Today, our work and personal lives are in a permanent state of collision, and nowhere is that more evident than online in social networks. Chances are, the younger members of your firm grew up managing their personal relationships through MySpace and Facebook — and still do. Now it looks as if the rest of your attorneys and employees are, or will be in the near future, following suit.

In the past few months, Facebook has aged up. According to statistics released by the Web site, the number of Americans over 35, 45 and 55 on Facebook is exploding. In late March, Facebook reported that in the 60 prior days, the number of people on the site over the age of 35 had nearly doubled. In total, about 200 million people are registered users of Facebook.

Social networks in general are experiencing galloping growth. As of February, LinkedIn had more than 35 million registered users. Twitter now has about 10 million users. All are places where people — including your staff — are congregating to share news, insight, maybe a good joke and, if they’re not cautious, information that may be damaging to your client relationships or your firm.