Legal Marketing & PR

Former GC: Ethics Regulating Online Lawyer Marketing are Unnecessary

By Larry Bodine

Guest post from former GC, practicing lawyer and online marketing expert Jeff Lantz:

My take on the ABA's efforts for additional regulation is that this regulation is completely unnecessary.

I believe that the ABA's efforts, while well-intended, are misguided.  Additional regulations would not serve to further any interest in protecting the public on the Internet (the intended reason for the rules)  – most state bars already have adequate rules that govern attorney advertising, as well as general laws on false and deceptive advertising.   We don't need rules to tell us what we can or can't write in tweets or on our Facebook pages, or need to worry that writing a comment on someone's blog may be deemed to be 'advertising', and thus be subject to a list of newly-developed rules.

If anything, I would suggest that state bar rules affirmatively acknowledge the common forms of marketing on the Internet so that attorneys don't have to make judgment calls in applying  arcane advertising rules to Internet marketing (which in some jurisdictions would prohibit almost all Internet marketing under a strict interpretation).

As an example, consider state bar rules that require a disclaimer on all attorney advertising (such as the requirement to specifically state that material constitutes 'attorney advertising' or a requirement to include a firm's address and phone number) – would the following activities violate this prohibition:

1.       Pay-per-click ads on Google (if the ad itself doesn't contain the required language, but the website does include the language)?

2.       A link-building campaign, consisting of links on the websites of others for the purpose of helping the firm's search engine rankings?

3.       The submission of the Firm's URL to Google so that text from the website would appear on Google in response to a user search, when the attorney knows that Google will not display the required disclaimer language?

4.       Tweets, assuming that the required information cannot be displayed in a tweet?

5.       Contributing a comment on a blog posting of another website?

The bottom line for attorneys (in my opinion) is not the need for  Internet regulation, but rather Internet clarification.    Attorneys know when to add disclaimers and how to avoid giving legal advice on the Internet.  The real danger to the public on the Internet is not the possibility that a lawyer may inadvertently provide information that may be construed as legal advice, but rather the many forums, blogs, and Internet activities of non-lawyers giving legal advice.

Full post as published by Larry Bodine's LawMarketing Blog on November 17, 2010 (boomark / email).