Lawyer Advertising
| Publication year | 1986 |
| Pages | 1819 |
| Citation | Vol. 15 No. 10 Pg. 1819 |
1986, October, Pg. 1819. Lawyer Advertising
Lawyers are advertising on television and in television guides, in newspapers, on radio, in the Yellow Pages, and through law firm brochures and other legal media. In addition to the constitutional rights on which the push for lawyer advertising was based, vigorous arguments had been presented that an informed public would be better able to obtain needed legal services and the resulting market forces would promote cost containment. A statistically credible verdict cannot yet be rendered on whether the proponents' goals have been achieved. However, a related question is whether lawyer advertising is or will be causing an adverse experience in the area of legal malpractice.
A lawyer's standard of care might be expanded as a result of advertising. By listing areas of practice, the implication is that the attorney has competence in each of these substantive areas. Such a conclusion would not cause additional exposure if, in fact, the lawyer had sufficient expertise. However, a review of the Yellow Pages in five metropolitan areas showed that approximately 55 percent of the display advertisements stated the law firm handled matters in more than ten areas of practice. Given that most of these advertisements also listed the lawyers in the firm and the average number was just over three, it seems unlikely that adequate competence could be maintained in each of the substantive areas noted.
An additional disturbing factor was that in more than 90 percent of the advertisements, the areas of practice listed were ones which in combination accounted for more than 85 percent of the lawyers' professional liability claims reported in 1984 to the American Bar Association National Legal Malpractice Data Center.
At this early stage of attempting to determine whether lawyer advertising adversely impacts legal malpractice experience, it might be argued that the foregoing analysis is of nominal significance since the firms noted could have been primarily populated by "general practitioners." However, claims statistics from several insurance industry and bar sources strongly suggest that the less an attorney practices in a high risk area, the greater the probability of an error or omission.
If a firm's percentages of...
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