New year--new policies?

• Author: Hornsby, Will
• Position: The Ethical Marketer

Which of these headlines are you most likely to see in 2011?

* Obama Admits Kenyon Birth

* Mouse with Human Brain to be New IBM CEO

* ABA Bans Twitter

Well, actually, I'm pretty sure it's "none of the above," although that mouse idea sounds interesting. Nevertheless, if 2010 is any indication, the new year is likely to see some interesting developments at the intersection of marketing, technology and ethics.

Looking back, the conversations that centered on policies governing client development were robust throughout last year. In 2009, US News and World Report announced its plans to rank lawyers and law firms throughout the United States, much like it had done for law schools and other entities for many years. Concerns about the fairness of a ranking system and resulting consequences led to a resolution in the American Bar Association's House of Delegates last February. The resolution requested the ABA examine rankings for both law schools and law firms. Later in the year, US News announced it had changed its approach and would place firms into various tiers based on a series of surveys from lawyers, clients, marketing directors and others. In September, US News released these ratings, placing firms into national and regional first, second and third tiers.

While the ABA has not completed its findings, one state, North Dakota, proposed an amendment to its Rules of Professional Conduct that would require transparency. Under this rule, a lawyer may advertise an accolade as long as the name of the organization granting the accolade is included and the basis for the comparison to other lawyers is substantiated. The bottom line here is that lawyers can advertise their ratings as long as the rating provider identifies how the rating was determined.

Also, early in 2010, a Connecticut Grievance Committee made a decision on a case involving, in part, the propriety of paying for leads as part of an online advertising program. In 2009, a Connecticut lawyer asked the disciplinary agencies in nearly every state to bring charges against each lawyer participating in an online program that charged the lawyers on a "per lead" basis for potential clients resulting from the program's websites. The Grievance Committee entered a summary decision concluding that the pay-per-lead arrangement did not amount to a recommendation of the lawyers' services and that the lawyers did not violate any disciplinary rules as a result of their participation in the online...