TO-WIT: ACCOUNTING FOR TASTE
Now, most of you who know me also know that I have a particular affinity for the First Amendment. I do a fair number of those kinds of cases, I teach the stuff at my old law school and I truly do believe it’s one of the most significant reasons why this nation is far different from all others.
I’m not sure when my love affair with the First Amendment started, but I do know that it all comes from my parents. I know I wouldn’t have such a passion for the subject had they not been telling me to shut up all the time.
So committed am I to the notion of free expression that I wasn’t at all surprised or offended when many years ago the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that, when it comes to advertising, lawyers were pretty much entitled to the same protections as other businesses. Some of you may well remember that in the “old days,” lawyers were pretty much forbidden to advertise at all, other than for a distinguished and therefore nondescript little ad containing name, address and phone number. It was, in those days, a matter of good taste and decorum. The litany was that as members of a hopefully distinguished profession, we should not demean our dignity, such as it is, by actively soliciting business. It was OK to do it on the golf course, just not in print.
Alas, legal advertising has become so fatuous of late that it has me wondering if this First Amendment thing is such a good idea after all. For instance, I recently saw a series of local ads promoting the practice of an estate attorney. It portrayed him at the funeral home, comforting the bereaved, standing next to an open casket, then turning to the audience and pitching his services. The “kicker” occurred when the dearly departed sat upright in the coffin, faced the camera and said, “You know, he makes death no so bad.”
Until I saw those ads, I believed the nadir in tasteless legal advertising to be on the scoreboard at the new football stadium. It’s a personal-injury firm’s “Injury Report” that is shown whenever a player is injured on the field, a not-at-all subtle reminder that lawyers profit from the injuries of others and apparently mightily so to afford such costly self-promotion.
Hey, hey, come on guys, we’re lawyers here, dignified, distinguished, respected, remember? The First Amendment certainly protects your rights to advertise, but it doesn’t protect your right to be crass.
Something needs to be done, and I think I know what. If we really want to clean up on this mess, what we need is a code of propriety for legal advertising. It will have to be voluntary, of course, but in this business, as everyone knows, there’s voluntary and then there’s voluntary.
It will require a new bar association committee. I will chair. I’ll hand pick an assemblage of lawyers from across the commonwealth to serve as volunteers. As the new Committee on Legal Advertising (COLA) we would come under the aegis of the bar association’s already existing Committee on commercial Advertising (COCA). We will ask every lawyer and law firm who advertises to voluntarily submit tape or copy of each ad, and if we find the advertisement meets our standards, we will grant it our seal of approval. Simple, huh?
As for standards, I always prefer an “ad hock” approach. That way, I can simply make up my mind as we go along. However, I realize that some semblance of predictability and uniformity are probably desirable, and, accordingly, I have developed a broad set of standards to guide the would-be advertiser. Bear in mind here that the goal is to enhance the image of the lawyer. That it may also compel good taste is just a bonus.
1. A lawyer may appear in his or her own commercial only if he or she is relatively good looking. No baldness, obesity, bad dentures, bad rugs or corrective lenses.
2. No finger pointing, ever. Too easily mistaken for a gesture the public is already accustomed to.
3. Good grammar is a must. No “youns” or “younses,” please, despite its appeal to the unwashed.
4. Before a firm can utilize an ad portraying a female lawyer to project the image of a workplace friendly to women, it must demonstrate that it actually has at lease one in its employ.
5. No matter how well intended, the use of firearms in advertising is prohibited. The same applies to nooses, garrotes, whips, chains and law books.
6. The use of words such as “jackpot,” “bundle,” “moolah” and “Shazam” are prohibited.
7. No lawyer may ever appear in any ad without first having demonstrated a basic grasp of diction and grammar.
8. In bankruptcy and family law ads, gaiety is forbidden. So is bad acting and Abe Lincoln facial hair.
I know you’re not happy about this, and neither am I. The lesson here is that, unfortunately, our profession can lay no greater claim to taste and propriety than any other profit-driven business. I wish it weren’t so, but then again, how much taste and propriety can you expect from someone who expects to get rich doing law, huh?
© 2002, S. Sponte, Esq.