Wednesday, September 6, 1978
7
Legal ads bring limited success
Ry United Press International
The bare-chested, bejeweled vest of 300-pound Ken Hur breaks the calm surface of the swimming pool, his back to the television viewers of Madison, Wis. He turns a bit, smiles—and makes a pitch for bankruptcy litigation.
The Dallas Morning News, once a symbol of Texas conservatism, carries a two-inch black box advertisement reading, "Guard your investment or your partner back." $51.
The sponsors are lawyers and the medium is their message.
But their numbers are small and those who have taken advantage of advertising—mostly young attorneys attempting a big start in a crowded profession—have found only limited increases in business and income. The success stories are few.
Since the Supreme Court's 1976 ruling
striking down state laws that prohibited attorneys from soliciting clients, most established barristen have shunned the spotlight, many privately regarding it as a floor show for the radical fringe of their profession.
"BY FAR the majority of attorneys I have heard express an opinion about it are opposed to it," said Harold Barrick, general chairman of the committee that handles complaints and disbarment cases for the Missouri Bar Association.
"We keep hearing that most of the ads have not been effective," Richard Collins, spokesman for the American Bar Association in Chicago, said. "The ads just haven't brought in enough business to pay for themselves," he said.
One year ago, the ABA issued guidelines to state bar associations to recommend regulations.
29 state supreme courts have acted on the recommendations to permit ads. The courts also allowing newspaper and periodical solicitations in most instances and television spots in a few more. Some permit ads are restricted, while others restrict false, misleading or deceptive ads.
A UNIVERSITY of Miami, Fla., law school report submitted Aug. 3 to the ABA's commission on advertising concluded that regulations should not be more stringent for lawyers than for other professions or products and rejected "the proposition that firms charging lower prices will necessarily produce lower quality services."
A nationwide survey recently indicated
15 percent of lawyers are interested in
injunctions.
"On balance, throughout the country there have been very few ads or com-
merciales that anyone has objected to in a responsible way," Collins said.
"There are only a relatively few ads that could be criticized for being misleading or in poor taste. The main criticism is they have not been effective."
DETROIT'S DAVID Sinclair, 32, four years out of law school, became the first student in the nation to graduate.
"The results for me have been disappointing. I'm not as gung-ho as others who started later. I was hoping for a better return," he said.
"There are problems. For instance, people window-shopping, trying to get free legal advice over the phone without paying anything. It's time-consuming and aggravating. People set up appointments to call to show up. I guess you have to expect it."
"But I'm sure advertising is benefiting the public," Sinclair said.
Court blocks lawyers' mail ads
★★
NEW ORLEANS (UPI)—The Louisiana Supreme Court yesterday blocked two activist lawyers from soliciting business for a prepaid legal plan by mail.
1c court ruled that William T. Allison and Paula A. Perrone, two attorneys who were the first to advertise in Louisiana and challenged state bar association regulations under the Civil Rights Act of 1968, action by the bar association if they proceeded with the mail solicitation plan.
Allison and Perrone, the lawyers' corporation, began a subsidiary in August 1977 called "Employees' Legal Plan" to offer prepaid legal services to employees at the rate of $10 a month for each covered employee.
THEY SIGNED a contract with a company in September 1977. Two months later, the law firm decided to under investigation for possible violations of the lawyers' "code of professional
responsibility," which prohibits direct solicitation of clients.
Allison and Perrone asked the Louisiana Supreme Court to block the investigation, but it was reversed by the First and 14th amendments to the Constitution and also by the 1977 U.S. Supreme Court "Bates" ruling, which allowed lawyers to advertise for the first
THE LOUISIANA Supreme Court disaired.
In a unanimous 18-page decision written by Justice A. Dixon, the court likened
the case to another in which a lawyer was disciplined for visiting accident victims and soliciting them as clients. Although the defendant had been tried in the same Dixon held, the effect was similar.
"The solicitation by mail was not fraught with as many undesirable possibilities as face-to-face solicitation, but it was direct solicitation, nevertheless," the ruling said. "And because the offer was privately made, it would be more difficult to vertising approved in the Bates case, for all to see, it would be more difficult to regulate to prevent abuses . . ."
Teachers on strike delay school openings
By the Associated Press
Teachers provided an extended summer vacation for thousands of school children yesterday as labor woes kept many classrooms empty.
Teachers are on strike or threatening to strike in some of the nation's largest districts. New Orleans, Boston, Cleveland, Cleveland, Dayton, Ohio, Seattle and Pontiac, Montana.
Weekend negotiations failed to produce agreement in Pontiac, and the school board refused to give its advance of the school's opening to report to work yesterday or be fired. But talks continued and Superintendent Odell Nailis responded with 260 students from yesterday until Thursday.
The Dayton Education Association was to have voted yesterday on whether to strike the city's 37,000 student system. The schools and teachers are scheduled to report today.
In Cleveland, where classes begin Friday,
teachers say they do not want a third
week of school.
IN MARION, IND., half of the 331 striking teachers cited last week by a circuit judge on contempt charges for defying a back-to-work order were ¬cledulated to appear in court yesterday. The remaining teachers started to rebel today. The Marston date was August 28.
officials say they cannot afford a raise because the system has received an emergency $2.7 million loan that requires budget-cutting.
NEW ORLEANS school superintendent Gene Geisert offered amnesty Monday night to all striking teachers who return to work by today. Earlier Monday, about 2,000 New Orleans teachers and sympathizers marched through the downtown business district.
The New Orleans strike started last Wednesday. Classes for the district's 91,000 students have operated with a skeleton crew. On Friday, bus drivers and janitors joined the strike and only a third as many students as normal were in class.
Strikes are under way in five Pennsylvania districts including Philadelphia, the state's largest. Ninety-two other districts have a lower rate, most are expected to settle without a strike.
IN PHILADELPHIA, 13,000 teachers have been on strike since last Friday, although classes for the city's 250,000 pupils are not scheduled to begin until Friday.
the 55,000-student Seattle district, teachers accused school officials of possibly using a contract dispute to cover up unpreparedness for desegregation busing.
But school Superintendent David Mobery denied the accusation and accused the police of not paying.
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