By Mike Cherney | The Wall Street Journal
Lawyers gathered at the Atlanta office of a big law firm were debating a head-scratching legal question. What does the emoji known as the “unamused face” actually mean?
They couldn’t even agree that the emoji in question—it has raised eyebrows and a frown—looked unamused.
“Everybody said something different,” recalls Morgan Clemons, 33 years old, a regulatory compliance lawyer at Aldridge Pite LLP who organized the gathering last summer at Bryan Cave LLP, called “Emoji Law 101.”
She didn’t even know that’s what the emoji was named. “I don’t think many of us in the room ever thought that’s what it was.”
Emojis—tiny pictures of facial expressions or objects used in text messages, emails and on social media—are no longer a laughing matter for the legal profession. Increasingly, they are bones of contention in lawsuits ranging from business disputes to harassment to defamation.
