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Editor: Ben W. Glass
Profession: Attorney at Law

Category: Ethics and Regulation

Thanks to New York Personal Injury Attorney Gary Rosenberg for bringing to my attention what may be the next big battleground in an attempt at the regulation of lawyer ads.

Apparently new Supreme Court regulations in Nevada will require lawyers to submit their print and TV advertising to the State Bar of Nevada committees for review. Attorney Glen Lerner has vowed to not submit his ads as he has said that "I am not going to turn my ads over to my competitors."

What's particularly interesting here is when you look at Nevada's proposed new rules regulating attorney advertising, the State seems to have relaxed some of the rules. The only major change is that you must pre-submit your ads.

Here's what's silly about this.

The articles and rules did not even say that there was any problem, or an increase in consumer complaints about lawyer advertising. In my view, it's usually other lawyers who get upset that someone else is getting more cases than they do.

Second, under Nevada's new rules, the committees to whom the ads are submitted can't do anything about ads they deem violative of the rules! So, what we have is regulation for the sake of regulation and more layers of government interference, just for the sake of looking like "we are doing something."

What's the point and what problem does REQUIRING lawyers to submit their ads solve that handling complaint, on a case by case basis, won't solve. Classic over regulation. Classic violation of First Amendment principles.