Legal Commentary

Larry Bodine is screaming at the top of his lungs to alert lawyers -- especially small firm practitioners -- about the American Bar Association's Commission on Ethics 2020 Work Group's Issues Paper Concerning Lawyers' Use of Internet Based Client Development Tools.

"The ABA is quietly gathering support to choke off lawyer marketing on the internet," cautions Bodine, a Chicago area marketer and lawyer. Under fire are online social networking and profiles (Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter), blogging, pay-per-click advertising, gathering information through networking websites, discussion forums, document uploads, lawyer websites, case histories on law firm websites, and more. While the ABA itself only enacts model rules and has no enforcement power, many states adopt the rules, and some states promulgate their own rules to limit marketing.

"In my opinion, the ethics boards should keep their hands off the internet. We don't need more regulation, we need less," argues Bodine on his Lawmarketing.com blog. "It is sufficient for the ethics rules to state that a lawyer may not make a false or misleading statement online; that's enough. The commission's activities are a waste of time and a threat to the public and the profession. The ethics police should focus on lawyers who steal from client trust accounts, not bring disciplinary actions against lawyers for their Facebook pages or what a lawyer said in a Twitter message."

Deadline for comments is Dec. 15. Our colleagues at The National Law Journal recently reported about the controversy here.