What a long, strange trip it's been ...

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

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Chief Justice Burger hated lawyer advertising, as did some of his colleagues on the bench. The difference is that he never missed an opportunity to say so. The Chief Justice made a hobby in his retirement out of lambasting lawyers who advertised. In one speech he said, "Perhaps 'huckster' is not strong enough a word; 'shyster' is more appropriate, but I find on consulting the dictionary that even 'shyster' is not strong enough. I will settle for 'huckster-shyster' advertising." And he tended to conclude his speeches by giving his advice to "never, never, never engage the services of a lawyer who finds it necessary to advertise in order to get clients."

A colleague once suggested that this explains why he died without a will. By the mid-1990s, he couldn't find a lawyer who didn't advertise.

Notwithstanding the Chief Justice's disdain for commercialism, this attitude was commonplace if not dominant in the era shortly before LMA (then NALFMA) came to be. In the 1960s, the ABA issued an ethics opinion concluding that lawyers could not send Christmas cards to clients or other lawyers, but only to personal friends and even then could not identify themselves as lawyers. In the 1970s, lawyers were sanctioned because their firm was featured in a story in Life magazine. Others were sanctioned for holding a press conference to announce the formation of their legal clinic. Then, of course, the U.S. Supreme Court's 1977 decision in Bates v. State Bar of Arizona, with Chief Justice Burger in the minority, changed everything overnight.

Lawyers providing personal legal services took advantage of their new found right to advertise soon after the decision. One ad stated, "Get that spouse of yours some'in he or she's been wantin' for a long time ... A Deeeevorce." Another lawyer quickly obtained and advertised the telephone number "1-800-SUE-THEM." Ken Hur, in Madison, Wis., dubbed himself the "advertisin'est lawyer in the U.S.," as he drove around town in a hearse with the sides carrying the message for his "no frills wills."

Firms providing corporate legal services wanted nothing to do with this irreverence. Instead of advertising, though, they began marketing. As a commentator in the early 1980s stated, firms recognized the potential of publicity, but their self-image did not allow them to advertise. So instead of advertising and instead of turning to outside advertising agencies, firms began creating marketing positions. Those...