To Blog Or Not To Blog, What Is The Problem?

Recently, Wolfe Law Group brought a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for Eastern Louisiana, asserting that Louisiana’s new advertising rules for lawyers violate the First Amendment right to commercial free speech.  The new rules, which will be the most severe in the country, restrict lawyers’ communications on blogs, online bulletin boards, and other online forums.  The new attorney advertising rules will also forbid lawyers from referencing past successes, forbid nicknames or slogans that imply a capacity to get results, and forbid re-enactments, endorsements from actors, and client testimonials.  Additionally, the new rules designate a committee to review advertisements and authorize sanctions for lawyers found in violation of provisions. 

Why did Louisiana draft these new rules?  Officials say they will “protect the public from misleading ads and preserve the intergrity of the legal profession.”  But was there evidence consumers were being harmed, or were the rules “motivated solely by a general distaste for certain forms of lawyer advertising and by hostility toward lawyers who assist injured consumers“?

In a previous case, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York found similar advertising rules banning nicknames, mottos, client testimonials, and internet pop-up ads unconstitutional.  Specifically, the court found that the state failed to show the lawyer advertising rules were necessary to assist consumers, and the rules were not narrowly tailored to effectuate the state’s asserted purpose.  Furthermore, the FTC has expressed opposition to these types of restrictions on speech.  Yet, the overall trend among state bars is to impose greater restrictions on lawyer advertisements. . . .

As one astute blogger pointed out, “One wonders if federal regulation of legal marketing will ever overtake the state-by-state model currently saddling the profession. So many firms have so many offices across so many state lines that the old regulatory model hardly makes sense anymore.”

If we do end up with uniform regulations, I hope they don’t unfairly restrict blogs, which provide consumers with uniquely valuable information about lawyers.  Without access to blogs, consumers can still rely on referrals or choose lawyers based on their credentials; however, blogs give consumers a glimpse into prospective lawyers’ thoughts and legal reasoning.  This type of information should not be censored.