At the Legal Innovation blog, Harvard Law School fellow Gene Koo notes the phenomenon of lawprofs getting their own Facebook profiles and asks:

how you use Facebook or social networking in general for the classroom. What do you hope to accomplish by being on Facebook? Do you have a policy for friending your students? Does even the concept of "friending" raise concerns about the appropriate relationship you should have with your students? What unique issues have arisen as a result of Facebook friending? (Did you have to go and remove all of your drunken party pics from back when?)

Well, I'm one of the culprits here, having started my very own facebook profile last year. I didn't think it was such a big deal. However, the main objectives were just to get a little more exposure for myself and my work, and to reconnect with old acquaintances. As for "friending" students, I don't think that a formal policy is really necessary. Just about anyone familiar with the site recognizes that a Facebook "friendship" is not a close intimate relationship, and doesn't create any conflicts of interest. So far, there haven't been any "unique issues" and I don't expect any to come up anytime soon. But for what it's worth, my "policy" is that I accept "friend" requests from students, just like I accept them from many other casual acquiantances.

As for drunken party pics, if any such exist (I'm certainly not admitting that they do), they certainly won't be found on my Facebook profile! That "policy" would apply even if I weren't a professor.