Academic

In Florida you can advertise your law firm with panthers and lions, but not with space aliens, pit bulls, sharks, wolves, crocodiles, or piranhas.

By Ann Bartow

So says this WSJ article, which also notes:

… Searcy Denney is well aware of the Florida bar’s reach. In 2005, the personal-injury firm produced a series of TV spots with scenes including children running and lawyers at work in their offices. In 2006, the bar struck down the ads on the grounds that they contained improper content, including the sound of children bouncing a ball. Other impermissible sounds, according to the bar: a computer turning off, a light switch turning off, and footsteps. The Florida bar has proposed amending its rules to permit some background sound.

This school of toothy fish cannot represent you in a court of law, at least not in Florida.

This reminds me of something interesting. If you wanted to name two men who sort of personified non-violence and peace, would you come up with Mohandas Gandhi and Nelson Mandela? And if so, do you know what they did for a living? Lawyers! Both of them! But I admit I don’t think they advertised using crocodiles or shark imagery.

–Ann Bartow

Full post as published by Feminist Law Professors on February 10, 2008 (boomark / email).