associates, we had a big lecture about how not to talk about your cases/deals in elevators, airports, restaurants, etc.  You want to brag, you want to talk big, but people are listening.

Because of this, I don't talk about my students using pseudonyms or my other colleagues.  People are pretty smart.  Orin Kerr has another post today about an adjunct professor at SMU who either didn't know or didn't care that if she mocked the "Ashleys and Jennifers" in her classes that they might read her blog and figure it out.  I can also tell you a funny story about a law student applying to law schools who discussed on his blog how he was playing two law schools against each other, I guess supposing that Admissions Deans don't read blogs and don't know how to use Google.

Second, your employer.  Assume that someone at your firm will read your blog and figure it out.  Unless you are comfortable saying everything that you are saying, don't say it.  If your comfort zone in blogging lies in the assumption that your employer does not know who you are, then you are in a precarious position.  Good sense seems to urge caution here.  Now, does this mean you can't blog about the cool thing that happened?  No, not if you're comfortable if your employer reads it.  Does this mean that you shouldn't blog about the jerk who is supervising you who couldn't find the water fountain if his rear end was on fire?  Yes.

I guess my bottom line is that blogs are not personal journals any more, if they ever were.  They are billboards.  In the small world that is the legal world, I can't imagine that an anonymous billboard can last very long being anonymous.

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