Lawyer advertising - where do we draw the line?
Ross Jurewitz, at the San Diego Injury Blog, brings ambulance chasing to the internet with a steady stream of posts that chronicle accidents in San Diego. The common threads to all of the posts:
1) someone dies in a terrible accident
2) "Our office wishes to convey our sincere prayers and condolences to the family and friends of the deceased;" and
3) "If you or a loved one has been hurt or killed in a San Diego auto accident, please call Mr. Jurewitz at 888-233-5020 for a free consultation."
Many blog posts include the name of the person who was killed, and of course they are key-word rich with accident-related terms.
It appears that Mr. Jurewitz is blogging about accidents and including the names of the victims, in the hope that they will google their names and then call him. Obviously, he is knowledgeable about their situation, he is writing about it isn't he? I don't see where this constitutes a violation of any ethics rule on the attorney's part, but ethics does not begin or end with the rules.
I've seen criminal defense "blogs" that do the same thing - regurgitate local news articles on people who are arrested, including the name of the defendant followed by a statement that this person will need an attorney like [xyz law firm] who can help them.
I understand that different lawyers have different opinions on what is ethical and what is not, as does the general public when they see advertisements. Some attorneys believe that any advertising is unethical, others believe that nothing is off-limits. Most fall somewhere in-between. What do you think about Jurewitz's site? Is this targeted direct solicitation (which is prohibited under the rules), or is the fact that it is taken from a news article a loophole for the lawyer to slip through?
Comments
Hello, I saw this via Twitter, thanks to Kevin O'Keefe. I blogged on it over at www.lawyer1point9.wordpress.com. It would be most regrettable if this set the tone for web2.0 legal marketing.
Posted by: Neil Denny | February 21, 2010 4:03 PM
There is at least one local attorney who does this with articles about criminal defense.
Joe Schmoe was arrested and charged with mortgage fraud today. He needs a good federal criminal defense lawyer. We handle cases like this all the time, call us if you need help at . . .
Posted by: BFrederick | February 21, 2010 7:02 PM
Certainly these marketing tactics will not attract higher educated clients but as long as our laws make it easy for people to sue corporations without much risk then this perfectly legal (but certainly distasteful) marketing practice seems likely to continue. This seems like the effort to control campaign spending v. "free speech" when the real issue is the ill-informed, lazy and attention-deficit-inflicted voting public.
It's a sad state but not sure that attacking marketing is the way to fix things.
Posted by: davednh | February 22, 2010 9:40 AM
I agree that "ethics does not begin or end with the rules." This type of Internet ambulance chasing seems to simply be a way of getting around the prohibition against directly soliciting clients, but I do agree that it probably isn't a direct violation of the rules.
It is different, though, than simply optimizing your website or blog in a way that these people would be likely to find you when/if they decide to hire a lawyer. Using the victims' names seems to be pushing the envelope a little too far. What it boils down to is a lawyer publicizing another person's misfortune for the purpose of hopefully gaining that person as a client.
Posted by: Ryan Phillips | February 28, 2010 2:24 PM
Oh so an attorney with a blog can't comment on NEWS now? This is news and public information. Obviously if you're searching for it you wanted to find it.
Posted by: Jack | June 10, 2010 4:39 PM